Health and girlhood in Britain, 1874-1920 / Hilary Marland, professor of history, University of Warwick, UK.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Marland, Hilary.

Series:

Palgrave studies in the history of childhood

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Girls--Health and hygiene--Great Britain--History.

Girls.

Girls--Great Britain--Social conditions--19th century.

Girls--Health and hygiene.

History.

Great Britain--Social life and customs--19th century.

Great Britain.

Manners and customs.

Girls--Great Britain--Social conditions--20th century.

Great Britain--Social life and customs--20th century.

Physical Description:

xi, 270 pages ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York, NY : Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.

Summary:

This first book-length study of girls' health in modern Britain explores how debates and advice on healthy girlhood, invoking new visions and practices of health, shaped ideas about the lives and potential of adolescent girls from the 1870s to the 1920s. It demonstrates how the 'modern girl' with her 'modern body' was created during this period, as a range of new experts promoted innovative approaches to hygiene, diet and exercise. Theories concerning the biological limitations of female adolescence were challenged and replaced with a growing emphasis on the importance of behaviour in producing good health, and girls deemed responsible for taking care of their own wellbeing. New practices of health, though varying significantly across the social classes, enabled the extension of girls' roles in education, work, sport, and recreation, and fed into the creation of a new cultural category of 'girlhood' as a discrete and important phase between childhood and womanhood. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Unstable Adolescence: Medicine and the 'Perils of Puberty' in Late Victorian and Edwardian Britain 15

2 Reinventing the Victorian Girl: Health Advice for Girls in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries 42

3 Health, Exercise and the Emergence of the Modern Girl 86

4 Girls, Education and the School as a Site of Health 122

5 The Health of the Factory Girl 155

6 Conclusion: Future Mothers of the Empire or a 'Double Gain'? 189.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781137328137

1137328134

OCLC:

827256510