Pink and Blue: Telling the Boys from the Girls in America
Pink and Blue: Telling the Boys from the Girls in America is a 2012 book by Jo B. Paoletti, published by Indiana University Press.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/b8/Pink_and_Blue_Book.jpg/220px-Pink_and_Blue_Book.jpg)
The book is about the shift into gendered clothing for very young children in the beginning of the 20th Century.[1] The beginning of the book's survey is 1885.[2] It also includes the 1960s-circa 1985 trend of gender neutral clothing and the gendered clothing that came after it.[3] The endpoint of its coverage was the year prior to publication.[2]
The book has 139 pages. Rob Shoreman of Miami University characterized that number as making the book "slim".[3]
Background
editThe author joined the faculty of the University of Maryland in 1976 (department of Textiles and Consumer Economics) and retired from the department of American Studies in 2017.[4]
The author consulted primary sources (extant garments, papers dolls, retail catalogs, and baby records) in addition to secondary sources in multiple fields.[3]
Reception
editShoreman stated that the book's writing style was cogent and that the work is "an illuminating read in its own right."[3]
Tanfer Emin Tunc of Hacettepe University wrote that due to the complexity of the task of forming a "cohesive narrative" about how clothing for young children evolved, she stated the book's attempt was "The strength, and simultaneously the main weakness."[5]
References
edit- Jackson, Kathy Merlock (2012). "Pink and Blue: Telling the Boys from the Girls in America". Journal of American Culture. 35 (3): 280. doi:10.1111/j.1542-734X.2012.813_5.x. ProQuest 1086328846. - Also available from Wiley Online Library
- Meadows, Michelle (2012). "Pink and Blue: Telling the Boys from the Girls in America". Journal of Family and Consumer Sciences. 104 (3): 57–58. ProQuest 1115592049.
- Shoreman, Rob (Autumn 2013). "Pink and Blue: Telling the Boys from the Girls in America by Jo B. Paoletti (review)". Register of the Kentucky Historical Society. 111 (4). Kentucky Historical Society: 622–623. doi:10.1353/khs.2014.0003. S2CID 162211342.
- Tunc, Tanfer Emin (2013-02-18). "Pink and Blue: Telling the Boys from the Girls in America. Jo B., Paoletti. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012. 169 pp. $25.00 cloth". Journal of Popular Culture. 46: 225–228. doi:10.1111/jpcu.12022_4.
Notes
editFurther reading
edit- Ingraham, Janet (2012). "Paoletti, Jo B.: Pink and Blue: Telling the Boys from the Girls in America". Library Journal. 137 (3): 118.
External links
edit- Pink and blue : telling the boys from the girls in America. - Available on the Internet Archive