100 Years in the Life of an American Girl: True Stories 1910 - 2010

by Suzanne Sherman

Overview

In 1911 Florence gets her first car ride in a Model T her dad buys from a door-to-door car salesman. In Montana in 1930, Helen travels to her one-room school on horseback. In Little Rock, Arkansas, Johnny is bussed to integrate a white school, leaving a neighborhood where "nobody's a stranger unless you make them a stranger." In New York, Victoria goes to Woodstock at 12. In the 1980s Nicole plays Ms. Pac Man at a video arcade. On September 11, Aalaa wakes up to a new world in Michigan and resolves to show her Americanism another way. The fascinating story of a century through the eyes of American girls under age 13 in every decade from 1910 to 2010. In over 50 beautifully crafted narratives, women and young girls born between 1907 and 2001 describe the life and times that are new in every decade and vanishing just as fast. The author collected most of the stories by interview and she retains the girls’ voices as they tell about far more than playing with paper dolls and hearing the first radios open the door to the world. They are dancing in the streets at the end of WW I, climbing trees in a skirt and pantaloons, using the first telephone. They lose Japanese American friends to internment camps and undergo nightly blackouts during WW II. One girl escapes Saigon as a 5-year-old at the end of the Vietnam War to grow up in Dad’s rural Georgia. As the 20th century goes on, American Bandstand gives way to MTV and family life includes single moms and weekend dads, stepfamilies and open adoption. Sex education classes amuse, stress is treated with medication, and the entertainments of the digital age compete with TV. By 2010 girls have role models in leadership and contribute to culture like never before. In 1931 a girl’s big achievement was winning at jacks; in 2009 it was coordinating a National Day of Silence at school. Each chapter includes fun pop culture highlights — did you know peppermint Life Savers were inspired by the life saving devices used in the Titanic disaster of 1912? — and a short history of the decade’s events in politics, education, medicine, technology and entertainment. Girls’ culture reflects the bigger picture of change from the 20th to the 21st century. These voices of girlhood from different races and classes show American culture at its truest as they describe life-altering inventions and shifting social codes across ten decades. They reveal what’s universal and what’s unique about social challenges and racial prejudices, desires and disappointments, hopes and losses. It’s history in motion powered by the personal. 100 Years in the Life of an American Girl is an entertaining and eye-opening look at a century of life. Whatever your age or gender, you’ll learn about yourself, your children, your mothers, your grandmothers. You’ll learn about the country in ways that were never taught in school. Free from the influences that shape adulthood, young girls have their fingers on the pulse of culture. In a book group? Discussion questions are featured at the end of the book.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780990452713
Publisher:	SZS Publishing
Publication date:	12/07/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	315
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Suzanne Sherman's new book series, 100 Years in the Life, is inspired in part by the thousands of memoirs she has shepherded in her thirty-year career as a memoir teacher, consultant, and editor (www.suzannesherman.com). 100 Years in the Life of an American Girl is the first book in that series. Visit www.100yearsinthelife.com for more and find out how you can submit your story to a planned book in the series.

