University of Alberta The Girls’ Guide to Power: Romancing the Cold War by Amanda Kirstin Allen A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of English and Film Studies ©Amanda Kirstin Allen Spring 2010 Edmonton, Alberta Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research purposes only. Where the thesis is converted to, or otherwise made available in digital form, the University of Alberta will advise potential users of the thesis of these terms. 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Examining Committee Jo-Ann Wallace, English and Film Studies Patricia Demers, English and Film Studies Margaret Mackey, School of Library and Information Studies Cecily Devereux, English and Film Studies Michelle Meagher, Women’s Studies Beverly Lyon Clark, English, Wheaton College Dedicated to Mary Stolz and Ursula Nordstrom. Abstract This dissertation uses a feminist cultural materialist approach that draws on the work of Pierre Bourdieu and Luce Irigaray to examine the neglected genre of postwar-Cold War American teen girl romance novels, which I call “female junior novels.” Written between 1942 and the late 1960s by authors such as Betty Cavanna, Maureen Daly, Anne Emery, Rosamond du Jardin, and Mary Stolz, these texts create a kind of hieroglyphic world, where possession of the right dress or the proper seat in the malt shop determines a girl’s place within an entrenched adolescent social hierarchy. Thus in the first chapter, I argue that girls’ adherence to consumer-based social codes ultimately constructs a semi-autonomous female society, still under the umbrella of patriarchy, but based on female desire and possessing its own logic. This adolescent female society parallels the network of women who produced (authors, illustrators, editors) and distributed (librarians, critics) these texts to teenaged girls. Invisible because of its all-female composition, middlebrow status, and “feminine control,” yet self-governing for the same reasons, the network established a semi-autonomous space into which left-leaning authors could safely (if subtly) critique American social and foreign policies during the Cold War. Chapter Two examines the first generation of the network, including Anne Carroll Moore, Bertha Mahony, Louise Seaman, and May Massee, who helped to create the children’s publishing industry in America, while Chapter Three investigates the second generation, including Mabel Williams, Margaret Scoggin, and Ursula Nordstrom, who entrenched children’s and adolescent literature in publishing houses and library services. In Chapter Four I explore the shifting concept of what constitutes “quality” within these texts, with an emphasis on the role of authors, illustrators, and critics in defining such value. Chapter Five investigates the use of female junior novels within the classroom, paying particular attention to the role of bibliotherapy, in which these texts were used to help teenagers solve their “developmental tasks,” as suggested by psychologist Robert J. Havighurst. A brief conclusion discusses the fall of the female junior novels and their network, while a coda addresses the republication of these texts today through the “nostalgia press.” Acknowledgments In my first year as a PhD student, I used to sneak into the Salter Reading Room to furtively analyze the acknowledgement sections of past dissertations. I thought that those acknowledgements could tell me something about what it meant to obtain a PhD, what the process was like, what types of relationships other students had formed with their material, with the people who guided them, and with each other. I wasn’t searching for pre-formed answers—I wasn’t quite that naïve (although close)—but I recognize now that my readings were my attempt to situate myself within a community that I couldn’t fully recognize yet, a community that was, at that time, only a hazy concept. Five years later, the people and organizations listed here are those who have helped me to experience some part of that community. They are the ones who have made me feel most included, most part of some larger discourse, and most loved. I therefore want to say thank you to the following: To Jo-Ann Wallace, supervisor and mentor, who was willing to discuss everything from Althusser to having babies in grad school, who guided me in ways I didn’t even notice, and who taught me far, far more than can be demonstrated in this dissertation. To Patricia Demers, for her enthusiasm, careful critique, endless letters of reference, and hallway-spoken words of encouragement. To Margaret Mackey, whose intellectual generosity is boundless, who saw me through many of my first conferences (when I would have preferred to take the female junior novel protagonist approach, and hide out in the bathroom), and who kindly provided professional advice over cups of tea in HUB. To the members of my examining committees, Teresa Zackodnik, Beverly Lemire, Cecily Devereux, Michelle Meagher, Natasha Hurley, and Beverly Lyon Clark, whose insightful questions and feedback during my candidacy and at my dissertation defense provided me with new areas to consider and to continue to explore. To the archivists of the Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Book Division of the New York Public Library and the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Columbia University, whose efficiency and organization allowed me to roam through boxes and boxes of material. Special thanks to Heather Zwicker, who provided the impetus for my trip to New York, and to Deidre McFadyen, who gave me the invaluable opportunity to experience Queens as a (temporary) Astorian. To the staff of the de Grummond Collection at the University of Southern Mississippi, particularly Ellen Ruffin and Katie Windham, whose cheerful presence, humour, and amazing Southern hospitality, coupled with a genuine love for all things children’s literature, made intense research work feel like a holiday. To the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research at the University of Alberta, and the Department of English and Film Studies for the financial support that enabled me to focus on my academic work. To the Children’s Literature Association, whose Hannah Beiter Graduate Student Research Grant provided me with both the funds and, perhaps more importantly, the encouragement that my project makes a positive contribution to children’s literature criticism. To my dissertation group, Charn Jagpal, Orion Kidder, and Greg Bechtel, for wading through all those long drafts about the history of bibliotherapy. To Andrea and Andrew Milne, whose weekly Sunday night dinners helped to keep me scurvy-free and aware of larger life pictures. To Susan Shepley, whose long-distance telephone calls about life, love, careers, babies, politics, psychics, the country, the city, and anything else on our minds helped me to remember that there’s a big world out there, that academia is not an end point but simply one choice among many, and that I can decide to stay or leave as I choose. To Charn Jagpal—who might just know my dissertation better than I do— for her daily willingness to listen to me babble about my ideas, and to help me work through those ideas in an attempt to find the bigger, more meaningful arguments. And, of course, to my parents, Doug and Phyllis Allen, who have never pressured me to become someone I’m not, and who have supported me in all my choices—good and bad. Thank you, Mom and Dad, for rescuing all those Stolz and Cavanna novels from discard-bin oblivion, for taking the North Bay route to the Highway Bookshop, and for long summers at the cabin in which to read and re-read those novels to my fill.