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This book is centered on the history of the girl from the medieval period through to the early twenty-first century. Authored by an international team of scholars, the volume explores the transition from adolescent girlhood to young womanhood, the formation and education of girls in the home and in school, and paid work undertaken by girls in different parts of the world and at different times. It highlights the value of a comparative approach to the history of the girl, as the contributors point to shared attitudes to girlhood and the similarity of the experiences of girls in workplaces across the world. Contributions to the volume also emphasise the central role of girls in the global economy, from their participation in the textile industry in the eighteenth century, through to the migration of girls to urban centres in twentieth-century Africa and China.
List of contents
Chapter 1. Introduction; Mary O'Dowd and June Purvis.- Chapter 2. Girls at Work in the Middle Ages; Sophie Brouquet.- Chapter 3. From 'Young Women' to 'Female Adolescents': Dutch Advice Literature During the Long Nineteenth Century; Marja van Tilburg.- Chapter 4. Adolescent Girlhood in Eighteenth Century Ireland; Mary O'Dowd.- Chapter 5. Young Woman, Textile Labour and Marriage in Europe and China around 1800; Mary Jo Maynes and Ann Waltner.- Chapter 6. The Education of European and Chinese Girls at Home in the Nineteenth Century; Emily Bruce and Fang Qin.- Chapter 7. '[T]he Children Bobbed Like Corks on the Tide of Adult Life': The Political Education of the Pankhurst Girls in Late Victorian England; June Purvis.- Chapter 8. Girls as Members of an Educated Elite: The Bulgarian Case (1850-1950); Georgeta Nazarska.- Chapter 9. Did the Bengali Woman have a Girlhood? A Study of Colonialism, Education and the Evolution of the Girl Child in Nineteenth-Century Bengal; Asha Islam Nayeem.- Chapter 10. The 'Social Processing Chamber' of Gender: Australian Second-Wave Feminist Perspectives on Girls' Socialisation; Isobelle Barrett Meyering.- Chapter 11. 'And Sweet Girl-Graduates'? From Girl to Woman Through Higher Education; Alison Mackinnon.- Chapter 12. The 'Girl-Hawking' War in Colonial Lagos; Oluwakemi A. Adesina.- Chapter 13. Bio-Politics of Dai Girls: Work, Marriage and a Desirable Lifestyle; Yan Hu.- Index.
About the author
Mary O’Dowd is Professor of Gender History at Queen’s University Belfast, UK. Her publications include A History of Women in Ireland, 1500-1800 (2005) and Reading the Irish Woman Case Studies in Cultural Encounters and Exchange (co-authored with Gerardine Meaney and Bernadette Whelan, 2014). She has recently completed a co-authored study of the history of marriage in Ireland, 1660-1925.
June Purvis is Emeritus Professor of Women's and Gender History at Portsmouth University, UK. She is Founding and Managing Editor of the journal Women’s History Review and author of Emmeline Pankhurst: A Biography (2002) and Christabel Pankhurst: A Biography (2018), as well as co-editor of thirteen edited book collections. She is Chair of the Women’s History Network and Treasurer and Secretary of the International Federation for Research in Women’s History.
Summary
Explores themes in the history of the girl and girlhood in ten countries in four continents
Compares the history of girls geographically as well as chronologically
Considers the history of the education of girls as well as the contribution of girls to the world of work