Table of Contents

CONTENTS
A Note to the Reader. Chapter 1: 1910s-Big Savage Mountain, Mary Kent, Frostburg, Maryland; Chasing Horse-Drawn Fire Engines, Mary Ann Natly, New York City; Crank Up the Model T!, Florence Smith, Dayton, Ohio; The Pink Parasol, Emma Thomas, Eau Claire, Wisconsin: The Appetizing Store, Mary Bragman, Brooklyn, New York; When Johnny Comes Marching Home, Beulah Teraveinen, Gustine, California. Chapter 2: 1920s-Tomboy, Julia Murray, Napoleon, Ohio; Here Come the Talkies, Lois Patterson, Santa Rosa, California; Tagging Along, Charlotte Oram, East Chicago, Indiana; Fog City, Natalie Christensen, San Francisco, California, Hamburger Stand, Patricia Dunn, Coles County, Illinois; Avenue of the Giants, Marna Stansberry, Humboldt County, California; Outside Town, Adrien Avis, Grants Pass, Oregon. Chapter 3: 1930s-Rich Little Poor Girl, Dorothy Lockett Hansen, Norman, Oklahoma; The Medicine Cabinet, Joyce Cass, San Francisco, California; Big Sky Country, Helen Gilstrap, Columbus, Montana; FDR Makes an Impression, Dorothy Anderson, Sunbury, Pennsylvania; Where She'll Always Stay, Joan Childress Muhlstein, Henderson, Kentucky; Pond Monkeys, Jo Ann Miller, Delleker, California. Chapter 4: 1940s-Wartime on the West Coast, Sharon Porter Moxley, Eureka, California; Pucker Up!, Barbara Friedman Ramrus, Mount Vernon, New York; Quaker Views, Elspeth Benton, Madison, Wisconsin, Flour Bombs, Linnie Sternik, Westchester County, New York; No Wonder We Behaved, Lenore Pimental, Brooklyn, New York, At the Top of Saddleback Ridge, Elizabeth Robinson, South-Central Pennsylvania.
Chapter 5: 1950s-The Old South, Belva Carole Lamb, Savannah, Georgia; In the Heartland, Shannon Rose, Wyoming, Michigan; Endless Summer, Lorna Penland Hernandez, Pensacola, Florida; American Bandstand, Linda Ann Jung Wong, Dallas, Texas; Townie Girl, Chris (Linda) Archambault, Le Mars, Iowa. Chapter 6: 1960s-Woodstock, Victoria Lester, Long Island, New York; Survival Rules, Johnny Gilbert, Little Rock, Arkansas; Tales of a Triplet, Shoshana Frieden, Sharon, Massachusetts; California Dreamin', Suzanne Sherman, Los Angeles, California; We Were the Bird Dogs, Adrienne Raker, Maryville, Arizona; What's Important to You?, Susan Aaron, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Chapter 7: 1970s-Black Lights and Lava Lamps, Kim Fusch, Dallas, Texas; After Saigon Fell, Terri Ann Smith, Funston, Georgia, Island Life, Jennifer Lei Bowen, Moloka'i, Hawaii; Wheat Country, Michele Moore, Oakley, Kansas; The Cold War, Janet Snow, Yonkers, New York; The American Dream, Angela Lam Turpin, San Jose, California. Chapter 8: 1980s-Gen X Poster Child, Jenny Isenman, Baltimore, Maryland; Ms. Pac-Man Is IT!, Nicole Bivens, Little Rock, Arkansas; Stuck Between Two Cultures, Amy Lam, Bronx, New York; White-Bread Cowboy Country, Rachel Nixon, Rohnert Park, California. Chapter 9: 1990s-Boom Dynamite!, Brianna Bonzheim, Grandville, Michigan; Daughter of the Second Wave, Elsa Evans, Jenner, California; Pop Star, Jordan Galvan, Houston, Texas; Born Vegetarian, Risa Bailey Rubin, Los Angeles, California; The Kenney Ridge Land Girls, Fiona Sheehan, Athens, Georgia. Chapter 10: 2000s-This I Believe, Marina Rose Sherman, Berkeley, California; Stay Strong, Dylanne White, Petaluma, California; The Hat Collector, Clare MacKenzie Walsh, Yarmouth, Maine; Only Child with a Big Family, Kaya Stitzhal, Seattle, Washington; I Am Home, Aalaa Albaroudi, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Acknowledgments. Questions for Discussion. Photo Credits.

