Becoming Modern Young Women and the Reconstruction of Womanhood in the 1920s
Becoming Modern: Young Women and the Reconstruction of Womanhood in the 1920s

In the decade following World War I, nineteenth-century womanhood came under attack not only from feminists but also from innumerable "ordinary" young women determined to create "modern" lives for themselves. These young women cut their hair, wore short skirts, worked for wages,...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Søland, Birgitte (Author)
Format: Electronic eBook
Language:English
Published: Princeton, NJ Princeton University Press [2022]
Subjects:
SOCIAL SCIENCE / Women's Studies
Feminism > Denmark > History > 20th century
Feminism > Denmark > 20th century
Sex role > Denmark > History > 20th century
Sex role > Denmark > 20th century
Women > Denmark > History > 20th century
Women > Denmark > 20th century
Online Access:DE-1046
DE-1043
DE-858
DE-859
DE-860
DE-739
DE-473
Volltext
Summary:In the decade following World War I, nineteenth-century womanhood came under attack not only from feminists but also from innumerable "ordinary" young women determined to create "modern" lives for themselves. These young women cut their hair, wore short skirts, worked for wages, sought entertainment outside the home, and developed new attitudes toward domesticity, sexuality, and their bodies. Historians have generally located the origins of this shift in women's lives in the upheavals of World War I. Birgitte Søland's exquisite social and cultural history suggests, however, that they are to be found not in the war itself, but in much broader social and economic changes.Søland's engrossing chronicle draws on a rich variety of sources--including popular media and medical works as well as archival records and oral histories--to examine how notions of femininity and womanhood were reshaped in Denmark, a small, largely agrarian country that remained neutral during the war. It explores changes in the female body and personality, the forays of young women into the public sphere, the redefinition of female respectability, and new understandings of married life as evidenced in both cultural discourses and social practices. Though specific in its focus, the book raises broad comparative questions as it challenges common assumptions about the social and sexual upheavals that characterized the Western world in the postwar decade. In a remarkably engaging fashion, it shows why the end of World War I did not lead to the return of "normal" life in the 1920s
Item Description:Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 29. Jul 2022)
Physical Description:1 online resource (264 pages) 20 halftones
ISBN:9781400839278
DOI:10.1515/9781400839278

There is no print copy available.

Interlibrary loan Place Request Caution: Not in THWS collection! Get full text

Similar Items