Description: This first major study of girls' health in modern Britain explores how debates and advice on healthy girlhood shaped ideas about the lives of young women from the 1870s to the 1920s, as theories concerning the biological limitations of female adolescence were challenged and girls moved into new arenas in the workplace, sport and recreation.
Review Quotes:
"Hilary Marland's latest book provides excellent evidence that it is time to return to the turn of the twentieth century with a fresh eye, particularly when it comes to the history of bodies, and especially women's and exercising bodies. Marland makes a convincing case that the decades around 1900 saw the creation of a new cultural category of girlhood, which was in large part defined by notions of health and vigour, of mind as well as body." - Vanessa Heggie, Social History of Medicine
"Health and Girlhood in Britain is a thoroughly researched, well-written contribution to an increasingly multidisciplinary scholarship. Depending on and adding to the histories of medicine, public health, education, women, and children, it adds new dimensions to the discussion of modernization." - Lucinda M. McCray, Journal of British Studies