Editorial Reviews

Sherman (Lesbian and Gay Marriage, 1992) taught memoir writing for many years. Many of these entries were written by her students, while others were adapted from interviews with women and girls from diverse cultural, geographical, racial, and class backgrounds. Sherman asked her interviewees about their first 13 years and specifically about their experiences with family, school, friendships, and play; other topics include "racism, divorce, [and] being 'different.' " Readers will see the differences, similarities, and connections within and across decades as they compare and contrast other childhoods with their own. Each chapter has a useful introduction explaining the historical characteristics of a particular decade, including its newest products, books, and similar artifacts, and the 10 most popular girls' names. There's much food for thought here, whether readers focus on a single decade or trace themes over time, such as the immigrant experience, how appliances have eased household chores, or how expectations regarding girls' dress, schooling, and careers have changed. Some cultural experiences serve as common touchstones through the years (such as reading Louisa May Alcott's works); others are very much of their time, such as accompanying the iceman on his deliveries. Overall, the contributions are wonderfully lively and vivid. Here, Florence Smith-5 years old in 1911-describes the excitement of her family buying the first Model T on the block: "Neighbors up the street came outside to see us, and they waved as we passed. My mother was laughing and hugging my father as we bounced along and I was feeling the air move through my fingers with both hands held up." Readers inclined to take modernity for granted will find much here to surprise and interest them. As the first in a planned series of "100 Years in the Life" books, it also has great classroom potential with its discussion questions. A useful sourcebook and an entertaining read. -KIRKUS REVIEWS

"I love this book! Informative, fun and illuminating!"-Linda Joy Myers, Author and President of the National Association of Memoir Writers

"This powerful collection of personal stories weaves the American experience like I've never seen done before."-Susan Hagen, co-author of Women at Ground Zero

Here are memories of the look of the flag waving over a victory bonfire on Nov 11, 1918; the sounds of a horse drawn rag and bone cart in San Francisco; a girl treasuring a penny flattened by the wheels of FDR's campaign train, the look of the San Gabriel Mountains as my own mother would have seen them in the 1940s. Here are principled children trying to save the world in their own ways, and playful kids beguiled by the million toys the silicon chip brought them.-Richard von Busack

I wasn't born in this country so in addition to being a very interesting read, these stories provided me with unique and intimate snapshots of American history. Author Suzanne invites her readers to "Have fun time-traveling." I certainly did!-Sarah Halligan

In the first four to five decades of the book, I was revisiting aspects of my grandmother's stories and my mother's stories. Then I was revisiting some of my own experiences during the 60s and 70s, and finally I was revisiting some of those of my son's (and his friends) during the 1980s and 1990s. It is oral history at its very best. It is memoir, and, as good memoir should be, it is also story. Like art, it is something of more than ordinary significance.-Ella Wong

I love this book! Once I started it, I couldn't put it down until I finished it, and then I put it on a shelf reserved for books that I intend to read again (and possibly again and again).-Norma Borelli

I wish this book was in every school; the historical perspective and the personal stories weave together to create a complex and fascinating tapestry.-Mary Carouba

From the Publisher

2015-07-02
This nonfiction collection offers more than 50 entertaining, informative memoir pieces about American girlhood from 1910 to 2010.Sherman (Lesbian and Gay Marriage, 1992) taught memoir writing for many years. Many of these entries were written by her students, while others were adapted from interviews with women and girls from diverse cultural, geographical, racial, and class backgrounds. Sherman asked her interviewees about their first 13 years and specifically about their experiences with family, school, friendships, and play; other topics include "racism, divorce, [and] being ‘different.' " Readers will see the differences, similarities, and connections within and across decades as they compare and contrast other childhoods with their own. Each chapter has a useful introduction explaining the historical characteristics of a particular decade, including its newest products, books, and similar artifacts, and the 10 most popular girls' names. There's much food for thought here, whether readers focus on a single decade or trace themes over time, such as the immigrant experience, how appliances have eased household chores, or how expectations regarding girls' dress, schooling, and careers have changed. Some cultural experiences serve as common touchstones through the years (such as reading Louisa May Alcott's works); others are very much of their time, such as accompanying the iceman on his deliveries. Overall, the contributions are wonderfully lively and vivid. Here, Florence Smith—5 years old in 1911—describes the excitement of her family buying the first Model T on the block: "Neighbors up the street came outside to see us, and they waved as we passed. My mother was laughing and hugging my father as we bounced along and I was feeling the air move through my fingers with both hands held up." Readers inclined to take modernity for granted will find much here to surprise and interest them. As the first in a planned series of "100 Years in the Life" books, it also has great classroom potential with its discussion questions. A useful sourcebook and an entertaining read.

Kirkus Reviews