The #'s represent footnotes that could not be included in this blog post. Please contact me if you would like to discuss this study or acquire a copy with complete citations (I recommend this!).
Little Miss America:
Girls and Girlhood in the Little Maid and American Girl Novels
The
culture of girlhood in America is deeply infused with girls’
literature. One of the most popular lines of books and toys for girls of
the twenty-first century is the American Girls Collection, a line of
historically themed books, dolls, clothing, and accessories. Its
continuing popularity among young girl consumers and their parents has
ensured that American Girl’s influential role in the creation and
definition of girls’ culture. However, plucky young heroines have served
as role models of American adolescents for well over a century. Daring
and clever, optimistic and imaginative, heroines like Lewis Carroll’s
Alice and Carolyn Keene’s Nancy Drew have been idolized and celebrated
by generations of young readers. American Girl may be one of today’s
more influential and beloved brands, but its past and continuing success
is possible thanks to its predecessors.
In 1913, Penn Publishing Company began to publish the historical fiction novels of Alice Turner Curtis. The Little Maid novels
tell the stories of adolescent Colonial girls living up and down the
East Coast during the Revolutionary War period. Curtis continued to
write the Little Maid
series over the next few decades, detailing the adventures of over
twenty young American heroines living during the American Revolution.#
The novels came at the beginning a boom in publishing, as the production
of children’s literature and series fiction became a full-fledged
industry. As the years wore on, however, Curtis’s novels fell into
obscurity. In the mid-1990s, the small East Coast publishing company,
Applewood Books, began to publish reproductions of the Little Maid novels. Today, the books feature a cover illustration from the first editions of Curtis’s novels. Each Little Maid
book also contains a paper doll version of its heroine, as well as a
second period outfit with which readers can play and act out the
heroine’s adventures.
Pleasant
Rowland had a similar idea when she created her line of historical
fiction novels and their correlating dolls in the mid-1980s. Since its
inception, the Pleasant Company (now owned by Mattel, Inc.) has grown to
be a toy and series novel empire. The American Girl Collection
includes nine sets of books, each chronicling the early adolescence of a
young girl during a various historical eras or events American history.
The first of the five original dolls was Felicity Merriman, the
“spunky” and “spritely” [sic] daughter of a Williamsburg merchant. #
The bestselling six-book series about Felicity, written by Valerie
Tripp, was one of the founding pieces of the American Girls Collection
along with the Felicity doll and her accessories.
A comparison of the Little Maid novels and the American Girl
novels presents an interesting dialogue on girlhood and the cultural
identity of the ideal American girl. Each series has helped to define
and redefine the concept of girlhood in America. A critical reading and
analysis of these series novels and their components suggests multiple
interesting questions. How does each series define the ideal American
girl, and her role in society? What are the shared and differing
characteristics of their respective ideal American girls, and how are
these characteristics presented to the reader? Also, is the portrayal
of girlhood an appropriate and realistic representation of the society’s
expectations of adolescent girls? Alice Turner Curtis’s Little Maid
historical fiction series presents readers with multiple young heroines
who appropriately and happily fulfill the stereotypes of an ideal girl.
The identity of Valerie Tripp’s heroine follows the formula laid by
Curtis, and Felicity Merriman of the six-book American Girl series
is a combination of the ideal girl of the early twentieth century mixed
with late twentieth century ideals of a more modern teenage girl. In
each novel, the heroine’s identity is defined both by her own actions
and the role forced upon her by society. In addition to staple heroine
characteristics like obedience and an active imagination, Alice Turner
Curtis’s Little Maid and Valerie Tripp’s American Girl
novels depict consumerism, conformity, adherence to traditional family
values, and an adventuresome independence as other facets of the ideal
American girl’s identity.
