Books for the Young by Caroline Hewins
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Rebekah Fitzsimmons
Abstract
Children’s literature was formally distinguished as a distinct category of literature during the Progressive Era in the United States, largely through the work of professional “book women” like children’s librarians, publishers, and teachers. This chapter examines one of the first attempts to formalize a selection of existing literature into a canon of children’s books, the 1882 pamphlet Books for the Young by Caroline M. Hewins. While this booklist is widely acknowledged by children’s literature scholars to be a major milestone in the formation of the field, the actual texts that comprise the list are understudied. In this chapter, we analyze the corpus of books named in this list by applying rhetorical tagging and focusing on the subset of books designated by Hewins for specific gendered readership (i.e. books especially for boys and especially for girls). We argue that Hewins assigns a narrower scope of text types to the category of books girls will like, which sets a precedent for future gendering of readership for the field of children’s literature well into the 20th century.
Abstract
Children’s literature was formally distinguished as a distinct category of literature during the Progressive Era in the United States, largely through the work of professional “book women” like children’s librarians, publishers, and teachers. This chapter examines one of the first attempts to formalize a selection of existing literature into a canon of children’s books, the 1882 pamphlet Books for the Young by Caroline M. Hewins. While this booklist is widely acknowledged by children’s literature scholars to be a major milestone in the formation of the field, the actual texts that comprise the list are understudied. In this chapter, we analyze the corpus of books named in this list by applying rhetorical tagging and focusing on the subset of books designated by Hewins for specific gendered readership (i.e. books especially for boys and especially for girls). We argue that Hewins assigns a narrower scope of text types to the category of books girls will like, which sets a precedent for future gendering of readership for the field of children’s literature well into the 20th century.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgments vii
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Part 1. DocuScope and computational rhetoric
- The DocuScope project 2
- Introduction and overview to the volume 25
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Part 2. Variation across academic disciplines and contexts
- DocuScope, multi-dimensional analysis, and student writing 42
- Narrative writing from users-in-the-wild 79
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Part 3. Writing pedagogy, access and equity
- Language patterns in secondary and postsecondary student writing 94
- Understanding social justice features in statistics writing 119
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Part 4. Rhetorically informed models of social interaction
- Public policy research applications of DocuScope’s linguistic taxonomy 148
- Be positive 167
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Part 5. Professional writing/professional genres
- DocuScope Write & Audit as an early feedback machine in genre-based writing 192
- From technical reporter to personal guide 214
-
Part 6. Mining history
- Strategic language as a family of identity-based discourse registers 240
- Books for the Young by Caroline Hewins 264
- Name index 287
- Subject index 291
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgments vii
-
Part 1. DocuScope and computational rhetoric
- The DocuScope project 2
- Introduction and overview to the volume 25
-
Part 2. Variation across academic disciplines and contexts
- DocuScope, multi-dimensional analysis, and student writing 42
- Narrative writing from users-in-the-wild 79
-
Part 3. Writing pedagogy, access and equity
- Language patterns in secondary and postsecondary student writing 94
- Understanding social justice features in statistics writing 119
-
Part 4. Rhetorically informed models of social interaction
- Public policy research applications of DocuScope’s linguistic taxonomy 148
- Be positive 167
-
Part 5. Professional writing/professional genres
- DocuScope Write & Audit as an early feedback machine in genre-based writing 192
- From technical reporter to personal guide 214
-
Part 6. Mining history
- Strategic language as a family of identity-based discourse registers 240
- Books for the Young by Caroline Hewins 264
- Name index 287
- Subject index 291
