American tomboys : 1850-1915 / Renee M. Sentilles.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 221-49) and index.

Introduction -- Tomboys and the new girlhood -- Tomboy heroines in the home -- Tomboy heroines on the manly frontier -- The tomboy and the new woman -- Boyhood for girls -- The American girl -- Tomboys as retrospective -- Coda -- Notes -- Selected bibliography -- Index.

A lot of women remember having had tomboy girlhoods. Some recall it as a time of gender-bending freedom and rowdy pleasures. Others feel the word is used to limit girls by suggesting that such behavior is atypical. In American Tomboys, Rene��e M. Sentilles explores how the concept of the tomboy developed in the turbulent years after the Civil War and argues that the tomboy grew into an accepted and even vital transitional figure. In this period, cultural critics, writers, and educators came to imagine that white middle-class tomboys could transform themselves into the vigorous mothers of America's burgeoning empire. In addition to the familiar heroines of literature, Sentilles delves into a wealth of newly uncovered primary sources that manifest tomboys' lived experience and asks critical questions about gender, family, race, and nation. Beautifully written and exhaustively researched, American Tomboys explores the cultural history of girls who, for a time, whistled, got into scrapes, and struggled against convention. -- From back cover