Retorts, Runaways and Riots: Patterns of Resistance in Canadian Reform Schools for Girls, 1930-60

This article examines female adolescents' experience of Canadian reform school for girls between 1930 and 1960. Myers and Sangster challenge the prevailing characterization of delinquent girls as submissive to authority and docile while in custody. A study of girls' individual and collective resistance, this article brings together research on Ontario and Quebec reform schools and reveals that girls engaged in a variety of rebellious activities including verbal retorts, passive resistance, running away, and rioting. Following girls through the juvenile justice system, the authors illustrate the key moments--from court appearance to parole--when girls were likely to rebel against authority. The authors argue that while these acts of resistance may appear to us as spontaneous and uncoordinated, girls' protests and violent behaviour were often clearly directed at being labelled "delinquent" and at being subjected to regimes that emphasized domestic labour, sexual purity and passive femininity.