Abstract
Rosoff and Spencer’s transnational analysis of the way that girls’ college and school stories presented domesticity to their readers highlights the interaction of social class and gender. The methodological approach that sets both primary and secondary contemporary sources alongside fictional accounts offers insights into how the stories reflected middle class women’s increasing involvement with the practicalities of housekeeping. Rosoff and Spencer’s analysis demonstrates how stories acted as informal education into the significant role played by, and the respect due to, matrons, managers of halls of residence, and domestic maids. Vignettes of characters’ skills in cookery, needlework, and laundry provide the focus for reflections on the changing role of women over 50 years.
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Notes
- 1.
Mark Abrams, The Teenage Consumer (London: London Press. Exchange, 1959).
- 2.
See G. Stanley Hall, Adolescence: Its Psychology and Its Relations to Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, Religion and Education (New York: D. Appleton and Company 1908). See especially Chapter XVII.
- 3.
Dorothy Stone, The National: The Story of a Pioneer College (London: Robert Hale and Co, 1976), 9.
- 4.
Ibid., 12.
- 5.
Quoted in Dorothy Stone, The National, 26.
- 6.
Carol Dyhouse, No Distinction of Sex? Women in British Universities 1870–1939 (London: UCL Press, 1995), 45–48.
- 7.
The Dorcas Society in the Girls’ Public Day School Trust Schools encouraged girls to undertake sewing as part of their charitable activity.
- 8.
Board of Education, Report of the Differentiation of the Curriculum for Boys and Girls Respectively in Secondary Schools (London: His Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1926), 46.
- 9.
See G. Stanley Hall, Adolescence.
- 10.
Board of Education, Report of the Differentiation of the Curriculum for Boys and Girls, 125.
- 11.
Ibid.
- 12.
Ibid.
- 13.
Ibid.
- 14.
Alva Myrdal and Viola Klein, Women’s Two Roles: Home and Work (London: Routledge, Kegan, Paul, 1956).
- 15.
Judith Hubback, Wives Who Went to College (London: Heinemann, 1957).
- 16.
John Newsom, The Education of Girls (London: Faber, 1948), 12.
- 17.
In Newsom, 108. Margaret Bondfield had been the first woman cabinet minister (of Labour) in 1931. She chaired the Women’s Group on Public Welfare until 1948.
- 18.
Newsom, The Education of Girls, 109.
- 19.
Ibid.
- 20.
Ibid., 149.
- 21.
Penny Summerfield, “Cultural Reproduction in the Education of Girls: a study of girls’ secondary schooling in two Lancashire towns 1900–1950,” in Lessons for Life: the schooling of girls and women 1950–1950, ed. Felicity Hunt (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987), 149–171.
- 22.
Ibid., 166.
- 23.
Winifred Cullis, foreword to Helen Sillitoe, A History of the Teaching of Domestic Subjects (London: Methuen, 1933), vi.
- 24.
Helen Sillitoe, A History of the Teaching of Domestic Subjects (London: Methuen, 1933), viii.
- 25.
Ibid., 186.
- 26.
Catharine Esther Beecher, A Treatise on Domestic Economy: For the Use of Young Ladies at Home, and at School (Boston: Marsh, Capen, Lyon, and Webb, 1841), table of contents; see also Miss Beecher’s Domestic Receipt-Book: Designed as a Supplement to Her Treatise on Domestic Economy (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1855) and Joan N Burstyn, “Catharine Beecher and the Education of American Women,” New England Quarterly 47 (September 1974), 386–403.
- 27.
Sarah Stage, “Ellen Richards and the Social Significance of the Home Economics Movement,” in Sarah Stage and Virginia B Vincenti, Rethinking Home Economics: Women and the History of a Profession (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997), 19.
- 28.
Jane Addams, “Why Women Should Vote,” Ladies’ Home Journal, January 1910, 21–22.
- 29.
Mildred E. Mudd, “Girls Scouts as Homemakers,” Living 2 (May 1940), 44.
- 30.
Rima D Apple, “Liberal Arts or Vocational Training? Home Economics Education for Girls,” in Rethinking Home Economics: Women and the History of a Profession, ed. Sarah Stage and Virginia B Vincenti (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997), 81.
- 31.
Ibid., 81–85.
- 32.
See Rima D Apple, “Home Economics in the Twentieth Century: A Case of Lost Identity?” in Remaking Home Economics: Resourcefulness and Innovation in Changing Times, ed. Sharon Y Nichols and Gwen Kay (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2015), 59.
- 33.
