The Moving Picture Boys on the Coast

The Stratemeyer syndicate used the pseudonym Victor Appleton when writing several series for boys including Tom Swift. The series had to be interesting to boys, look like adult books, be written under a pseudonym, books would begin with a quick recap of the proceeding book and chapters would end in mid situation so the boy would want to keep reading. The Moving Picture Boys series was written between 1913 and 1922. Books in the series are The Moving Picture Boys, The Moving Picture Boys, in the West, The Moving Picture Boys, on the Coast, The Moving Picture Boys, in the Jungle, and The Moving Picture Boys in Earthquake Land. An excerpt from The Moving Picture Boys on the Coast reads " The two moving picture boys, I might explain briefly, were on their way to Flagstaff, Arizona, after having gone out into the wilds, with a cowboy guide, Hank Selby, to make moving picture films of some Moqui Indians who had broken away from their reservation, to indulge in some of their weird dances and ceremonies. While making these films, the boys and their companion, who were hidden in a cave where the Indians could not see them, saw the redmen about to torture, as they thought, four white prisoners. Joe and Blake recognized these men as their business rivals, who were also trying to get some moving picture films of the Indians, to secure a prize of a thousand dollars, offered by a New York geographical and ethnological society."