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"Politics for Girls": Representations of Political Girlhood in the Girl's Own Paper and the Girl's Realm

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Abstract

Political girlhood was an important, but previously overlooked, feature of the fin de siècle girls' periodical press. In the Girl's Own Paper and the Girl's Realm, the "political girl" existed alongside other incarnations of the "new girl." Together with adult-authored informative and fiction pieces, correspondence pages and "how-to" columns encouraged girl readers' active engagement with empire and parliamentary politics. Youth gave preadolescent girls freedom to express their political and imperial identities through play. Uncovering examples that appear to jar with the dominant tone of these journals, this essay nuances assumptions that girls' periodical literature and lived experiences were necessarily apolitical.

Description

Keywords

47 Language, Communication and Culture, 4705 Literary Studies

Journal Title

Victorian Periodicals Review

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0049-6189
1712-526X

Volume Title

52

Publisher

Project MUSE

Rights

All rights reserved