Ibid., 61. See also Sarah A. Leavitt, From Catharine Beecher to Martha Stewart: A Cultural History of Domestic Advice (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002) and Megan J Elias, Stir It Up: Home Economics in American Culture (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), especially chapter three.
- 34.
Joanne Meyerowitz, “Beyond the Feminine Mystique: A Reassessment of Postwar Mass Culture, 1946–1958,” in Not June Cleaver: Women and Gender in Postwar America, 1945–1960, ed. Joanne Meyerowitz (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994), 229–262. Other chapters in this volume further challenge the sense that women such as those portrayed in popular television shows typified the actual experience of American women in the years following World War Two.
- 35.
Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era, rev ed. (New York: Basic Books, 2008), 17 and 199.
- 36.
Stephanie Coontz, The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap, revised edition, (New York: Basic Books, 2016), 20–21. See also Stephanie Coontz, A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s (New York: Basic Books, 2011).
- 37.
Elinor Brent-Dyer, The Exploits of the Chalet Girls, reprint (1933; repr. London: W. & R. Chambers, 1948), 270. Citations are to the 1948 edition.
- 38.
Elinor Brent-Dyer, Eustacia Goes to the Chalet School, reprint (1956; London: W. & R. Chambers, 1930 edition), 147. Citations are to the 1956 edition.
- 39.
‘The hall was filled with rows of trunks, where Miss Rankin, the matron, presided over the unpacking thereof, assisted by nurse in her cap and apron of dazzling cleanliness.’ Dorita Fairlie Bruce, Dimsie Moves Up Again (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1922); reprinted in The Dimsie Omnibus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1932) 9. Citations refer to the Omnibus edition.
- 40.
Dorita Fairlie Bruce, Dimsie Goes to School (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1925); reprinted in The Dimsie Omnibus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1932), 26. Citations refer to the Omnibus edition.
- 41.
Eleanor Brent-Dyer, The Princess of the Chalet School (London: W. & R. Chambers, 1927), 52–53.
- 42.
Ibid., 91.
- 43.
Ibid., 92.
- 44.
Ibid., 100.
- 45.
Ibid., 102.
- 46.
Ibid., 106.
- 47.
Ibid., 60.
- 48.
See The Chalet School Encyclopaedia for details of the domestic staff at the back of each volume. The author lists 12 named members of the Pfeiffen family. Alison McCallum, The Chalet School Encyclopaedia, Volumes 1–4 (Radstock: Girls Gone By, 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016).
- 49.
Elinor Brent-Dyer, The Chalet School Reunion (London: W. & R. Chambers, 1963; Radstock: Girls Gone By, 2004).
- 50.
Elinor M Brent-Dyer, Joey and Co. in Tirol (London: W. & R. Chambers, 1960), 60.
- 51.
Dorita Fairlie Bruce, Dimsie Goes to School, 19.
- 52.
Dorita Fairlie Bruce, Dimsie Head Girl (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1925); reprinted in The New Dimsie Omnibus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1935), 262. Citations refer to the New Dimsie Omnibus edition.
- 53.
Dorita Fairlie Bruce, Dimsie Moves Up Again, 11.
- 54.
Dorita Fairlie Bruce, Dimsie Intervenes (Oxford University Press London, 1937), 192–193.
- 55.
Jessie Graham Flower, Grace Harlowe’s First Year at Overton College (Philadelphia: Henry Altemus, 1914), 44.
- 56.
Jessie Graham Flower, Grace Harlowe’s Second Year at Overton College (Philadelphia: Henry Altemus, 1914), 34.
- 57.
Ibid., 41.
- 58.
Jessie Graham Flower, Grace Harlowe’s Return to Overton Campus (Philadelphia: Henry Altemus, 1915), 9.
- 59.
Ibid., 190.
- 60.
Pauline Lester, Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore (New York: A. L. Burt, 1922), 36.
- 61.
Ibid., 51.
- 62.
Pauline Lester, Marjorie Dean, College Senior (New York: A. L. Burt, 1922), 26. Not until the students’ senior year does the reader know that Miss Remson’s first name is Miranda, 232.
- 63.
Pauline Lester, Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore, 117.
- 64.
Pauline Lester, Marjorie Dean, College Senior, 78.
- 65.
Ibid., 19.
- 66.
Ibid., 21.
- 67.
Ibid., 31.
- 68.
Ibid., 25
- 69.
Ibid., 28.
- 70.
Pauline Lester, Marjorie Dean Macy (New York: A. L. Burt, 1926), 122.
- 71.
