Victorian Periodicals Review

Abstract:

Political girlhood was an important, but previously overlooked, feature of the fin de siècle girls' periodical press. In the Girl's Own Paper and the Girl's Realm, the "political girl" existed alongside other incarnations of the "new girl." Together with adult-authored informative and fiction pieces, correspondence pages and "how-to" columns encouraged girl readers' active engagement with empire and parliamentary politics. Youth gave preadolescent girls freedom to express their political and imperial identities through play. Uncovering examples that appear to jar with the dominant tone of these journals, this essay nuances assumptions that girls' periodical literature and lived experiences were necessarily apolitical.