All-American Girls: Belonging, Feminism, and the New American Identity in the Faith and Freedom Readers

Identifier

85

Author

Katherine Mary Hanna

Date

2016

Document Type

Honors Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Major

History

Committee Chair

William Christopher Johnson

Abstract

This thesis analyzes the Faith and Freedom Readers, a series of elementary-level textbooks used in Catholic parochial schools in the second half of the twentieth century. The thesis argues that the authors of the textbooks (a mixture of Catholic laywomen and female religious) used the creation of this series as an opportunity to re-imagine a new American identity for their young Catholic audience. This new American identity had four major characteristics: it was white (but, crucially, non-WASP), Catholic, feminist (to a degree), and transnational.

Comments

Undergraduate Honor's Thesis

Library Comment

Honors thesis originally submitted to the Local University of Memphis Honor’s Thesis Repository.

Recommended Citation

Hanna, Katherine Mary, "All-American Girls: Belonging, Feminism, and the New American Identity in the Faith and Freedom Readers" (2016). Honors Theses. 49.
https://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/honors_theses/49