The mere existence of the Little Maid and American Girl
series, as well as the success of America’s girls’ literature industry
as a whole, is largely due to the Industrial Revolution and the Great
Depression. The children’s literature industry has been dominated by the
popularity of series fiction for both girls and boys since the late
nineteenth century, and continues to be one of the most lucrative genres
of mass-market literature. Technological innovations of the Industrial
Revolution led to the growth of America’s consumer culture as a whole,
providing Americans young and old with more leisure time and extra
money. Publishing houses leapt at the chance to produce formulaic and
cheaply printed novels for their newest and most lucrative type of
consumer: teenage girls in search of entertainment.
In
the first few decades of the twentieth century, American girls in their
early teenage years were a cultural novelty and anomaly. Not children,
but not yet women, adolescent girls roughly between the ages of nine and
fifteen found themselves to be a sub-group of much interest. Girls’
culture scholar Ilana Nash discusses the many characteristics of early
twentieth century America’s ideal girl and girlhood in American Sweethearts.
This socially constructed identity of girls and girlhood was a mix of
obedience and independence, innocence and spunk, purity and sexuality,
cleverness and naiveté, and a fresh, pretty face.# Popular girls’
fiction of the times provided much-needed reassurance and guidance to
its young and impressionable readers. In the years before World War I,
the concept of the American teenager was relatively new and evolving.
Stricter child labor laws, technological advancements, a reformed
education system, and changing popular ideals culminated in a new
sub-group of people who existed between childhood and adulthood.# With
less time spent in factories and doing household chores, these newly
recognized adolescents enthusiastically embraced the growing teenager
consumer culture. As girls’ culture and literature scholar Peter
Stoneley explains in Consumerism and American Girls’ Literature,
novels for adolescent girls transitioned from a didactic and “preachy”
tool for teaching lessons into a genre focused on entertaining their
young audiences as well as teaching them.# The perky and pretty modern
girl of the twentieth century quickly became a cultural symbol used
within the consumer culture, inducing nostalgia and optimism.
The
all-American fictional heroines of these novels were far from realistic
when compared to their real-life readers. “There is always a
distinction to be made between the actual child and the ideological
child, the child as embodiment or projection of adult needs and
desires,” explains Stoneley. “One of the main motives ascribed to the
production of girls’ fiction was that it could help to create the very
girl it was ostensibly about.”# Stoneley’s assertion that popular girls’
novels were written to be used as societal tools for molding American
teenagers is supported by numerous examples within Curtis’s Little Maid
novels of the early 1900s. Although the two series are separated by
over fifty years, the American Girl novels of the 1980s also contain
these same underlying motives.
The Little Maid and American Girl
novels also function as windows into the past, through which readers
practice interpreting history while still being entertained and
emotionally connected to the story and its characters. Readers not only
take in an adventure-filled story about wholesome heroines, but also
consume the author’s intended perspectives about the heroine’s role in
Colonial America’s society, as well as the American Revolution. By
making history more approachable and personalized for young readers, the
novels “[raise] questions about justice, morality, historical
perspective, and the accuracy of the information presented in
textbooks,” thus embedding educational information into an entertaining
story that is meaningful to modern-day readers.# As tools of influence,
these books have the ability to teach their young readers about the
expectations society places on girls historically, as well as in
present-day America.
After falling into obscurity, the Little Maid
novels written by Alice Turner Curtis are being reprinted, slowly, by
Applewood Press. First published by Penn Publishing in the early 1900s,
Curtis’s fictional depictions of life for adolescent girls during the
American Revolution were advertised in the New York Times and sold
alongside other popular girls’ series novels. In this golden era of
children’s literature publishing, books were a vehicle for presenting
society’s expectations for the younger generations. The girls’
literature culture was synonymous with the girls’ culture as a whole.
Girls swapped novels, and word of mouth served as a better advocate than
any sort of advertising organized by publishing companies. Teenage
girls were at the center of the booming children’s literature industry,
and publishers took notice of their new consumer audience. In a 1938
study of what the children of the mid-thirties were reading, Albert
Kilburn Ridout discussed the popularity of adventure-based series novels
featuring the modern girl of the twenty-first century. “The girls seem
to have taken to them of late,” he wrote. “Those books which were
written for girls were full of a saccharine quality which proved
nauseous to many a real-girl reader.”# Curtis’s heroines provided
readers with heroines that were courageous and independent, but also
obedient and docile.