Ibid., 125–126.
- 72.
Pauline Lester, Marjorie Dean, High School Sophomore, 21.
- 73.
Pauline Lester, Marjorie Dean Macy, 187–188.
- 74.
Pauline Lester, Marjorie Dean, High School Sophomore, 253.
- 75.
Alice Ross Colver, Joan Foster, Senior (New York: Dodd Mead & Company, 1950), 113. Joan’s first hall of residence, Willetts House, was presided over by Mrs Kelsey ‘a dignified, gray haired woman’—once again, the residence is run by a mature married woman, reflecting an expectation of natural gender roles. Joan Foster, Freshman (1942; repr. New York: Dodd Mead & Co, 1955), 7. Citations are to the 1955 edition.
- 76.
Ibid., 182.
- 77.
Jessie Graham Flower, Grace Harlowe’s First Year at Overton College, 59.
- 78.
Ibid., 169.
- 79.
Alice Ross Colver, Joan Foster, Freshman, 123. Also see Joan Foster Bride (New York: Dodd Mead & Company, 1952), 63. On her wedding day, Annie gives Joan a silver coin from the family that she worked for in Virginia before coming north; Annie’s gift of a treasured possession shows the close ties between Annie and the Fosters.
- 80.
Alice Ross Colver, Joan Foster, Freshman, 126.
- 81.
Ibid., 127. In the final book of the series, Annie only works for two days a week owing to the reduced circumstances of the Foster household. Joan wonders if Annie might help by sitting with her ailing grandmother. “Indeed, she had been in the family so long she would want to keep some contact with them just to get the news. Just to feel herself part of their group.” Alice Ross Colver, Joan Foster, Bride, 20.
- 82.
Ibid., 130.
- 83.
Alice Ross Colver, Joan Foster, Bride, 31.
- 84.
Ibid., 89.
- 85.
Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (London; Victor Gollancz, 1963).
- 86.
Alice Ross Colver, Joan Foster, Bride, 92.
- 87.
Dorita Fairlie Bruce, Dimsie Head Girl, 42.
- 88.
Dorita Fairlie Bruce, Dimsie Goes to School, 46. In Britain, a ‘Board school’ was one funded by the rates (local taxes) and administered by a locally elected school board. They were intended to provide basic education for the working class. Domestic lessons in board schools attracted extra grants.
- 89.
Elinor Brent-Dyer, The Exploits of the Chalet Girls, 237.
- 90.
Ibid., 75.
- 91.
Brent-Dyer usually explains this significance of appropriate clothing. See note 19 above re Thekla and the description of the ill-prepared St Scholastika’s girls in Elinor Brent-Dyer, Elinor, The Rivals of the Chalet School (London: W. & R. Chambers, 1939).
- 92.
Elinor Brent-Dyer, The Chalet Girls in Camp (1932; repr. London: W. & R. Chambers, 1951), 214.
- 93.
Ibid., 221.
- 94.
Ibid., 224.
- 95.
Ibid.
- 96.
Ibid., 225.
- 97.
Ibid., 226.
- 98.
Ibid.
- 99.
Ibid.
- 100.
Elinor Brent-Dyer, The Chalet School and the Lintons (1934; repr. London: W. & R. Chambers, 1952), 65.
- 101.
Ibid., 130.
- 102.
Ibid., 139.
- 103.
Ibid., 132–133.
- 104.
Ibid., 139.
- 105.
Readers could, in fact, try recipes inspired by the Chalet School Books; see Elinor M Brent-Dyer, The Chalet Girls’ Cook Book (London: W. & R. Chambers, 1953). The Cook Book was reprinted in 2009 by Girls Gone By and members of an online forum about the Chalet School books had a spirited discussion about creating a recipe book based on food and drink mentioned in the stories; see “A new Chalet School Recipe Book,” The CBB, accessed 1 August 2018, http://the-cbb.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=9489. Showing the enduring appeal of the books, see Kate Young, “Food in books: breakfast rolls from The School at the Chalet,” The Guardian, 9 February 2017, accessed 1 August 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/books/little-library-cafe/2017/feb/09/food-in-books-breakfast-rolls-from-the-school-at-the-chalet
- 106.
Elinor Brent-Dyer, The Chalet School and the Lintons, 143.
- 107.
Janice Raymond, A Passion for Friends: Towards a Philosophy of Female Affection (London: The Women’s Press, 1991), 218.
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Rosoff, N.G., Spencer, S. (2019). Domesticity. In: British and American School Stories, 1910–1960. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05986-6_5
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