Girlhood, interdisciplinary and global in source, scope, and methodology, examines the centrality of girlhood in shaping women's lives. Scholars study how age and gender, along with a multitude of other identities, work together to influence the historical experience.
Spanning a broad time frame from 1750 to the present, essays illuminate the various continuities and differences in girls' lives across culture and region--girls on all continents except Antarctica are represented. Case studies and essays are arranged thematically to encourage comparisons between girls' experiences in diverse locales, and to assess how girls were affected by historical developments such as colonialism, political repression, war, modernization, shifts in labor markets, migrations, and the rise of consumer culture.
Foreword / Miriam Forman-Brunell
Acknowledgments
Introduction / Jennifer Helgren / Colleen A. Vasconcellos
Toward Political Agency for Girls: Mapping the Discourses of Girlhood Globally / Jackie Kirk / Claudia Mitchell / Jacqueline Reid-Walsh
Part I Girls' Cultures and Identities
American Jewish Girls and the Politics of Identity, 1860-1920 / Melissa R. Klapper
Growing Up in Colonial Algeria: The Case of Assia Djebar / Christa Jones
Immigrant Girls in Multicultural Amsterdam: Juggling Ambivalent Cultural Messages / Marion Den Uyl / Lenie Brouwer
Feminist Girls, Lesbian Comrades: Performances of Critical Girlhood in Taiwan Pop Music / Fran Martin
Part II The Politics of Girlhood
Girlhood Memories and the Politics of Justice in Post-Rosas Argentina: The Restitution Suit of Olalla Alvarez / Jesse Hingson
"A Case of Peculiar and Unusual Interest": The Egg Inspectors Union, the AFL, and the British Ministry of Food Confront "Negro Girl" Egg Candlers / Jan Voogd
"Life Is a Succession of Disappointments": A Soviet Girl Contends with the Stalinist Dictatorship / E. Thomas Ewing
Fragilities and Failures, Promises and Patriotism: Elements of Second World War English and American Girlhood, 1939-1945 / Lisa L. Ossian
Holy Girl Power Locally and Globally: The Marian Visions of Garabandal, Spain / Jessamy Harvey
Rebels, Robots, and All-American Girls: The Ideological Use of Images of Girl Gymnasts during the Cold War / Ann Kordas
Part III The Education of Girls
Palestinian Girls and the British Missionary Enterprise, 1847-1948 / Nancy L. Stockdale
"The Right Kind of Ambition": Discourses of Femininity at the Huguenot Seminary and College, 1895-1910 / S. E. Duff
Stolen Girlhood: Australia's Assimilation Policies and Aboriginal Girls / Christine Cheater
Fathers, Daughters, and Institutions: Coming of Age in Mombasa's Colonial Schools / Corrie Decker
Mothers of Warriors: Girls in a Youth Debate of Interwar Iraq / Peter Wien
"Homemaker' Can Include the World": Female Citizenship and Internationalism in the Postwar Camp Fire Girls / Jennifer Helgren
Part IV Girls to Women: Work, Marriage, and Sexuality
From Chattel to "Breeding Wenches": Abolitionism, Girlhood, and Jamaican Slavery / Colleen A. Vasconcellos
Girls, Labor, and Sex in Precolonial Egypt, 1850-1882 / Liat Kozma
Defiant Daughters and the Emancipation of Minors in Nineteenth-Century Mexico / Kathryn A. Sloan
The Shifting Status of Middle-Class Malay Girlhood: From "Sisters" to "Sinners" in One Generation / Patricia Sloane-White
Contributors
Index
