Mamie Pickering's Reading, Part Two: Girlhood Literature, A Phenomenon of Nineteenth Century Children's Literature

Mamie Pickering began her diary the year she was thirteen, in 1893, and continued to keep it throughout her lifetime, into her sixth decade. Amidst other events of her daily life she diligently recorded what she read, and often made notations about what she liked or disliked in her reading. These notations are seldom lengthy; but the ones Mamie made in her 1893 diary provide valuable insight into children's literature when they are understood in the larger context of the girl's life.

Girlhood Literature

As a late nineteenth century middleclass child, Mary Louise (Mamie) Pickering had been born into a lifetime of girlhood. Girlhood was exclusive to females, but not to childhood and not necessarily to the middle classes; it had its roots in the mystique of the sisterhood of all women. Its archetypal center was motherhood. The nineteenth century middle classes, however, developed their own particular version of girlhood, the ideals of which coincided with the ideals of their social class.

The female of the middle classes naturally passed through biological stages. As they are found in the literature and portrayed in Mamie's diary they were; infant, child, virgin, wife/ mother or virgin, grandmother or virgin. But regardless of what stage an individual might be in, she was always a girl. This was understood and voiced in the periodical The Girl's Own Paper. In volume fifteen for example, we are shown a picture of a virgin waiting for her paper. Mamie's copy of The Girl's Own Annual (Vol. Thirteen) is even more specific. In an article entitled "Whispers To Our Wedded Girls" the Annual tells us: "We write for Christian girls—for Christian wives."

When one has read a number of the works cited by Mamie it becomes clear that much of what she was reading was distinctly girlhood literature. While it was primarily written for adolescent girls and certainly read by Mamie and her peers, as her diary attests, the material has many characteristics distinct from what we consider to be the characteristics of children's literature. For one thing, the material was read by females much older than thirteen. Mamie, who owned volume thirteen of The Girl's Own Annual in 1893, was given another volume after she was married. Further, our interviews with women who were young in the early years of this century show that the "Pansy" novels were read by women of middle age. On the other hand, a girl was given her first Girl's Own Annual at age ten or eleven, or, as one informant put it, long before she learned to use whiskey and black pepper for cramps.

Girlhood literature served the reality of nineteenth century middleclass girlhood by asserting the moral ascendancy of its ideals. The practical purpose of the literature was to teach the girl child by means of distinctive role models, particularly those of virgin and wife. These literary lessons were expected to augment the practical experience provided by the sisters of girlhood. Mamie's range of female interrelationships far exceeded the experience of a present day thirteen year old girl; the nineteenth century sisterhood did not hold with generation gaps, and the odds were that an average household held at one time or another all stages of girlhood under a single roof. Outside their home environment, Mamie and her peers played with girls three or more years younger than themselves, in the role of "little mother," and had tea and "chatted" with older virgins, wives and grandmothers with equal regularity. They were expected to play the roles of guest, mother's helper or hostess with equal astuteness, and to share in church work and the domestic chores of the house. All this was viewed carefully by the sisterhood and considered over tea.

The literature read by Mamie in 1893 can be catagorized as either secular or church literature. We must point out, however, that even much of the secular material, like The Girl's Own Annual, made claim to being "Christian." Therefore, the church literature is...