1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910823445903321

Autore

Wright Nazera Sadiq <1974->

Titolo

Black girlhood in the nineteenth century / / Nazera Sadiq Wright

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Urabana, Chicago, Springfield, [Illinois] : , : University of Illinois Press, , 2016

©2016

ISBN

0-252-09901-X

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource : illustrations (black and white)

Classificazione

LIT004040SOC047000SOC001000

Disciplina

305.89607309034

Soggetti

African American girls - History - 19th century

African Americans - Social conditions - 19th century

African Americans - Politics and government - 19th century

Political culture - United States - History - 19th century

African Americans - Intellectual life - 19th century

American literature - African American authors - History and criticism

African Americans in literature

Girls in literature

Politics and literature - United States - History - 19th century

United States Race relations History 19th century

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Previously issued in print: 2016.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Introduction: Toward a Genealogy of Black Girlhood -- Black Girlhood in the Early Black Press -- Youthful Girls and Prematurely Knowing Girls : Antebellum Black Girlhood -- "Teach your Daughters" : Black Girlhood and Mrs. N. F. Mossell's Advice Column in the New York Freeman -- Moving the Boundaries : Black Girlhood and Public Careers in Frances E.W. Harper's Trial and Triumph -- Black Girlhood in Early-Twentieth-Century Black Conduct Books -- Epilogue: The Changing Same? : Next-Generation Black Girlhood.

Sommario/riassunto

"Long portrayed as a masculine endeavor, the African American struggle for progress often found expression through an unlikely literary figure: the black girl. Nazera Sadiq Wright uses heavy archival research on a wide range of texts about African American girls to



explore this understudied phenomenon. As Wright shows, the figure of the black girl in African American literature provided a powerful avenue for exploring issues like domesticity, femininity, and proper conduct. The characters' actions, however fictional, became a rubric for African American citizenship and racial progress. At the same time, their seeming dependence and insignificance allegorized the unjust treatment of African Americans. Wright reveals fascinating girls who, possessed of a premature knowing and wisdom beyond their years, projected a courage and resiliency that made them exemplary representations of the project of racial advance and citizenship"--Publisher description.