From Birdwomen to Skygirls: American Girls' Aviation Stories.

摘要

Fred Erisman's lively and engaging study explores girls' aviation novels within the context of the evolution of the aviation industry. These technological formula stories "strove to present, explain, and interpret the marvels that twentieth-century technology was bringing about" (p. 7). What makes the girls' novels so interesting, as opposed to the boys' books, are the often conflicting messages they conveyed, messages embedded "in a matrix of shifting American attitudes towards the place of women in the greater soci- ety" (p. 14). His study documents the intersection of the aviation industry- and women's place within it-with its popular representation. He finds that a set of stories that began as a celebration of female flyers eventually evolved into stewardess stories as the plane became more technologically sophisticated and the country more conservative in its imposition of gender roles.