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In Major American Girls' Fiction, 1900-1920

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In Major American Girls' Fiction, 1900-1920 ADULT READERS AND THE GROWING “NEW GIRL” IN MAJOR AMERICAN GIRLS’ FICTION, 1900-1920 by Rupayan Roy A thesis submitted to the Department of English Language and Literature In conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Queen’s University Kingston, Ontario, Canada (September, 2018) Copyright © Rupayan Roy, 2018 Abstract The early twentieth century was a time of high-profile commentary in the U.S. regarding new roles for women, the convention-defying “New Woman,” and adolescence in the context of girls’ lives. Girls’ fiction included family-oriented texts, as well as, to borrow from Nancy Tillman Romolav, “series books” that “did not attempt to woo the adult through their language, subject or pedagogical value . .” (90). This study explores major books (from both kinds of girls’ fiction, namely Wiggin’s Rebecca books and the Stratemeyer Syndicate’s Ruth Fielding series, along with, to a lesser extent, its first Dorothy Dale text) concerned with “New Girls” as they grow from their pre-teen/early-teen years to young womanhood; I examine whether differences relating to whether adult readership is sought affect how the books compare in terms of addressing adult-imposed impediments that the girls face. I argue that, underneath such differences, the books share the assumption that young-girl readers—as imagined by the texts—are not the right audience, or at least not the right primary audience, for a comprehensive look at the mixture of ageism and patriarchy. The books assume that outright dislodging adult-imposed limitations is beyond what young-girl readers can do. This assumption constitutes a unifying feature of major American coming-of-age “New Girl” fiction for girls of the time. At a broader political level, in lacking signs of a belief that the imagined girl readers deserve to be fully aware of their social situation, the texts themselves actually confirm the pervasiveness in their society of a lamentable adult conservative attitude towards girls. This finding is relevant to discussing the social context and this genre in 1900-1920, and should also matter more generally to scholars of American girls’ fiction (including works of our era, given how girls and women are still oppressed), as well as to critics who might pursue cross-national comparisons. Crucially, this study is not about what actual child readers know, think, or understand; rather, it discusses how the texts imagine girl readers. As Lukens, Smith, and Coffel note, “Children’s literature is written by adults for children as adults imagine children to be” (6). ii Acknowledgements I would like to express my deepest thanks to my supervisor, Dr. Shelley King, and to my second reader, Dr. Laura Murray, for their support, advice, and encouragement as I developed this dissertation. I am also very grateful to Dr. Glenn Willmott, who, along with Dr. Murray, was one of my Special Topic advisors when I began pursuing this idea, and who was also an examiner for this dissertation. Furthermore, I would like to thank Drs. Samantha King and Laura Robinson for serving as examiners, as well as Dr. James Reynolds for chairing the examination. I express my sincere appreciation to professors, administrators, administrative assistants, colleagues, classmates, and friends who have contributed to a positive PhD journey. Finally, I am deeply grateful to my parents (Anuradha SinhaRoy and Dr. Rabindra Nath Roy) and my sister (Dr. Amrita Roy) for their constant support, love, and encouragement. iii Table of Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................ iii Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................... iv Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................................... 1 Setting the Stage for the Argument: Identifying the Overall Topic and the Relevant Works about “New Girls” ....................................................................................................................... 1 The Argument ............................................................................................................................. 4 Identifying My Own Ideological Perspective ............................................................................. 5 Project Structure .......................................................................................................................... 6 Notes.......................................................................................................................................... 12 Chapter 2: Literature Review and Scholarly Contexts ................................................................. 17 Gender politics in early-twentieth-century America ................................................................. 17 Why focus on 1900-1920 in addressing social change affecting women and girls?................. 22 Girls’ Fiction of the Early Twentieth Century: My Principle of Selection ............................... 24 Case Study: Pollyanna vs. New Girlhood ................................................................................. 26 Reviewing and Entering the Discussion over Rebecca and Gender ......................................... 31 Rebecca and the Issue of Audiences ......................................................................................... 44 The Significance of Pairing Rebecca with the Stratemeyer Syndicate’s Ruth Fielding ........... 48 Implied Readers: Contexts and Clarification ............................................................................ 56 Notes.......................................................................................................................................... 65 Chapter 3: Exploring Rebecca’s Opening Chapter ..................................................................... 101 How Rebecca Seeks to Target Imagined Adults from an Early Point and Sets the Stage for a Later Passage ........................................................................................................................... 102 Introducing How the Later Passage Constructs Rebecca’s Mind & Establishing That the Text Seeks to Targets Adults At This Point .................................................................................... 108 The Socio-Political Function of the Passage’s Intended Focus on Adult Readers ................. 114 i. Identifying Two Functions of This Focus & Explaining What Mr. Cobb’s Response Represents ............................................................................................................................ 114 ii. The Consequences of Mr. Cobb’s Response & Further Comments on the Role of the Scene’s Goal of Targeting of Adult Readers ....................................................................... 117 Notes........................................................................................................................................ 121 iv Chapter 4: How Ruth Fielding’s First Chapter Compares with That of Rebecca ...................... 134 Point of View and the Absence of an Adult Implied Reader in Ruth’s Chapter ..................... 136 Ruth’s Engagement with Inequality, and How Implied Single-Audienceship Affects the Picture ................................................................................................................................................. 141 Notes........................................................................................................................................ 149 Chapter 5: Further Engagement with the Rebecca Sequence ..................................................... 154 The Context Pertaining to the Thought Book ......................................................................... 157 How the Narrator Seeks to Target Imagined Adults in Introducing the “Thought Book” ...... 159 The Narrator’s Remarks in Relation to How Adam Views Rebecca ...................................... 165 How Rebecca’s “Thought Book” Counters the Views of Adam and the Narrator ................. 173 The Narrator’s Continued Concurrence with Adam, and the Significance of the Text’s Intended Focus on Adults in Portraying Adult Ideology as a Threat ...................................... 180 Notes........................................................................................................................................ 182 Chapter 6: Further Exploration of How Ruth Differs From and Compares with Rebecca (and How Ruth Follows an Approach from Dorothy Dale) ................................................................ 191 Contextualizing Moving Pictures ............................................................................................ 194 Introducing the Moving Pictures Scene, and How It Raises the Issue of a “New Girl” Facing Discrimination ......................................................................................................................... 195 Analysis of Ruth’s Behaviour and the Novel’s Strategy of Downplaying Disempowerment 201 How Dorothy Dale: A Girl of To-Day Foreshadows the Work of Ruth ................................. 205 Notes.......................................................................................................................................
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