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Discipline and the Art of Dancing in Twentieth-Century British and American Ballet Books for Girls
- The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 12, Number 3, Fall 2019
- pp. 413-433
- 10.1353/hcy.2019.0043
- Article
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Abstract:
Children's books constitute one of the best evidentiary bases for the consistent interest of girls in ballet. This article explores three sets of children's ballet books: Noel Streatfeild's Ballet Shoes (1936); Jean Estoril's Drina books (1950s and 1960s); and Karen Strickler Dean's Maggie Adams books (1980s). All of them highlight discipline and hard work, and though they bear marks of their disparate historical contexts, all view ballet not only as an extracurricular or leisure activity but also as a means to economic independence and artistic fulfillment. They also represent the actual labor of ballet, including the physical stress of serious training and the production of a nearly unattainable "ballet body." The books' representation of the cultural nature of ballet as work situates girls as producers rather than only consumers.