The heroines of the Little Maid
novels live up to their moniker. With silky ringlets of deep chestnut
or golden hair to set off their bright and sparkling eyes, these angelic
little girls easily fit the societal expectations for a pretty teenage
girl. They are also rather pliable children. A Little Maid of Old Philadelphia’s
Ruthie Pennell is eleven years old, and a “willful and unruly child.”#
Over the course of the story, Ruth transitions from a dirty and unkempt
child playing the garden, to a poised young lady. Clandestinely, Ruth
also plays a pivotal role in the American Revolution by warning the
rebel leader Lafayette of the British Army’s General Howe’s approach and
plot to capture the Frenchman. “’She came running up the hill calling
your name, sir,” explains one of Lafayette’s soldiers, “a little girl
with yellow hair and blue eyes.”# Ruth is traced back to her home, where
Lafayette arrives to thank the girl for her “loyal service to America,”
astonishing the girl’s father, aunt, and friends.# Humble until the
end, literally, Ruth’s story ends with a conversation with her friend
Winifred. “And now you have done him a great service,” Winifred says in
amazement. “All the girls say that you hare a real heroine.” Ruth
smiles, and responds, “I guess they don’t know much about heroines.”#
Ruth believes that she is a heroine not thanks to her actions in helping
the war effort, but simply because Lafayette had kissed her hand. Much
like Ruthie, Curtis’s other heroines undergo a transition from a wild
little girl to a proper young lady during their adventures and
assistance in the American Revolution.
Life lessons and gender roles also take a central role in Curtis’s Little Maid novels as a way to teach readers about girlhood and the world. In A Little Maid of Old New York,
the text repeatedly offers readers advice. Annette’s mother, a
middle-class proponent of the Revolution, explains to her daughter that
“a wrong act surely brings its own punishment,” and that the heroine’s
rudeness to a British soldier would come to haunt her.# Annette quickly
decides that “in the future she would never, never forget to be polite,
no matter what might happen.”# The heroines of Curtis’s other novels
also learn lessons in the appropriate behaviors becoming of a lady.
Often, the heroine’s best friend and foil is used as a vessel through
which these lessons can travel while avoiding an overwhelmingly didactic
tone. Annette’s orphaned friend, Nancy, learns about the world through
her discussions with Annette. “There are always two kinds [of
Americans],” explains Annette. “Good Americans are patriots, and bad
Americans are traitors.”# Nancy readily accepts Annette’s simple
explanation as fact, and without any dissent in the novels, the reader
is expected to adopt this same view.
A
little woman and mother in training is the chose societal role for the
heroines of Curtis’s books. Not once does a heroine express an interest
in going to school to obtain an education. They are mostly preoccupied
with learning to do handiwork, playing with their dolls, and showcasing
their favorite possessions to their friends and family. “’When the frost
comes you shall learn to knit, Anne; and if we be in good fortune you
shall do a sampler,’” explains the heroine’s guardian and aunt in A Little Maid of Provincetown.
This image of happy domesticity placates Anne, who is “comforted and
somewhat consoled by all these pleasant plans for her future
happiness.”# The Little Maid
series is rife with the heroine’s personal goals and expectations, as
well. “To have Amanda speak well of her dear father, to know that
Brownie [the cow] was safe in the barn, to possess a white kitten of her
own, and, above all, to be knitting herself a pair of scarlet stockings
made Anne feel that the world was a very kind and friendly place.”# The
other Little Maid
novels spend ample time detailing the outfits and accessories of each
heroine, as well as her needlepoint projects and household chores. Each
of these scenes works to further the societal expectations of a young
girl who strives to become an ideal woman.
Whether it is intentional or not, Curtis showcases the underlying complexities of Colonial America in her Little Maid novels.
