A message from St. Nicholas
Jan. 8th, 2011 11:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerA very productive evening! I spent it reading through the Letterbox feature in old St. Nicholas magazines, January to August 1890.
St. Nicholas was the premier American children's magazine from 1873 until at least the 1920s, though it continued publication till the forties. The Letterbox has magazines from kids all over the world: lots from England and Scotland, one from Australia, one from Korea (but by an American) and one from Japan (by a Japanese boy), and one from a Finnish girl in Samarkand whose brother was a St. Petersburg cadet (for this was when Finland was part of Russia).
Most of the letters are from kids ten to fourteen years old, although occasionally a very literate six-year-old sneaks in. (One was studying long division in her kindergarten. Either the American educational system has declined precipitously, or she was a prodigy.) They're excellently written, and one wonders if they were edited; yet sometimes a letter riddled with errors sneaks in, so I don't know.
My Very Important historical insight: children in 1890 were obsessed with their pets. One had a white heron named Suds; another a hedgehog; another chipmunks, another thirty-two mice, and quite a lot had horses. One blood-thirsty young lady wrote of dropping a scorpion on an anthill and watching the ants rip it apart.
I think I'm going to have to modify my original plan of study. Occasionally the kids send in stories or drawings or descriptions of their games (May A. W. and her sister, girls after my own heart, made royal courts of roses and begonias, and beheaded the courtiers whenever they grew tiresome), but I'm not sure there will be enough to talk about Imagination and the Creative Drive - mostly it's pets and games.
Lastly: from the October 1890 issue, a photo by Wallace G. Levison, "Taken of the Fly." I thought it quite lovely.
St. Nicholas was the premier American children's magazine from 1873 until at least the 1920s, though it continued publication till the forties. The Letterbox has magazines from kids all over the world: lots from England and Scotland, one from Australia, one from Korea (but by an American) and one from Japan (by a Japanese boy), and one from a Finnish girl in Samarkand whose brother was a St. Petersburg cadet (for this was when Finland was part of Russia).
Most of the letters are from kids ten to fourteen years old, although occasionally a very literate six-year-old sneaks in. (One was studying long division in her kindergarten. Either the American educational system has declined precipitously, or she was a prodigy.) They're excellently written, and one wonders if they were edited; yet sometimes a letter riddled with errors sneaks in, so I don't know.
My Very Important historical insight: children in 1890 were obsessed with their pets. One had a white heron named Suds; another a hedgehog; another chipmunks, another thirty-two mice, and quite a lot had horses. One blood-thirsty young lady wrote of dropping a scorpion on an anthill and watching the ants rip it apart.
I think I'm going to have to modify my original plan of study. Occasionally the kids send in stories or drawings or descriptions of their games (May A. W. and her sister, girls after my own heart, made royal courts of roses and begonias, and beheaded the courtiers whenever they grew tiresome), but I'm not sure there will be enough to talk about Imagination and the Creative Drive - mostly it's pets and games.
Lastly: from the October 1890 issue, a photo by Wallace G. Levison, "Taken of the Fly." I thought it quite lovely.
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no subject
Date: 2011-01-09 07:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-14 09:08 pm (UTC)I know about St. Nicholas because so many poets got their start there--I think I remember it from Savage Beauty especially... (a totally wonderful biography about Edna St. Vincent Millay.) It sounds like a lot of fun to read!
no subject
Date: 2011-01-14 09:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-15 12:02 am (UTC)The project has two components: first, I argue that a new literary archetype for girls came into existence around the turn of the century - starting in the 1870s and flowering around 1900 - more active heroines who aren't as saintly as those earlier in the century (think Anne of Green Gables as opposed to Beth March).
And the second part of the project is, to what extent did this new literary archetype reflect actual changes in middle- and upper-class girlhood?
I already did most of the work for the first part last year, so I can explain it more fully. The second part is the focus this term.
And there's also stuff about "How did this relate to the New Woman?" and "To what extent was this an international phenomenon?" and "What were the repercussions of these changes?" but I don't even know what I'm going to do with that.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-15 03:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-14 11:56 pm (UTC)