Pulp magazines had their heyday in the time between the two
World Wars. Instead of suffering, they were one of the few
businesses that prospered during the Depression. In The Dime
Detectives, Ron Goulart presents a general history of the
pulps, stretching back to the first one in 1891, through
their quick demise in the early fifties. He also presents a
more specific focus on the career of the hardboiled detective
in the pulps. Goulart is obviously an expert in the field,
and his encyclopedic knowledge is supplemented with personal
interviews with people directly involved in the pulps,
including editor Henry Steeger and pulp writers Frederick
Davis and Cornell Woolrich.
Although the hardboiled detective's career in the pulps did
not start until 1923, the pulp magazines began several years
before. Goulart gives credit for the first pulp magazine to
Frank Munsey. Munsey first published a general interest
magazine called The Golden Argosy in 1882. Interest in the
magazine lagged until he hit upon a magic combination. In
1891 he shortened the name to Argosy, converted it into an
all-fiction magazine with no pictures, and switched to the
cheap wood-pulp paper that the magazines became famous for.
By the early 1900s the magazine's circulation was a half
million copies monthly. Publishers Street & Smith
followed suit with Popular Magazine in 1903. It sported a
generic theme like Argosy, but Street & Smith
experimented successfully with special interest magazines
that became the foundation for the prototypical pulp.
By the time the hardboiled detective made his appearance in
the pulps in 1923, detective characters had been around for
over 80 years. Poe began the genre in 1841, Allan Pinkerton
started a series in 1875 based on his experience in his
famous Pinkerton Agency. Many other less well known
detectives made a showing in the 1880s, including several
different nationalities and races. A few women detectives
even showed up. One of the more notable ones was Nick Carter,
who made his debut in 1886. Goulart states that Nick Carter's
appeal laid mostly with young readers, and he quotes J.
Randolph Cox comment that Nick Carter "has been referred to
as one of the blandest heroes in detective fiction." The
tremendous popularity of Sherlock Holmes spawned many
imitations, and detective stories became even more popular in
the 1890s. Goulart notes that although the hardboiled
detective's history began in the pulps, earlier detectives,
notably Sherlock Holmes, appeared in the higher class
magazines such as Colliers, alternately known as the
"slicks."
A thorough discussion of the hardboiled detective in the pulp
magazines would not be complete without a mention of Black
Mask. Like many hardboiled aficionados, Goulart cites Carroll
John Daly's Terry Mack and Race Williams stories in Black
Mask in 1923 as the first hardboiled detective pulp stories.
There were earlier detectives who were tough, but Goulart
says they were not hardboiled because tough is simply not
enough, and they lacked an essential ingredient. According to
him, the hardboiled stories "were linked with reality, with
the real crimes of the urban world and the real smell and
feel of the mean streets." Goulart also identifies a cynical
yet romanticized attitude borne of the Lost Generation in the
shadow of death and destruction of World War I. He mentions
several interesting anecdotes about the Black Mask days, such
as how Carroll John Daly managed to sneak his first two
stories slipped past editor George Sutton while he was on
vacation.
Although the hardboiled detective was born in the twenties,
it was the thirties that saw him flourish, or as Goulart puts
it, "The Depression and the hard-boiled private eye grew up
together." From the stock market crash until the United
States entered World War II, more than 160 new detective
pulps came on the market. Goulart appears to specialize in
the thirties, or else maybe they are just the most prolific
years. He describes many of the magazines that came out
during the period, with interesting stories and details about
them. Black Aces, Thrilling Detective, Undercover Detective,
Phantom Detective, and Illustrated Detective are only a few
that are mentioned. He notes that Nick Carter returned to the
pulps during this time with a more hardboiled attitude. Some
of the magazines lasted only a few issues, while at least
one, Detective Tales, survived until 1953.
Los Angeles, and more specifically Hollywood, became a
favorite setting for the pulp detective early on. Los Angeles
has a reputation for big-time corruption and crime in the
twenties and thirties, reaching all the way up to local
political office. Bribes to public officials bought
protection for gambling rackets and prostitution operations.
Real life gangsters such as Jack Dragna and Bugsy Siegel
rubbed elbows with real life movie stars such as Jean Harlow,
Jimmy Durante, and George Raft. Published for the first time
as a three part serial in Black Mask in 1930, Goulart
identifies Raoul Whitfield's Death in a Bowl as the first
Hollywood hardboiled detective novel. The bowl referred to is
the Hollywood Bowl built the year before. Norbert Davis
allowed detective Mark Hull to make a one-time appearance in
Kansas City Flash
(1933). The gambling ships sitting outside the three-mile
international limit are featured in stories by Paul Cain and
Raymond Chandler. Beautiful actresses, both the needy and the
dangerous type, often play a big part, and the detectives are
never impressed with Hollywood's tinny facade and immoral
characters. Goulart gives an almost too-detailed accounting
of other writers in the subgenre, including W.T. Ballard,
Erle Stanley Gardner, John Butler, Frank Gruber, Steve
Fisher, and Roger Torrey. Robert Leslie Bellem's Dan Turner
gets his own chapter.
Hardboiled women detectives were late arriving on the pulp
scene. Known as a chauvinist, a fascist, and a racist, it is
wonderfully ironic that Cleve Adams had the privilege of
introducing the first two female detectives to the pulps in
1935 in Clues magazine. Violet McDade, a 350 pound former
circus fat lady, was the lead detective and the stories are
told in the voice of her beautiful Mexican accomplice Nevada
Alvarado. Violet is wild and rambunctious and often at odds
with her assistant, and not below kidding Nevada with a low
key racism, calling her Mex. Adam's character Nevada doesn't
humbly accept this, though, replying, "You - you lout! My
family dates back beyond the conquistadors and the Spanish
grants. Where did you come from? A circus tent! One more
slurring remark out of you and I'll..."
The next female detective on the pulp scene was Sarah Watson,
the creation of D. B. McCandless. Starting in 1936 and
continuing through the following year, she appeared several
times in Detective Fiction Weekly. Sarah was heavyset and
middle aged. In 1937 Theodore Tinsley created the most
successful female pulp detective, Carrie Cashin. She was
sleek and beautiful and appeared in over 36 stories in Crime
Busters through 1942. The stories were voyeuristic in nature,
with her managing to lose a considerable amount of clothing
in almost every story. Will Murray wrote of her, "The single
most popular and promising character to appear in Crime
Busters." In regular polls for story popularity in the
magazine, Cashin stories always finished in the top
three.
Although there were difficulties for the pulps in the
forties, such as paper shortages and delays in the postal
system due to World War II, it was the fifties that saw the
death of the pulps. He notes that in 1950, Dime Detective,
Black Mask, Detective Tales, Hollywood Detective, and Popular
Detective were all available at newsstands, but three years
later they were all gone. Goulart states, "Essentially the
history of the popular arts can be seen as a history of one
format supplanting another: pulps taking over from the dime
novels and fiction weeklies..." The two media that replaced
the pulps were paperbacks and television. Pocket Books began
the paperback boon in 1939, and by the end of 1945, Avon,
Bantam, and Dell had joined in. At the end of World War II,
1% of American households had a television. At the beginning
of the fifties, fifty percent had a television, and by the
end of the fifties ninety percent had one. The pulp
publishers either moved on to more promising ground or else
they closed their doors. The pulps were dead.
miker
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