The Dana Girls - Critical Assessment

Critical Assessment

Unlike Nancy Drew, the Dana Girls have garnered little critical attention. Some find the series simply uninteresting and argue that the Dana Girls series was not as successful as Nancy Drew at least in part because early series authors Leslie McFarlane and Mildred Benson were uninterested in their creations. Others have called the characters "pallid followers in the dazzling train of Nancy Drew" and suggest that the series was less successful than the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories because of its melding of the mystery story with the boarding school story, a genre that was "fading in popularity" even in the 1930s. The combination of genres has also been called unsuccessful because "the school's presence weakens the mysteries, as the mysteries detract from the school story."

Bobbie Ann Mason criticizes the series, The Secret of the Swiss Chalet in particular, for " the authorized, glamourized dreams of our culture" 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. 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.