The contributors, including such leading scholars as Vicki L. Ruiz, Jennifer Scanlon, and Miriam Formanek-Brunell, examine myriad ways in which a variety of discourses and activities from popular girls' magazines and advertisements to babysitting and the Girl Scouts help form girls' experiences of what it means to be a girl, and later a woman, in our society. The essays address such topics as board games and the socialization of adolescent girls, dolls and political ideologies, Nancy Drew and the Filipina American experience, the queering of girls' detective fiction, and female juvenile delinquency to demonstrate how cultural discourses shape both the young and teenage girl in America. Although girls' culture has until now received comparatively little attention from scholars, this work confirms that understanding the culture of girls is essential to understanding how gender works in our society. Making a significant contribution to a long-neglected area of social and cultural inquiry, Delinquents and Debutantes will be of central interest to those in women's studies, American studies, history, literature, and cultural studies.

At the heart of some of the most beloved children’s novels is a passionate discussion about discipline, love, and the changing role of girls in the twentieth century. Joe Sutliff Sanders traces this debate as it began in the sentimental tales of the mid-nineteenth century and continued in the classic orphan girl novels of Louisa May Alcott, Frances Hodgson Burnett, L. M. Montgomery, and other writers still popular today. Domestic novels published between 1850 and 1880 argued that a discipline that emphasized love was the most effective and moral form. These were the first best sellers in American fiction, and by reimagining discipline as a technique of the heart—rather than of the whip—they ensured their protagonists a secure, if limited, claim on power. This same ideal was adapted by women authors in the early twentieth century, who transformed the sentimental motifs of domestic novels into the orphan girl story made popular in such novels as Anne of Green Gables and Pollyanna. Through close readings of nine of the most influential orphan girl novels, Sanders provides a seamless historical narrative of American children’s literature and gender from 1850 until 1923. He follows his insightful literary analysis with chapters on sympathy and motherhood, two themes central to both American and children’s literature, and concludes with a discussion of contemporary ideas about discipline, abuse, and gender. Disciplining Girls writes an important chapter in the history of American, women’s, and children’s literature, enriching previous work about the history of discipline in America.

This collection of essays confirms and celebrates the artistry of Canadian children's literature. Contributors include Janet Lunn and Tim Wynne-Jones.

A Smithsonian Best History Book of 2019 “Sparkling.” —Genevieve Valentine, NPR Kristen Richardson traces the social seasons of debutantes on both sides of the Atlantic, sharing their stories in their own words, through diaries, letters, and interviews conducted at contemporary balls. Richardson takes the reader from Georgian England to colonial Philadelphia, from the Antebellum South and Wharton’s New York to the reimagined rituals of African American communities. Originally conceived as a way to wed daughters to suitable men, debutante rituals have adapted and evolved as marriage and women’s lives have changed. An inquiry into the ritual’s enduring cultural significance, The Season also reveals the complex emotional world of the girls at its center, whose every move was scrutinized and judged, and on whose backs family fortunes rested.

Then He Kissed Me, He's A Rebel, Chains, Stop! In the Name of Love all these songs capture the spirit of an era and an image of "girlhood" in post-World War II America that still reverberates today. While there were over 1500 girl groups recorded in the '60s--including key hitmakers like the Ronettes, the Supremes, and the Shirelles - studies of girl-group music that address race, gender, class, and sexuality have only just begun to appear. Warwick is the first writer to address '60s girl group music from the perspective of its most significant audience--teenage girls--drawing on current research in psychology and sociology to explore the important place of this repertoire in the emotional development of young girls of the baby boom generation. Girl Groups, Girl Culture stands as a landmark study of this important pop music and cultural phenomenon. It promises to be a classic work in American musicology and cultural studies.

Reveals the many ways in which religious groups actually embraced commercial culture to establish an urban presence. [back cover].

Drawing on the case files of the State Training school of Geneva, Illinois, the author presents a history of delinquent girls in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Focusing on contemporary perceptions of gender, sexuality, class, disability and eugenics, the work examines the involuntary commitment of girls and young women deemed by reformers to be "defective" and shows both the dominant social trends of the day as well as the ways in which the victims of these policies sought to mitigate their conditions.

Youth, Crime and Justice encourages readers to explore the connections between social, political, economic and cultural conditions and juvenile crime. It clearly examines all the important comparative and transnational research studies for each topic. Throughout, appropriate qualitative studies are used to provide context and explain the theories in practice. This accessible and innovative textbook will be an indispensable resource for senior undergraduates and postgraduates in criminology, criminal justice and sociology.

The notorious 1942 "Sleepy Lagoon" murder trial in Los Angeles concluded with the conviction of seventeen young Mexican American men for the alleged gang slaying of fellow youth Jose Diaz. Just five months later, the so-called Zoot Suit Riot erupted, as white soldiers in the city attacked minority youths and burned their distinctive zoot suits. Eduardo Obregon Pagan here provides the first comprehensive social history of both the trial and the riot and argues that they resulted from a volatile mix of racial and social tensions that had long been simmering. In reconstructing the lives of the murder victim and those accused of the crime, Pagan contends that neither the convictions (which were based on little hard evidence) nor the ensuing riot arose simply from anti-Mexican sentiment. He demonstrates instead that a variety of pre-existing stresses, including demographic pressures, anxiety about nascent youth culture, and the war effort all contributed to the social tension and the eruption of violence. Moreover, he recovers a multidimensional picture of Los Angeles during World War II that incorporates the complex intersections of music, fashion, violence, race relations, and neighborhood activism. Drawing upon overlooked evidence, Pagan concludes by reconstructing the murder scene and proposes a compelling theory about what really happened the night of the murder.

Dancing Black, Dancing White: Rock 'n' Roll, Race, and Youth Culture of the 1950s and Early 1960s offers a new look at the highly popular phenomenon of the televised teen dance program. These teen shows were incubators of new styles of social and popular dance and both reflected and shaped pressing social issues of the day. Often referred to as "dance parties," the televised teen dance shows helped cultivate a nascent youth culture in the post-World War II era. The youth culture depicted on the shows, however, was primarily white. Black teenagers certainly had a youth culture of their own, but the injustice was glaring: Black culture was not always in evident display on the airwaves, as television, like the nation at large, was deeply segregated and appealed to a primarily white, homogenous audience. The crux of the book, then, is twofold: to explore how social and popular dance styles were created and disseminated within the new technology of television and to investigate how the shows both reflected and re-affirmed the racial politics and attitudes of the time. The 1950s was a watershed decade for American culture and dance. The era witnessed the ascendancy of rock and roll music and recorded sound, the rise of the teenager as a marketing demographic, the beginnings of television, and a new phase of the country's struggle with race. The story of televised teen dance told here is about Black and white teenagers wanting to dance to rock 'n' roll music despite the barriers placed on their ability to do so. It is also a story that fuses issues of race, morality, and sexuality. Dancing Black, Dancing White weaves together these elements to tell two stories: that of the different experiences of Black and white adolescents and their desires to have a space of their own where they could be seen, heard, appreciated, and understood.