Mischief and Punishment: The Rhetoric of Girlhood in Sophie May’s Little Prudy Series, 1864-1868

In this paper, I am concerned with how mid-nineteenth-century children’s literature in the United States rhetorically constructed girlhood as a means for developing, teaching, and cementing dominant ideas regarding the formation of a healthy nation through the ideals of the republican family. In particular, I analyze Rebecca Sophia Clarke’s children’s book series Little Prudy, which was published between 1864 and 1868 under the pen name Sophie May. I argue that this series’ treatment of girlhood demonstrates one of the mechanisms through which the shift in the representation of dominant girlhood in this period from an overtly moralistic innocence to an unquestionably natural innocence occurred. I contend that this series participates in this representational shift by connecting a familiar moralistic and didactic narrative structure with the supposedly natural mischievous behavior of young children. That is, innocence is no longer demonstrated through a girl’s innate angelic behavior, but through her ability to learn those preferred behaviors and, eventually, work toward crafting those behaviors in others. In particular, Clarke deploys a narrative structure that is typical of children’s literature in the period and relies primarily on didactic lessons, or modeling. These lessons are contrived almost entirely through the interrelated tropes of mischief and punishment—the girls in the series misbehave and are then reprimanded accordingly. This back and forth between mischievous and corrected behavior not only delineates the behaviors “appropriate” to girlhood but also demonstrates how girls are meant to grow into the moral and emotional caregivers of the republican family, thus perpetuating its values across generations. Additionally, I consider how these tropes of mischief and punishment are complicated by class, race, immigration status, and religion in ways that work to construct the ideal girl as a white, middle-class, Protestant New Englander. Those who do not or cannot learn to conform to these boundaries of girlhood are stigmatized and denied access to the category of the ideal girl—a denial which ultimately works to limit who and what can matter for the construction of the republican family and, thus, the nation.