How Young Ladies Became Girls: The Victorian Origins of American Girlhood [Hardcover]

Professor Jane Hunter (Author), Jane H. Hunter (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0300092636 | ISBN-13: 978-0300092639 | Publication Date: January 1, 2003

Based on an extraordinary array of diaries and letters, this work explores the shifting experiences of adolescent girls in the late 19th 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 honour directly against male classmates. Before and after school they joined a public world beyond adult supervision, strolling city streets, flagging down male friends and visiting soda fountains. Poised between childhood and adulthood, no longer behaving with the reserve of "young ladies", 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.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

"A beautiful and important book. From an extraordinarily rich range of sources, Hunter has recreated a fascinating world of venturesome spirits, who speak -- often eloquently and movingly -- for themselves." Jackson Lears, Rutgers University

About the Author

Jane H. Hunter is associate professor of history and director of the program in gender studies at Lewis and Clark College. She is also the author of The Gospel of Gentility, published by Yale University Press.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 512 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (January 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300092636
• ISBN-13: 978-0300092639
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #588,630 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Engrossing study of girls' lives in the late 19th century, March 26, 2009

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hmf22 (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: How Young Ladies Became Girls: The Victorian Origins of American Girlhood (Hardcover)

In this utterly engrossing volume, Hunter examines the culture of American girls, mostly middle-class to wealthy, in the era of separate spheres and rapidly expanding secondary education. One of her most interesting points is that girls frequently outnumbered boys in early high schools, and girls' participation in school government paved the way for women's formal political participation a bit later on. Hunter offers a nuanced, in-depth picture of girls' lives, replete with illustrations and colorful anecdotes. Highly recommended.