Examining the encounters between the girls and the new arm of the state in Cook County, Illinois, Anne Meis Knupfer illuminates the origin of American notions of gender and delinquency. Combining rigorous research with passionate writing, Reform and Resistanceis a good story about bad girls.Anne Meis Knupfer received her Ph.D. from the University of Iowa and is a professor of Education at Purdue University. She is the author of Toward a TenderedHumanity and a Nobler Womanhood: African-American Women'sClubs in Turn-of-the-Century Chicago.