Guiding modern girls : girlhood, empire, and internationalism in the 1920s and 1930s / Kristine Alexander.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Alexander, Kristine, 1979- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Girl Guides Association--History.

Girl Guides Association.

Guide Association--History.

Guide Association.

Girlguiding UK--History.

Girlguiding UK.

Girls--England--20th century.

Girls.

Girls--Canada--20th century.

Girls--India--20th century.

History.

Canada.

England.

India.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

ix, 283 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Vancouver : UBC Press, [2017]

Summary:

Aross the British Empire and the world, the 1920s and 1930s were a time of unprecedented social and cultural change. Girls and young women were at the heart of many of these shifts. Out of this milieu, the British-based Girl Guide movement emerged as a response to modern concerns about gender, race, class, and social instability. The movement attracted more than a million members in over forty countries during the interwar years. Its success, however, was neither simple nor straightforward. Using an innovative multi-sited approach, Kristine Alexander digs deeper to analyze the ways in which guiding sought to mould young people in England, Canada, and India. She weaves together a fascinating account that connects the histories of girlhood, internationalism, and empire, while asking how girls and young women understood and responded to Guiding's attempts to lead them toward a service-oriented and "useful" feminine future. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Guiding's Beginnings: Victorian Antecedents and Early Twentieth-Century Growth 17

2 Guiding Girls toward the Private Sphere: Training for Homekeeping, Mothercraft, and Matrimony 46

3 "We Must Give the Modern Girl a Training in Citizenship": Preparing Girls for Political and Social Service 79

4 Moulding Bodies and Identities in the Outdoors: Religion, Gender, and Racial-National Narratives at Girl Guide Camps 109

5 "The Mass Ornament": Rallies, Pageantry, Exercise, and Drill 140

6 Imperial and International Sisterhood: Possibilities and Limits 164.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 247-270) and index.

ISBN:

9780774835879

0774835877

OCLC:

985071415