Description
This book is about the Cook County Juvenile Court in Chicago and the way that it tried to deal with delinquents. The court was created in the early 20th century and was focused on girls who were considered to be incorrigible. The book uses different sources, including legal documents, state bureaucrats, and the girls themselves, to tell the story of how the court was seen by different parties in the city. The book argues that the court was important in the development of America because it showed how the state was trying to deal with a changing society.
Working in a tradition established by pioneering historians like Kathy Preiss, Lizabeth Cohen, and George Chauncey, Ann Meis Knupfer has written the first thorough study of the Cook County Juvenile Court in Chicago, one of the myriad Progressive initiatives designed to impose order on an increasingly diverse turn-of-the-century American city. From its inception the Court concerned itself primarily with "incorrigible" girls - those young (often immigrant or African-American) women caught riding in a closed automobile, loitering in a department store, or shimmying on the dance floor. Knupfer approaches encounters between delinquents and this new arm of the state as a series of narratives promulgated by legal operatives, state bureaucrats, female social workers, and the girls themselves. Using the elastic term "delinquency" as their canvas, these parties painted conflicting portraits of modernizing America. They told stories about the emergence of the state, the gendered nature of professionalism, the dangers (and promise) of consumer culture, and the possibility of pluralism. Combining rigorous research with passionate writing,
Reform and Resistance provides a unique examination of adolescence, sex, delinquency, race, and gender.
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