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Full-Text Articles in History
Responding To Change: Girl Scouts, Race, And The Feminist Movement, Phyllis E. Reske
Responding To Change: Girl Scouts, Race, And The Feminist Movement, Phyllis E. Reske
Theses and Dissertations
The purpose of the Girl Scouts of the United States of America (GSUSA) is to teach girls to be giving, self-sufficient, and independent in their homes and communities through volunteer work and earning merit badges. Open to all girls since its inception, the GSUSA offers Girl Scouts training in both gender-conforming and nontraditional vocations. However, during the first half of the twentieth century, segregation and domesticity was emphasized in American society. The organization began to focus less on careers, independence, and racial inclusion to preparing predominately white girls to be good wives and mothers. As Black Power and women’s liberation …
To Be Everything: Sylvia Plath And The Problem That Has No Name, Alanna P. Mcauliffe
To Be Everything: Sylvia Plath And The Problem That Has No Name, Alanna P. Mcauliffe
Student Theses and Dissertations
This thesis explores, in depth, how the poetry of Sylvia Plath operates as an expression of female discontent in the decade directly preceding the sexual revolution. This analysis incorporates both sociohistorical context and theory introduced in Betty Friedan’s 1963 work The Feminine Mystique. In particular, Plath’s work is put in conversation with Friedan’s notion of the “problem that has no name,” an all-consuming sense of malaise and dissatisfaction that plagued American women in the postwar era. This notion is furthered by close-readings of poems written throughout various stages of Plath’s career (namely “Spinster,” “Two Sisters of Persephone,” “Elm,” “Ariel,” “Daddy,” …