Tomboys: a literary and cultural history

Introduction: From antebellum hoyden to millennial girl power : the unwritten history (and hidden history) of tomboyism as in the United States

The white tomboy launches a gender backlash : E.D.E.N. Southworth's The hidden hand

The tomboy becomes a cultural phenomenon : Louisa May Alcott's Little women

The tomboy matures into the new woman : Sarah Orne Jewett's A country doctor

The tomboy is reinvented as the exercise enthusiast : Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland

The tomboy becomes the all-Americanizing girl : Willa Cather's O pioneers! and My Antonia

The tomboy shifts from feminist to flapper : Clara Bow in Victor Fleming's Hula

The tomboy turns freakishly queer and queerly freakish : Carson McCullers's The member of the wedding

The tomboy becomes the "odd girl out" : Ann Bannon's Women in the shadows

The tomboy returns to Hollywood : Tatum O'Neal in Peter Bogdanovich's Paper moon

Epilogue: The tomboy finally "comes into the light" : transformations to white feminism, the emergence of whiteness studies and the end of racialized white tomboyism.