Stratemeyer was born on October 4, 1862 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, United States. His father, Henry Julius Stratemeyer, who came from Germany in 1848 and in 1849 joined the California gold rush, returned to New Jersey to settle the affairs of a brother who had died. Later he married his brother's widow, Anna (Seigel) Stratemeyer, by whom he had two sons and a daughter, and established himself as a tobacconist in Elizabeth.
Stratemeyer attended the public schools of Elizabeth and after his graduation from high school had private tutoring in rhetoric, composition, and literature.
For several years, while he worked as a clerk in a tobacco store owned by his step-brother, he tried to write stories modeled on those of William Taylor Adams ("Oliver Optic") and Horatio Alger.
In 1888 he sold his first story, "Victor Horton's Idea, " to Golden Days for Boys and Girls, a weekly published in Philadelphia, for seventy-five dollars, and definitely decided upon a career as a writer of books for boys.
After 1890 he lived in Newark, New Jersey, where until about 1896 he owned and managed a stationery store. In March 1891 he was married to Magdalene Baker Van Camp of Newark. From 1891 to 1893 he wrote six serial stories for Frank A. Munsey's Argosy.
In 1893 he became editor of Good News, a weekly magazine for boys, to which he contributed many stories during the years 1893-95; in 1895 he edited Young People of America, and in 1896 ran a periodical of his own called Bright Days, at first a monthly, later a weekly.
By this time he had adopted the pen name of Arthur M. Winfield. His first book, Richard Dare's Venture; or, Striking Out for Himself, appeared in 1894 as the first volume of the Bound to Win Series, and about 1896 he began to give all his time to the writing of full-length stories in series. The first of these to gain him popularity was the Old Glory Series, which began with the success of Under Dewey at Manila (1898).
In 1899 he started the Rover Boys' Series for Young Americans, most popular of all his work, of which the thirtieth volume was published in 1926.
Stratemeyer died in Newark of pneumonia.
(In this exciting adventure children will learn not only A...)
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(Excerpt from Under Scott in Mexico It was not long after...)
His stories, which frequently depict preparatory school and college life, are full of action and none-too-plausible adventure; there is little attempt at character-drawing.
Stratemeyer was a member of the Roseville Athletic Club and the New Jersey Historical Association.
A humble man, he never sought public attention and preferred living a private and quiet life with his family at their home on N. 7th Street in the Roseville section of Newark. His relationships with his daughters was described as "warm", and his daughter Harriet recalled that it was a lively atmosphere growing up.
Stratemeyer, who was a very methodical and industrious man, spent a great deal of time studying and collecting data for his books and wrote steadily throughout his life, amply realizing his early ambition to sell a million copies of his books.
Quotes from others about the person
On Stratemeyer's legacy, Fortune wrote: "As oil had its Rockefeller, literature had its Stratemeyer. "
In March 1891 he was married to Magdalene Baker Van Camp of Newark. The couple had two daughters: Harriet Stratemeyer Adams (1892–1982) and Edna C. Squier (1895–1974), both of whom would later take over the future Stratemeyer Syndicate.
