After spending almost a century wielding a magnifying glass and outwitting villains, Nancy Drew faced a different kind of mystery this summer — the case of the vanishing funding.
Filmmaker Cathleen O’Connell had just wrapped interviews for her decadelong passion project, Nancy Drew: The Case of the American Icon, when a letter from the federal government arrived like a plot twist straight out of River Heights. Her $600,000 production grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities had been terminated as part of a sweeping springtime cancellation affecting more than 1,400 projects across the country.
“We were elated to receive it, and devastated when it was canceled,” Ms. O’Connell said. “But like Nancy Drew, we are undaunted.”…