Writing the Girl: Identity Construction, Resistance through Consumption Fall 2010, Dr. Almjeld Representation of Girlhood

Composing herself - Women, particularly, have long used “writing” to explore, script roles in society (commonplace books, scrapbooks, autograph albums, notepassing, scrapbooks) -Most often these texts reinforced culturally defined gender roles

Composing “her”story - Commonplace books - Kenneth Lockridge, Susan Miller -Scrapbooking - Patricia Buckler, Andy Steiner Quilting, knitting, sewing, etc. -Autograph albums - (girls writing identity in community) -Margaret Finders’ Just Girls: The Hidden Literacies and Life in Junior High and Mary Pipher’s Reviving Ophelia and Sara Shandler’s Ophelia Speaks

Commonplace books - Use mass produced images and text -Appropriated things from society for their own use

Scrapbooking In the beginning: -Peaked in popularity in 1990s -Is done in 20% of American households -Leading company is Creative Memories out of St. Cloud MN in Has given birth to several businesses - Web sites, stores, mail order

Materiality of memory -Andy Steiner of Bitch magazine compares scrapbooking to quilting bees of the past -Highly social -Is traditionally gendered

Modern scrappers, commonplaces -Helps make sense of their lives -Fulfils need to record (serves as mnemonic device)

Fightin’ the Power -Scrapbooks celebrate and document dominant culture -But some scrapbookers have appropriated genre as sight of resistance

One woman’s bricolage -Questions gender roles, religion, social customs, future - not just past

Crafting her future