Black Girlhood in the Nineteenth Century (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780252040573)

Long portrayed as a masculine endeavor, the African American struggle for progress often found expression through an unlikely literary figure: the black girl. Nazera Sadiq Wright uses heavy archival research on a wide range of texts about African American girls to explore this understudied phenomenon.

As Wright shows, the figure of the black girl in African American literature provided a powerful avenue for exploring issues like domesticity, femininity, and proper conduct. The characters' actions, however fictional, became a rubric for African American citizenship and racial progress. At the same time, their seeming dependence and insignificance allegorized the unjust treatment of African Americans. Wright reveals fascinating girls who, possessed of a premature knowing and wisdom beyond their years, projected a courage and resiliency that made them exemplary representations of the project of racial advance and citizenship.

Author: Nazera Sadiq Wright
ISBN-10: 0252040570
ISBN-13: 9780252040573
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Language: English
Published: 09/08/2016
Pages: 256
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.15lbs
Size: 9.30h x 6.30w x 0.90d