page_title: The Adventure Girls
section_title: The Adventure Girls at K Bar O
hierarchical_section_title: The Adventure Girls / Books / The Adventure Girls at K Bar O
caption_attribution_description: English: Ca. 1936-39 poster by Frank S. Nicholson depicting Double Arch in Arches National Park, Utah. The poster is one of seven commissioned by the US Travel Bureau and created by the Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project to promote the National Parks.
context_page_description: The Adventure Girls was a three-book series written by Clair Blank, author of the Beverly Gray stories. A trilogy by default, The Adventure Girls series was published by A. L. Burt in 1936 and never continued. All works were copyrighted on April 27, 1936, the same day as Beverly Gray on a World Cruise. Although a fourth work was advertised at the end of the third, it was never published; where the Beverly Gray series survived and prospered following the publication of its four part "breeder set," The Adventure Girls series was unable to catch on. Purchased by Saalfield in 1937, the series was entirely shelved until being reissued in the fall of 1942. None of the books had their copyright renewed, and all have thus passed into the public domain.
  Structurally and stylistically, The Adventure Girls books are extremely similar to the Beverly Gray series for which Blank is better known. Each series follows a large cast of central characters through numerous adventures, flowing uninterrupted from one to the next; the Beverly Gray series was termed a "soap opera," an equally applicable designation for The Adventure Girls books.
context_section_description: The Adventure Girls at K Bar O introduces the six titular heroines, to wit, Gale Howard, Carol Carter, Janet Gordon, Phyllis Elton, Madge Reynolds, and Valerie Wallace. Rising seniors at Marchton High School, the girls arrive at the K Bar O Ranch in northern Arizona at the invitation of Gale's cousin, Virginia Wilson. Virginia's father owns the ranch, "one of the biggest in the state," with "large" cattle herds "of the finest stock." A weeks-long camping trip on horseback pits the girls, along with Virginia's older brother Tom and ranch hand Jim, against a band of rustlers that has driven Mr. Wilson close to the point of "ruin." Seen as a product of its time, K Bar O reflects a depression-era focus on domestic tourism. Americans "spent nearly half a billion dollars abroad" in 1932, and it was feared that "America was failing to exploit its touristic potential." Stimulus programs targeted "a variety of road-building programs and highway improvements," while "a series of promotions" such as the "See America" campaign was launched "to encourage travel within the United States." By the time K Bar O was published in 1936, domestic tourism had become "the second biggest industry" in the United States. Blank certainly understood how western tourism fit into the zeitgeist of 1930s America. Looking out at the desert, Carol declares "I'm overwhelmed! . . . From now on I shall be a strong advocate of See America First!"
  Scenery combines with adventure in K Bar O, but usually takes a back seat. Chapter nine sees the girls tour the Colorado River and Grand Canyon, the Petrified Forest, the Painted Desert, Monument Valley (and "El Capitan" therein), and the ruins of the Betatakin cliff dwellings. Throughout the rest of the book, various assemblages of girls foil a bank robbery (chapter 1); get uncomfortably close to a rattlesnake (chapter 3); get lost in a cave with the (recently escaped) bandits (chapter 5); narrowly avoid being turned into "pancakes" by a boulder (chapter 7); get kidnapped (chapters 7–8); get shot at, and shoot a bandit, during escape from said kidnapping (chapter 8); rope and kill an attacking cougar (chapter 9); get kidnapped again (chapter 11); survive a ride on a runaway horse (chapter 16); get kidnapped for a third time after the bandits escape for a second time (chapter 17); and avoid another bullet (chapter 18). Tom is not quite as lucky, with chapter 19 seeing him get shot in the arm as he and the cook, Loo Wong, capture the bandits for the third and final time. For their efforts the Adventure Girls are awarded $1,000 by the sheriff. This is promptly bestowed upon Bobby, a destitute boy of "about eight," such that he can pursue a formal education. Adventures and good deeds concluded, the girls depart back East.
  For their part, the six cattle rustlers are barely distinguishable. Three are originally introduced as bank robbers (one "short" and "dark haired," a second "tall," the third an unseen getaway driver), before later being shown to be rustlers also. Three other bandits are later introduced; of the five that are white, one is named "Mike" and another "Shorty," but all remain almost entirely interchangeable. It is never made clear whether "Mike" and "Shorty" are the "short" and "tall" bank robbers, two of the other three bandits, or some combination thereof. The only bandit who is clearly differentiated is the sixth, Pedro. Referred to by name 25 times, as "the Mexican" or "a Mexican" 36 times, and as a "half-breed" or "the breed" 3 times, he is presented in exceptionally stereotyped fashion. Vicious and with a "slurring accent" (e.g., "I weel fin' you and wit' my knife I weel slash"), a "long scar ran down his cheek, making his profile even more repulsive than it would ordinarily have been."
  The only other minority character in the book is similarly stereotyped. Loo Wong, "a very fine Chinese cook" employed by the ranch, is as simple as Pedro is vicious. Instructed by Gale and Valerie on how to make fudge (despite being a cook, "when it came to candy he wasn't so artful"), he "bowed low" to the girls wit
caption: Ca. 1936–39 "See America" poster promoting National Parks tourism.
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