The Dana Girls was a series of young adult mystery novels produced by the Stratemeyer Syndicate.
The title heroines, Jean and Louise Dana, are teenage sisters and amateur detectives who solve mysteries while at boarding school.
The series' principal characters are Louise and Jean Dana, teenage orphans who solve mysteries while attending the fictional Starhurst School for Girls in Penfield, not far from their hometown of Oak Falls.
The household also includes a bungling maid, the "buxom, red-cheeked" Cora Appel, often teasingly referred to as "Applecore" by Jean and Louise.
"[1]: 1–3, 5–6, 21 In the second book, Jean is described as being a year younger than Louise, with "blonde, boyish-cut hair" and with "laughter in her blue eyes and a humorous tilt to her nose.
"[2]: 1 At school, the Dana girls are firmly under the control of the headmistress, Mrs. Crandall, who approves absences from class and other exceptions to the rules only when deemed absolutely necessary to the girls' detective work; however, as the series progresses and mysteries are solved to the benefit of the school, this becomes more and more frequent.
Her husband, the bookish Mr. Crandall, is usually occupied in his study and generally takes no interest in administrative affairs, although he is considered an excellent teacher.
It is rumored that Mr. Crandall is engaged in writing a monumental English-language history of Ancient Greece in five volumes[1]: 62 and he is usually left alone by the student body, but the Dana girls discover he can be a useful source of obscure facts relating to the clues in a mystery.
He generally takes a less active role in sleuthing than his wife, acting as a driver, escort, or researching a clue academically.
Lettie alters or steals school assignments, plagiarizes their work, destroys academic research, puts acid on Jean's towel before an athletic competition (to injure her hand), jeers/cheers against the Danas, short-laces shoes, hires a thug to disrupt an ice skating competition and winter carnival, and spreads rumors of all kinds about the Danas, along with making other character slurs.
Incredibly, based upon their academic performance and favored status, Mrs. Crandall remains neutral, or at times, becomes angry with the Danas, and requires the sisters to make an explanation.
This usually serves to delay Dana sleuthing, or to provide sub-plots with schoolgirl pranks in retaliation, on Lettie.
Lettie, on the other hand, despite her disruptive, dishonest, and at times, actual criminal behavior, rarely receives due punishment.
[2]: 173 Readers of NANCY DREW need no assurance that the adventures of resourceful Louise Dana and her irrepressible sister Jean are packed with thrills, excitement, and mystery.
All books in the series were published by Grosset & Dunlap and written by a number of ghostwriters under the supervision of the Syndicate.
McFarlane, however, disliked the job intensely,[4] only writing the fourth volume after requesting and receiving a higher fee than usual.
"[6] McFarlane's antipathy towards the series stemmed largely from his discomfort from writing about two girls under a female pseudonym.
Benson also did not particularly enjoy writing the series, stating at one point that "I never felt the same kinship with the Danas that I did with Nancy.
"[8] Benson nonetheless wrote volumes 5 through 16 before Adams began writing the series in 1955 with The Ghost in the Gallery.
Adams wrote all subsequent volumes in the series, although at least one other title, Strange Identities, was written by Harriet's daughter, Camilla McClave, but never published.
Although the art on many of these early volumes is less detailed than that of Nancy Drew and other Stratemeyer publications, the sisters are usually shown in a far more active role, rather than hiding and spying on the action.
"[13] Bobbie Ann Mason criticizes the series, The Secret of the Swiss Chalet in particular, for "[realizing] the authorized, glamourized dreams of our culture"[14] by having the Dana Girls live privileged lifestyles.
Carolyn Carpan, in contrast, argues that series such as the Dana Girls that were begun around the time of the Great Depression portrayed heroines as unrealistically wealthy in order to fulfill readers' fantasies.
[15] Carpan also argues that the Dana Girls' detective work was an outgrowth of the Depression in another way; many jobs and activities previously reserved for men were increasingly taken by women in 1930s due to economic necessity.