Running parallel to themes of winsome and adventuresome girls and
American exceptionalism are various political and social perspectives of
this time in American history. In A Little Maid of Old New York,
first published in 1921, readers catch glimpses of the hierarchy upheld
by slaves and servants when Lottie, the African-American servant of the
heroine’s household, refers to a slave from a neighbor’s household as
“dat wuthless nigger.”#Curtis experiments with her version of slave
diction throughout the book, and the style would have been quickly
recognized as a slave-oriented way of speaking by her impressionable
1920s girl readers. Each of Curtis’s novels provide in-depth and varied
perspectives of colonial life and the intricacies of Revolutionary
America’s society that are subtly discussed at some points, and openly
didactic and expository at others.
Curtis’s
novels show an intelligent understanding of America in the
Revolutionary era, and its myriad of events, issues, and perspectives. The new editions of the Little Maid
novels, currently being published by Applewood Books, strive to attract
new readers who have been indoctrinated by the American Girl empire of
books and toys. It remains to be seen whether or not this attempt at
building upon the marketing techniques of American Girl will work. There
are stark differences between the two series, and they will not go
unnoticed by readers. Although the general expectations of a historical
fiction heroine have not changed drastically, the marketing expectations
of young consumers and their parents are very different from the
teenage consuming culture of the early twentieth century.
Pleasant
Rowland’s idea of coupling high-quality dolls with formulaic,
historically accurate stories found a happy intersection between
education and play. The American Girl heroines exhibited the
characteristics of a traditional heroine: independent and courageous,
intelligent and virtuous. Rowland set out to create a line of dolls and
books that would promote good values and contend against stereotypical
and sexualized dolls, like Barbie. “Our product was subtle,” explained
Rowland in an interview. “There was a lot of depth that would not be
immediately recognizable in a retail environment.”# The six short novels
chronicling Felicity Merriman’s adolescence in Colonial Williamsburg,
written by Valerie Tripp, contain elements that are found in all of the
novels encompassed by the American Girls Collection. Each set of books
consists of a high-spirited and courageous young girl whose story
includes a special doll, a unique necklace, unusual aspirations, a best
friend who serves as the heroine’s timid and ostracized foil, and
elderly guardian figure in addition to her parent(s), a pet to care for,
and a great challenge to overcome by the end of each six-book saga.
Felicity
Merriman is happiness personified. Her curly red hair and freckles set
her apart from the ideal golden-haired angel or dark-eyed beauty. Along
with her russet locks come the characteristics of a stereotypical
redhead. Quick to temper, quick to act, Felicity is stubborn and
spirited. She is also loving and loyal to her friends and family, and
exemplifies the ideals of the American Revolution. She loves her
independence, and strives to be true to herself while still submitting
to the expectations of her parents, and society.
The expectations of a young Colonial girl are clearly laid out for readers in the American Girl
novels. Nine-year-old Felicity explains that she would like to go to
college, “and read Greek and Latin and philosophy and geography, just as
the gentlemen do.” Her mother has other ideas. “Girls should
be educated,” she explains to her daughter.# Mrs. Merriman does harbor
high hopes for her eldest daughter, but they fall within society’s
expectations of a respectable gentlewoman and her appropriate gender
roles. “Caring for a family is a responsibility and a pleasure. It will
be your most important task, and one that you must learn to do well,”
she explains. “A notable housewife runs her household smoothly, so that
everyone in it is happy and healthy. Her life is private and quiet. She
is content doing things for her family.” #
Felicity is sent to etiquette school soon after, and it is there that
she learns to write prettily, complete a needlepoint sampler, and host a
proper tea. These lessons on womanhood serve as her formal education,
and Felicity is less than impressed. “I would much rather spend my time
out of doors,” she thinks. “I would rather be horseback riding, or
playing, or digging in my garden.”# Still, Felicity maintains the ideal
optimistic outlook, requisite of an ideal heroine.
Felicity
is optimistic and fixated on living her life to the fullest, as well as
on the good things sure to come to her in the future. She is capable of
making decisions independently from the expectations of society, yet
follows her heart more often than her head. She steals, or rather
‘liberates’ the abused pony belonging to mean old Jiggy Nye, the tanner.
