Rutgers-Camden Historian Establishes Career Novel’s Role in Teen Fiction Canon

A New Genre for Nancy

At one moment or another, women who juggle work life and home life may have longed for a book with all the answers on how to balance career and family, even if it’s fiction. From 1910 to around 1960 such books existed, in the hundreds.

Publishers of the career novel in the U.S. and U.K. brought forth a cast of female characters in various professions that navigated with zest women’s newer options of employment amidst traditional feminine obligations. Who wouldn’t find solace, and perhaps inspiration, from Roxanne Industrial Nurse, Air Hostess Ann and Clare in Television?

That these works are now part of a definitive genre can be credited to Rutgers–Camden historian Nancy Rosoff and British colleague Stephanie Spencer, who has written about British career novels in her book Gender Work and Education in Britain in the 1950s (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).

Rosoff and Spencer have teamed to chronicle the impact of these novels on generations of readers and make important connections between works on both sides of the Atlantic.

The two have published their findings in Women’s History Magazine and have presented at various international conferences, including the Women’s History Network conference, the UK History of Education Society, the Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, and the Society for the History of Children and Youth in New York.

According to Rosoff, the associate dean for University College and academic affairs for the Rutgers–Camden Faculty of Arts and Sciences, this hidden subgenre of teenage fiction offers tremendous insight into the informal education of girls. A challenge has been actually finding the books. From locating the publishers to finding actual copies to reading them to be sure the narrative fits the formula – girl from middleclass background gets schooled on specific kind of work and women’s unique role in it, with a dash of romance included – has been its own story.  

“Sometimes you can determine from the title if the book is a career novel,” explains Rosoff, who has been working with book dealers in the U.S. and U.K., publishers, and libraries like the British Library in London and the Bodleian in Oxford to locate the suspected 300 books. “Some of them look as if they might be career novels, but then evolve into adventure, mystery, or even romance novels. We’re looking for specific patterns and examples of prescriptive literature, works that tell readers how to behave. In this case, it’s how to be both professional and feminine.”

To help advance this extensive project, which the two intend to publish as a book, Rosoff holds an honorary research fellowship at the University of Winchester in the U.K., where Spencer is head of the Centre for the History of Women’s Education. In her second year in this position, Rosoff mentors PhD students within the Centre to broaden the international scope of the research being conducted and has presented her research on campus.

“The election of Dr. Rosoff as honorary research fellow gives due recognition to the Transatlantic dimension she brings to research in the Faculty. Her research continues to enhance the project on Transnational Femininities for Teenage Girls in the United Kingdom and the United States, 1910-1960,” comments Joyce Goodman, dean of the University of Winchester’s Faculty of Education, Health and Social Care.

According to Spencer, Rosoff’s expertise in the history of women’s sport and education has already contributed toward the work of the Centre. “She has dedicated significant time and energy here, so it was more than fitting for us to provide her with a proper academic base in the UK from which to pursue this important project,” remarks Spencer.

The papers the two have been presenting all over the world are designed to be chapters in the forthcoming book. “We are getting more sophisticated in our analyses,” says Rosoff. “We are able to make connections that we had hoped to find.”

Rosoff has long been preoccupied with rules of conduct put upon women. In fact, her very first undergraduate seminar paper at Mount Holyoke college was an analysis of Catharine Beecher’s A Treatise on Domestic Economy and her other research interests address the history of women and sports, particularly how athletic women were depicted in popular culture.

“I feel extremely honored to have this opportunity to develop further my relationships and research in a nation that has become a second home to me. No matter where you live, women have been given official and unofficial codes of conduct and to move forward fully it’s important to know what messages are being conveyed. This decades-old dilemma of balancing work and family remains a contemporary issue for many women.”

Rosoff earned her graduate degree in history at West Chester University and her doctoral degree from Temple University. In addition to her administrative role as associate dean at Rutgers–Camden, she teaches honors seminars like “British Popular Culture: Past and Present”; “Ball Four, Title IX, and Holes-in-One: Sports and Society in Contemporary and Historical Perspective” and “From Martha Ballard to Martha Stewart: Domestic Advice and Experience in the United States” as well as various research colloquiums in the graduate history program.

 

Media Contact: Cathy K. Donovan
(856) 225-6627
E-mail: catkarm@camden.rutgers.edu