Little Women, Good Wives: Victorian Constructions of Womanhood in the Girl’s Own Annual 1927

The Girl’s Own Annual 1927 displays a distinctly Victorian construction of womanhood which was at odds with the views of ‘modern’ girls in the 1920s. This article examines the tensions created by these differing social expectations and focuses on the intergenerational debate about the role of women in work and marriage. It suggests that the magazine’s aim was consistent with government policy at the time and represents a last ditch effort to influence and control the behaviour of a rebellious generation, in an attempt to restore the prewar social order.