Full Description
The Girls' History and Culture Reader: The Twentieth Century provides scholars, instructors, and students with the most influential essays that have defined the field of American girls' history and culture. A relatively new and energetic field of inquiry, girl-centered research is critical for a fuller understanding of women and gender, a deeper consideration of childhood and adolescence, and a greater acknowledgment of the significance of generation as a historical force in American culture and society. Bringing together work from top scholars of women and youth, The Girls' History and Culture Reader: The Twentieth Century illustrates girls' centrality to major twentieth-century forces such as immigration, labor, feminism, and consumerism. Themes in this pioneering volume include girls' use of fashion and music, their roles as workers, their friendships, and new ideas about girls' bodies. While girls in the twentieth century found new avenues for personal ambition and self-expression, especially at school and in the realm of leisure and popular culture, they continued to wrestle with traditional ideas about feminine identity, socialization, and sexuality. Contributors are Joan Jacobs Brumberg, Rachel Devlin, Susan J. Douglas, Miriam Forman-Brunell, Kyra D. Gaunt, Mary Celeste Kearney, Ilana Nash, Mary Odem, Leslie Paris, Kathy Peiss, Vicki L. Ruiz, Kelly Schrum, and Judy Yung.
Contents
Credits ix
Introduction 1
1. "Something Happens to Girls": Menarche and the Emergence of the Modern American Hygienic Imperative 15
Joan Jacobs Brumberg
2. "Putting on Style" 43
Kathy Peiss
3. Single Mothers, Delinquent Daughters, and the Juvenile Court in Early 20th Century Los Angeles 64
Mary Odem
4. The Adventures of Peanut and Bo: Summer Camps and Early-Twentieth-Century American Girlhood 84
Leslie Paris
5. First Steps: The Second Generation, 1920s 109
Judy Yung
6. "Oh the Bliss": Fashion and Teenage Girls 135
Kelly Schrum
7. "Star Struck": Acculturation, Adolescence, and Mexican American Women, 1920-1950 160
Vicki L. Ruiz
8. Radical Notions: Nancy Drew and Her Readers, 1930-1949 182
Ilana Nash
9. The Oedipal Age: Postwar Psychoanalysis Reinterprets the Adolescent Girl 217
Rachel Devlin
10. Imagined Bobby-Soxer Babysitters and the Uses of Girls' Work Culture 242
Miriam Forman-Brunell
11. Why the Shirelles Mattered 266
Susan J. Douglas
12. "Double Forces Has Got the Beat": Reclaiming Girls' Music in the Sport of Double-Dutch 279
Kyra D. Gaunt
13. Riot Grrrl: It's Not Just Music, It's Not Just Punk 300
Mary Celeste Kearney
Contributors 317
Index 321
