Serialized citizenships : periodicals, books, and American boys, 1840-1911 / Lorinda B. Cohoon.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cohoon, Lorinda B., 1968-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Children's periodicals, American--History--19th century.

Children's periodicals, American.

Children's periodicals, American--History--20th century.

Boys--Books and reading--United States.

Boys.

Boys--Books and reading.

History.

United States.

Physical Description:

xxix, 191 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Lanham, Md. : Scarecrow Press, 2006.

Summary:

In the last few decades, scholars have turned their attention to the construction of masculinity and its influence on expressions of nationality and citizenship. Serialized Citizenships participates in and critiques these ongoing conversations about boyhood by examining works produced between 1840 and the first decade of the twentieth century. American boyhood has often been narrowly defined by nineteenth- and twentieth-century canonical texts, such as Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which represent boyhood as a time of rebellion against society. Lorinda B. Cohoon suggests that significant representations of American boyhood can be found elsewhere-in serialized texts published in middle-class magazines such as Youth's Companion and Our Young Folks, as well as less-familiar children's periodicals, including Young American's Magazine of Self-Improvement and Boys of New York.

Cohoon argues that these serial texts portray citizenships that are then adapted by readers from a wide variety of backgrounds-not just by the white middle-class male youth for whom many of the representations of boyhood were originally published. Cohoon analyzes serializations of Thomas Bailey Aldrich's Story of a Bad Boy and Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, along with those published by Jacob Abbott, William Taylor Adams, Louisa May Alcott, and Frances Hodgson Burnett. Challenging the seemingly omnipresent "bad boyhood" still used to characterize American masculinity, this book examines cultural and textual evidence revealing many other versions of boyhood citizenships that have been marginalized and sometimes ignored. Serialized Citizenships contributes to children's literature scholarship, studies of childhood, and explorations of constructions of masculinity.

Contents:

Educating boys for American citizenship: Jacob Abbott's contributions to the Youth's companion

Working-class boys and self-improved citizenship: George Light's editorials in the Young American's magazine of self-improvement

Typing American renaissance boys: citizenship compromises in Oliver Optic's The boat club

Necessary badness: reconstructing postbellum boyhood citizenships in Our young folks and The story of a bad boy

"Shall I be your boy?": conversational citizenships in the St. Nicholas serialization of Little Lord Fauntleroy

Beeton's Boy's own magazine and Boys' life: serialized directions for boyhood citizenships in the twentieth century.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 173-186) and index.

ISBN:

0810854252

OCLC:

62381226

Publisher Number:

9780810854253