Reinventing the Victorian Girl: Health Advice for Girls in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

Abstract

By the 1880s and 1890s, even as doom-laden commentary about the trials and tribulations of female adolescence continued to flow from the pens of medical authors, a new model of girls’ health began to assert itself in medical and cultural consciousness, reflected in the burgeoning genre of advice literature intended for young women. This new literature on health offered information directly to young women and addressed the question of how girls should approach the expanding opportunities opening up to them in education, the workplace and a variety of cultural, recreational and social arenas, as well as the challenges of adolescence itself. Importantly, it focused less on girls’ biological limitations, highlighting the role of their attitudes and behaviour, and the ways in which a positive state of mind and commitment could support their efforts to strive for improved health. Girls themselves were ascribed a great degree of responsibility in their pursuit of good health and it was also suggested that inappropriate behaviour and neglect of the rules of health put their physical and mental health at risk.