Delinquent Daughters

“A wonderfully rich and vibrant account of the complex relationships between moral reformers, state officials, adolescent girls, and their working-class families. . . . A highly readable, lively, and accessible work.” — American Journal of Legal History

“A rich narrative work that is attentive to issues of gender, ethnicity, race, and class.” — Journal of Social History

“Odem’s important book provides a model for the study of state institutions and issues of social control . . . . The complexity and the clarity of argument, the detailed research, and the compelling narrative make this a book that could, and should, be read by the beginner and the expert in a variety of fields.” — CHOICE

“Rejecting simple models of social control, Odem skillfully shows how groups with different cultural orientations and agendas — white middle-class women, immigrant and working-class parents, judges, and police — joined together in efforts to restrict adolescent women’s sexuality and autonomy.” — Journal of American History

“Delinquent Daughters tells an ironic, even tragic, human story set in the Progressive era which has resonance for our own time. Odem’s account of the struggles of teenage girls for personal integrity and choice, their parents for strong family relations, and women reformers for more humane systems of justice, shows us people who sometimes achieved their goals but who sometimes ended in hurting the people they most wanted to help. As we think freshly about juvenile justice and social policy, this book should be most welcome.” — Linda K. