A collection that examines the global phenomenon of the Modern Girl that emerged in the 1920s and 30s.

Acknowledgments ix

1. The Modern Girl as Heuristic Device: Collaboration, Connective Comparison, Multidirectional Citation / The Modern Girl Around the World Research Group (Alys Eve Weinbaum, Lynn M. Thomas, Priti Ramamurthy, Uta G. Poiger, Madeleine Y. Dong, and Tani E. Barlow) 1

2. The Modern Girl Around the World: Cosmetics Advertising and the Politics of Race and Style/ The Modern Girl Around the World Research Group (Alys Eve Weinbaum, Lynn M. Thomas, Priti Ramamurthy, Uta G. Poiger, Madeleine Y. Dong, and Tani E. Barlow) 25

3. From the Washtub to the World: Madam C. J. Walker and the "Re-creation" of Race Womanhood, 1900-1935 / Davarian L. Baldwin 55

4. Making the Modern Girl French: From New Woman to Éclaireuse / Mary Louise Roberts 77

5. The Modern Girl and Racial Respectability in 1930s South Africa / Lynn M. Thomas 96

6. Racial Masquerade: Consumption and Contestation of American Modernity / Alys Eve Weinbaum 120

7. All-Consuming Nationalism: The Indian Modern Girl in the 1920s and 1930s / Priti Ramamurthy 147

8. The Dance Class or the Working Class: The Soviet Modern Girl / Anne E. Gorsuch 174

9. Who Is Afraid of the Chinese Modern Girl? / Madeleine Y. Dong 194

10. "Blackfella Missus Too Much Proud": Techniques of Appearing, Femininity, and Race in Australian Modernity / Liz Conor 220

11. The "Modern Girl" Question in the Periphery of Empire: Colonial Modernity and Mobility among Okinawan Women in the 1920s and 1930s / Ruri Ito 240

12. Contesting Consumerisms in Mass Women's Magazines / Barbara Sato 263

13. Buying In: Advertising and the Sexy Modern Girl Icon in Shanghai in the 1920s and 1930s / Tani E. Barlow 288

14. Fantasies of Universality? Neue Frauen, Race, and Nation in Weimer and Nazi Germany / Uta G. Poiger 317

Concluding Commentaries

15. Girls Lean Back Everywhere / Kathy Peiss 347

16. After the Grand Tour: The Modern Girl, the New Woman, and the Colonial Maiden / Miriam Silverberg 354

17. The Modern Girl and Commodity Culture / Timothy Burke 362

Bibliography 371

Contributors 405

Index 409

The Modern Girl Around the World Research Group