There they competed for grades and honor directly against male classmates. Before and after school they joined a public world beyond adult supervision - strolling city streets, flagging down male friends, visiting soda foundations." "Over the long term, their school experiences as "girls" foreshadowed both the turn-of-the-century emergence of the independent "New Women" and the birth of adolescence itself."--BOOK JACKET.

Publisher's description: Based on an extraordinary array of diaries and letters, this engaging book explores the shifting experiences of adolescent girls in the late nineteenth century. What emerges is a world on the cusp of change. By convention, middle-class girls stayed at home, where their reading exposed them to powerful images of self-sacrificing women. Yet in reality girls in their teens increasingly attended schools--especially newly opened high schools, where they outnumbered boys. There they competed for grades and honor directly against male classmates. Before and after school they joined a public world beyond adult supervision-- strolling city streets, flagging down male friends, visiting soda fountains. Poised between childhood and adulthood, no longer behaving with the reserve of 3young ladies, 4 adolescent females sparred with classmates and ventured new identities. In leaving school, female students left an institution that had treated them more equally than any other they would encounter in the course of their lives. Jane Hunter shows that they often went home in sadness and regret. But over the long term, their school experiences as "girls" foreshadowed both the turn-of-the-century emergence of the independent "New Woman" and the birth of adolescence itself.

An inspiring famous women book for girls, Girls Who Looked Under Rocks also makes the perfect feminist gift for girls. Girls Who Looked Under Rocks: The Lives of Six Pioneering Naturalists is for a world no longer confined by gender stereotypes, and a place where science is for girls, too! Parents and children will love this portrayal of six women who grew up playing in the dirt and went on to become award winning scientists and writers. All of these women were discouraged from pursuing careers in science, but they all persisted in their passion. If there is a pre-teen or adolescent in your life, especially a girl, take a look at this empowering, inspiring chapter book. It portrays the youths and careers of six remarkable women whose curiosity about nature fueled a passion to steadfastly overcome obstacles to careers in traditionally men-only occupations. The six-Maria Merian (b.1647), Anna Comstock (b.1854), Frances Hamerstrom (b.1907), Rachel Carson (b.1907), Miriam Rothschild (b.1908), and Jane Goodall (b.1934)—all became renowned scientists, artists and writers. A wonderful resource for young researchers and biographers, these stories can be a starting point for issues of gender, science, and the environment.

Scarlett's Sisters: Young Women in the Old South

In an ever-changing world, good manners never go out of style. These essential skills and tips will help you all aspects as you grow into womanhood. Good manners are not just a quaint and old-fashioned concept. They’re an essential aspect of every young lady’s path to adulthood. It’s safe to say that today’s young woman is exposed to more opportunities than any generation of women in history, and these essential guidelines created by author Kay West will help parents ensure that their daughters grow up to succeed in any situation. In 50 Things Every Young Lady Should Know, you will learn about: Making conversation with adults Accepting a gift you don't like Dressing appropriately Winning and losing graciously Writing a thank-you note While the formal rules of etiquette are not taught the way they once were, 50 Things Every Young Lady Should Know provides a modern take on the ageless idea that girls should know appropriate and courteous responses to any given situation. This updated guide to traditional standards of behavior proves that manners never go out of style--they’re a crucial skillset that a young girl needs to excel in whatever she chooses to do.

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.

As the twentieth century dawned, progressive educators established a national organization for adolescent girls to combat what they believed to be a crisis of girls' education. A corollary to the Boy Scouts of America, founded just a few years earlier, the Camp Fire Girls became America's first and, for two decades, most popular girls' organization. Based on Protestant middle-class ideals--a regulatory model that reinforced hygiene, habit formation, hard work, and the idea that women related to the nation through service--the Camp Fire Girls invented new concepts of American girlhood by inviting disabled girls, Black girls, immigrants, and Native Americans to join. Though this often meant a false sense of cultural universality, in the girls' own hands membership was often profoundly empowering and provided marginalized girls spaces to explore the meaning of their own cultures in relation to changes taking place in twentieth-century America. Through the lens of the Camp Fire Girls, Jennifer Helgren traces the changing meanings of girls' citizenship in the cultural context of the twentieth century. Drawing on girls' scrapbooks, photographs, letters, and oral history interviews, in addition to adult voices in organization publications and speeches, The Camp Fire Girls explores critical intersections of gender, race, class, nation, and disability.