Girls to the Rescue: Young Heroines in American Series Fiction of World War I by Emily Hamilton-Honey and Susan Ingalls Lewis (review)

Emily Hamilton-Honey and Susan Ingalls Lewis's Girls to the Rescue: Young Heroines in American Series Fiction of World War I presents an intriguing examination of a comparatively underexamined body of literature: girls' series fiction of the First World War era. As the authors note in their introduction, although historians have long been interested in the role of gender in relation to the Great War, as well as "the impact of war on society and cultural issues," they have not thoroughly examined how girls contributed to the history of this era (1). This book persuasively argues and demonstrates that wartime changes in gender were reflected in girls' series literature (5). The study offers an important new contribution to girls' studies, among a variety of other disciplinary and interdisciplinary fields, as it reveals how early twentieth-century girls' series fiction may add to our understanding of the First World War era.

Girls to the Rescue is organized into seven thematic chapters, along with an introduction, conclusion, and appendix. Chapter 1 explores girls' series fiction published both prior to and after American entry into the war, such as the Patty Fairfield series. Hamilton-Honey and Lewis argue that after the start of the war, girl protagonists tended to be "more independent, less inclined to listen to authority, and less domestic" (48). They show that the war seemed to "seep into girls' fiction gradually" and that series literature initially portrayed both the benefits and drawbacks of being a neutral nation (48). The second chapter examines one of the more conventional representations of wartime involvement: girls who supported the war effort from the position of the American home front. Chapter 3 focuses on girls who were involved in nursing or relief work, such as those in Margaret Vandercook's Red Cross Girls series. Although nursing was a common and expected occupation for women at this time, the most popular texts from this era did not focus on nursing but rather used this occupation to set the stage for other, more exciting adventures (97). This chapter also includes some interesting discussion of Aunt Jane's Nieces series, written pseudonymously by Frank L. Baum (author of the well-known Oz series).

The final chapters of Girls to the Rescue explore some of the ways in which series fiction radically reimagined girls' involvement in the Great War. As the authors note in chapter 4, the Progressive era ushered in new forms of transportation for women that were often closely linked to their sense of empowerment. This chapter examines the Grace Harlowe series and similar texts that portrayed girls who made use of new modes of transportation in service of the war effort. Chapter 5 examines girl heroines who captured spies and saboteurs and even gained national attention for their efforts. Chapter 6 features girls who rescued injured or endangered men and the final chapter focuses on "girls who fight" in a variety of ways, from the use of their own intelligence to firearms. Hamilton-Honey and Lewis have added conclusions to the end of every chapter that offer some of the study's most compelling analytical claims.

Girls to the Rescue effectively uses interdisciplinary methods as it synthesizes analyses of literature, history, and visual culture. The authors center their analysis on literary texts and illustrations but approach this work using a historical framework. In so doing, they remain focused on the study's stated purpose: to use girls' series literature to "see how the war was sold to girls and to explore the parameters of girls' activism as represented in popular literature" (5). The authors enrich their historical research through the inclusion and visual analysis of illustrations and cover art from the girls' series texts.

While Girls to the Rescue is an interdisciplinary work of scholarship, Hamilton-Honey and Lewis tend to focus on narrative analysis...