Later in the story, she befriends this same man, who she finds lying
sick and alone in debtors’ prison. The kindness she shows toward Penny
the abused horse, and then its former master saves these two lives. In
helping so, she also secures them as life-long and trustworthy friends
indebted to her for the compassion she bestows upon them.
The focus on material possessions is not a flaw of the American Girl
novels, but rather a necessity. In the works of both Tripp and Curtis,
which were written nearly a century apart from one another, the
inclusion of details regarding fashion, furnishings, and other personal
items greatly contribute to the viability and depth of the stories.
Although she lives in a world of plenty as a young consumer-in-training,
Tripp’s Felicity Merriman is not as fixated upon her possessions as the
heroines of Alice Turner Curtis’s Little Maid
heroines. However, the six Felicity Merriman novels are an average
length of sixty pages, with the text printed in a large font and
accompanied by dozens of illustrations. The 1990s reprints of Curtis’s
novels exceed 180 pages, and contain far fewer illustrations. Tripp’s
shorter formula books leave less room for the inclusion of details.
Unlike the Little Maid novels,
Tripp evades the subject of slavery and other more complicated
historical perspectives of the American Revolution and Colonial America.
The Merriman household possesses one servant, Rose, who cooks and
helps Mrs. Merriman with other household chores. This liberates
Felicity, leaving her able to attend etiquette lessons and have many
small adventures. Mr. Merriman employs Marcus, “the man who helps Mr.
Merriman at home and at the store.”# At the end of the series, Marcus,
who readers are led to believe is a freed African American man, joins
Mr. Merriman in helping to deliver supplies to the Patriot army.#
Tripp’s readers see Rose and Marcus through the eyes of inquisitive
nine-year-old Felicity, yet the stereotypical curiosity of our ideal
heroine never leads to a discussion of slavery and rights.
The
plots of many of the Felicity novels are about dealing with the
every-day, universal issues of peer pressure and life as an adolescent
girl. In Felicity’s Surprise,
themes of competition, envy, and manipulation combine with passive
aggressive actions and intimidation tactics.# In addition to dealing
with bullying, the young heroine also learns how to stay true to herself
while being open to the expectations put upon her. “Felicity still
loved to run and play out of doors. She was still quite often too lively
to be ladylike,” explains the novel’s unidentified narrator. “But at
lessons, Felicity tried to keep her voice low and her back straight and
her teacup balanced. She remembered to laugh softly and ask polite
questions. She began to enjoy being on her best behavior at tea.”#
Felicity’s transition from child to young lady is similar to that of the
Little Maid
heroines in that she begins the series as a little girl focused upon
her dolls and playing out-of-doors. By the end of the sixth book,
Felicity has blossomed into a pretty and responsible young lady who is
capable of maintaining a home (with the guidance of her mother), and is
ready to make her debut in Williamsburg society.
“The American Girls Collection” encompasses a line of specialty dolls
created to coordinate with their respective series of historical fiction
novels for young adolescent girls. The Pleasant Company was founded by
Pleasant Rowland in 1984# (purchased by Mattel, Inc., in 1998#), and has
experienced many great successes. Rather than align with toy stores,
the American Girl Collection (headquartered in Middleton, Wisconsin)
became a mail-order catalog sensation. At eighteen inches tall and
sporting shiny long hair and beautifully detailed clothes and
accessories, the American Girl dolls that premiered in the mid-1980s
were easily distinguishable from their main competitors (Cabbage Patch
Kids, Barbie, etc.). By 1993, the $85 dolls and their accoutrements were
the centerpiece of the Pleasant Company’s over $90 million in sales. #
In 2008, of Mattel’s four core brands, the American Girls Collection was
the only to increase in profits with gross sales exceeding $460
million.# In the past year, miniature American Girl dolls have begun to
be stocked in Barnes and Noble stores alongside their respective novels.
