Girlhood: Magazines and Print Culture

Girlhood: Magazines and Print Culture is a digitized collection of magazines, periodicals, annuals, comics, and zines that were written for girls, teenagers, and young women during the long 20th century and early 21st century. It includes titles published in Australia, the U.K., and the U.S., including highlights such as The Girl's Own Paper, American Girl (published by Girl Scouts of America), Honey, Dolly, and Tiger Beat. 

Commercial publications illuminate the social, cultural, and political changes that girls and young women experienced, and they also show how girls and young women were treated as a consumer market in the U.S. and in British Commonwealth countries. Zines in this collection, which date from the 1990s through early 2000s, focus on feminist themes and show how their authors viewed themselves and wrote for their peers; many zines in this collection are aligned with the Riot Grrrl movement. Most of the zines were sourced from The Women's Library at the London School of Economics. 

The collection also demonstrates how cultural attitudes toward women's roles have changed over time, and some items in the collection may include views or terminology now considered to be outdated, biased, or offensive. Essays and video interviews with scholars help to contextualize the collection.

The digitized materials in this collection were sourced from local and national libraries and archives across the UK, US and Australia, including:

• Bowling Green State University
• British Library
• Future PLC
• Liverpool John Moores University
• London School of Economics and Political Science
• State Library of New South Wales

Rutgers has access to Modules I & II on this platform.