The Treatment of Childhood In Autobiographies Of Twentieth Century American Women

Abstract

In order to investigate the perspectives autobiography--a formally shaped first person account of all or part of an individual's own life--brings to the study of female American childhood, over one hundred autobiographies written by American women (most were born after 1890) were surveyed, in addition to numerous works on the nature of autobiography, sex-role formation, women's history, and childhood development and history.

Both the thesis and conclusion of this study is that identification and analysis of what autobiographers specify as having shaped themselves, as well as investigation into the factors that shape a particular view of self, provide data from which to draw valid inferences and generalizations about the experience of childhood, if that data is scrutinized with an awareness of its limitations.

Chapters 2-5 deal with the four topics which emerged from study of the work of twentieth century American female autobiographers about the nature of childhood and follow a similar organizational pattern. Each chapter begins with a general introduction to the topic of the chapter, drawing upon a variety of autobiographies and other sources for examples. Then each chapter extensively analyzes from 2-4 autobiographies in which the main concern of the chapter is embodied. These analyses are followed by brief observations.

Works extensively analyzed are as follows: Ch. 2, "Recreating the 'Feel' of Childhood"--Seven Houses: A Memoir of Time and Places by Josephine Johnson, How Dear To My Heart by Emily Kimbrough, A Quaker Childhood by Helen Whitall Thomas Flexner; Ch. 3, "Role Models"--I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, Blackberry Winter by Margaret Mead; Ch. 4, "The Development of Sex Roles"--The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston, Fifth Chinese Daughter by Jade Snow Wong; Ch. 5, "Success in Leaving Home"--Looking Back by Joyce Maynard, Home to the Wilderness by Sally Carrighar, Facts of Life by Maureen Howard, The Hearthstone of My Heart by Elizabeth Borton de Trevino.