The increased presence of American Girl products in the public eye will
surely lead to even greater successes for Pleasant Company and Mattel,
Inc.
The
majority of novels written for twentieth and twenty-first century girls
contain an ideal heroine and a happy ending. Role model heroines are
expected to promote good values, make sound choices, and display a wide
range of traditional personality traits. These ideal characters often
manage to be independent, yet conforming; forward-thinking, yet
old-fashioned – paradoxical and flawless idols which their admiring
young readers could not possibly emulate successfully. The Little Maid and American Girl novels each perpetuate these expectations and stereotypes in their own ways.
The
heroines of these historical fiction series novels are meant to speak
to their readers and suggest an identity for the generic, accepted
adolescent girl in America. Alice Turner Curtis dubbed her heroine the
Little Maid of Colonial America, alluding to a pleasant time when girls
were small and pretty. In some novels, they also gain other nicknames,
like Annette’s title of “Miss America” by a British general.# It is
understood that the characteristics of these pleasant heroines are the
same that are expected of the novels’ readers. The Pleasant Company has
concocted a similar overarching identity to be upheld by their young
readers. The phrase “American girl” has become a brand name and status
symbol for millions of teenage consumers. The lessons and ideals found
within Tripp’s six-book series about Felicity Merriman are strikingly
similar to those found in Alice Turner Curtis’s novels, even though
Tripp began writing about seventy years after the first Little Maid
novel was published. Now, in the twenty-first century, the early
twentieth century socially constructed identity of the ideal American
girl continues to thrive and circulate with each new generation of
girls.
Works Cited
Alm, Richard S. “The Development of Literature for Adolescents.” School Review 64.4 (Apr. 1956): 172-177.
Curtis, Alice Turner. A Little Maid of Massachusetts Colony. Bedford, MA.: Applewood Books,
1996.
Curtis, Alice Turner. A Little Maid of Old Connecticut. Bedford, MA.: Applewood Books, 1996.
Curtis, Alice Turner. A Little Maid of Old New York. Bedford, MA: Applewood Books, 1996.
Curtis, Alice Turner. A Little Maid of Old Philadelphia. Bedford, MA: Applewood Books, 1996.
Curtis, Alice Turner. A Little Maid of Provincetown. Bedford, MA.: Applewood Books, 1997.
Curtis, Alice Turner. A Little Maid of Virginia. Bedford, MA: Applewood Books, 1998.
Inness, Sherrie A., ed. Delinquents and Debutantes: Twentieth-Century American Girls’
Cultures. New York: New York University Press, 1998.
Levstik, Linda S. “Chapter 1.” Fact and Fiction: Literature Across the Curriculum. Bernice E.
Cullinan, ed. Newark, DE: International Reading Association, 1993.
Nash, Ilana. American Sweethearts: Teenage Girls in Twentieth-Century Popular Culture.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006.
Rehak, Melanie. Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt, 2006.
Ridout, Albert Kilburn. “Juvenile Judgments.” English Journal 27.1 (Jan. 1938): 38-43.
Stoneley, Peter. Consumerism and American Girls’ Literature, 1890-1940. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Tripp, Valerie. Changes for Felicity: A Winter Story. Middleton, WI: Pleasant Company
Publications Incorporated, 1992.
Tripp, Valerie. Felicity Learns a Lesson: A School Story. Middleton, WI: Pleasant Company
Publications Incorporated, 1991.
Tripp, Valerie. Felicity Saves the Day: A Summer Story. Middleton, WI: Pleasant Company
Publications Incorporated, 1992.
Tripp, Valerie. Felicity’s Surprise: A Christmas Story. Middleton, WI: Pleasant Company
Publications Incorporated, 1991.
Tripp, Valerie. Happy Birthday, Felicity!: A Springtime Story. Middleton, WI: Pleasant Company
Publications Incorporated, 1992.
Tripp, Valerie. Meet Felicity: An American Girl. Middleton, WI: Pleasant Company Publications
Incorporated, 1991.
