When Science Became Cool

A Memoir By E. Thomas Strom

Long ago (Jan, 1990) I wrote in The Southwest Retort about my choice of chemistry as a career, made when I was a high school senior. However, early on, certainly by age ten, I had fixed on a scientific career. I wanted to be either an astronomer or an archaeologist. My mother sternly told me that, if my parents were going to pay my way through college, I should choose an occupation where I could make some money. She didn't think either astronomy or archaeology fit that criterion. There wasn't any such thing as an astronomy industry or an archaeology industry. Back then there was a chemistry industry (now I'm not sure there is one), so my choice as a senior of chemistry satisfied her.

Sometime about age eleven I decided that a scientific career could even be cool. I was led to this belief when I started reading the Rick Brant Science Adventure series published by Grosset and Dunlap. Surely all of our readers in their youth read some of the Grosset and Dunlap series books, the most famous being the Hardy Boys books by Franklin W. Dixon, and the Nancy Drew books by Carolyn Keene. The names of Dixon and Keene were pen names. The books were produced by the Stratemeyer Syndicate, which farmed out the actual writing to various starving writers. I received my first Hardy Boys book at age eight, and I quickly ran through the entire published series. Though it seemed a little unmanly to read about a girl detective, my thirst for detective stories led me to the Nancy Drew series. I now know that the first 20 or so books were written by fellow University of Iowa alum Mildred Wirt Benson. The Nancy Drew stories were actually little better written. In 1947 came a new Grosset and Dunlap series, the Rick Brant series by John Blaine.

The first thing that struck me about the Rick Brant stories were how well written they were compared to the Hardy Boys stories. The characters talked like people talked, and the author wasn't afraid to use multisyllable words. Furthermore, the protagonists were scientists. Hero Rick Brant had a scientist father Hartson Brant who was an electronics whiz. Rick himself and his adopted brother Scotty were skilled in electronics. Hartson Brant led a group of scientists who had worked together during World War II and were trying to make a go of what was apparently a mini Stanford Research Institute on an island off the Sea Bright area of New Jersey called Spindrift. The first three book: The Rocket's Shadow, The Lost City, and Sea Gold all came out in 1947. In the first book the Brant group is trying to be the first to send a rocket to the moon to win a two million dollar prize. In the second book the groups travels to Tibet to set up a moon relay by radar. The third book was the first to deal with chemistry. Rick and Scotty help out some fellow scientists who have worked out methods to extract minerals from the oceans. The fourth book One Hundred Fathoms Under was set in the Pacific and involved the invention of a deep sea submersible vessel. Many of the other stories were also set in exotic locales. If this was what a scientist's life was like, that sure interested me.

I following Rick thought the first nine books in the series until 1952. Then I was sixteen, and I felt I should be reading more adult literature (like Tarzan). When I moved everything to Texas from Des Moines, I left my Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books behind without a qualm; but because of their quality, the Rick Brant books traveled with me. Scientists don't usually have exciting lives like Rick Brant, but these books gave readers a highly positive view of science, one that is lacking today. Undoubtedly they inspired many young men and maybe young women to consider science careers.

John Blaine was a pen name as is common with series books. The author was Harold L. (Hal) Goodwin, a government administrator of scientific and engineering research. Goodwin wrote 21 of the 24 books in the series alone. The first three books were coauthored by a friend Peter Harkins. Goodwin had served as a Marine Corps Combat Correspondent during World War II, later was assigned to Manila in the Foreign Service, spent eight years with nuclear test operations in Nevada and Eniwetok, three years with the U.S. Information Agency, six years with NASA, and six years with the National Sea Grant Program, first with NSF and then with NOAA. He was a scuba diver, a skilled archer, and a light plane pilot. His government travels took him to the Philippines, India, Iran, Turkey, France, England, Italy, Germany, Scandinavia, Switzerland, Nigeria and Egypt. He had also been a freelance writer, but he gained a background that most freelance writers could only dream about. This all came together to result in a high quality series.

The series came to an end in 1968 with the publication of the 23rd book Danger Below. Book sales of series were dropping at the end of the '60's, and Grosset and Dunlap preferred to put their emphasis on the old standbys from the Stratemeyer Syndicate, the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew stories. Nevertheless, during Goodwin's long run over two millions Rick Brant stories were sold. In an article published in 1980 in The Mystery & Adventure Series Review Goodwin revealed that a 24th book existed in rough draft form, The Magic Talisman. At the insistence of his many fans, Goodwin finished the book, which was published in 1990. Goodwin died on Feb 18, 1990 at age 74. There is a website devoted to Harold Goodwin and the Rick Brant stories fittingly called Spindrift Island, and that is where much of the material for this memoir was obtained.

Inspiration is a fleeting thing, but over several years Goodwin inspired me to think that science was a cool career. I think it still is. I just wish there were a writer like Hal Goodwin today to communicate to today's youth the excitement and value of science.

Editor's Note: Originally published in the The Southwest Retort, Vol. 56, October, 2003, No. 2, pp. 5-6,12. Reprinted with permission.