Consumerism and American Girls' Literature, 1860-1940

Why did the figure of the girl come to dominate the American imagination from the middle of the nineteenth century into the twentieth? In Consumerism and American Girls'' Literature Peter Stoneley looks at how women fictionalized for the girl reader the ways of achieving a powerful social and cultural presence. He explores why and how a scenario of ''buying into womanhood'' became, between 1860 an...