Delinquents and Debutantes: Twentieth-Century American Girls' Cultures

by Sherrie A. Inness (Editor)

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.

332 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[Judith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually only read one essay in this, but it was fantastic: "Can Anne Shirley Help 'Revive Ophelia': Listening to Girl Readers" by Angela E. Hubler. Highly recommended--challenge your assumptions about young people's reception of text.

[Summer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good collection of essays on American girls' popular culture in the 20th century, edited by the seemingly indefatigable Sherrie Inness. If you work on popular culture acquisitions for a library of material on women in America, then gosh by golly, you should probably read this!!