American Girls and Global Responsibility: A New Relation to the World during the Early Cold War [Hardcover]

American Girls and Global Responsibilitybrings together insights from Cold War culture studies, girls’ studies, and the history of gender and militarization to shed new light on how age and gender work together to form categories of citizenship.
 
Jennifer Helgren argues that a new internationalist girl citizenship took root in the country in the years following World War II in youth organizations such as Camp Fire Girls, Girl Scouts, YWCA Y-Teens, schools, and even magazines likeSeventeen. She shows the particular ways that girls’ identities and roles were configured, and reveals the links between internationalist youth culture, mainstream U.S. educational goals, and the U.S. government in creating and marketing that internationalist girl, thus shaping the girls’ sense of responsibilities as citizens. 

American Girls and Global Responsibilitybrings together Cold War culture studies, girls’ studies, and the history of gender and militarization to shed new light on how age and gender work together to form categories of citizenship. Jennifer Helgren shows the particular ways that girls’ identities and roles were configured, thus shaping their sense of responsibilities as citizens.
 

JENNIFER HELGREN is an associate professor in the department of history at University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. She is also coeditor ofGirlhood: A Global History(Rutgers University Press).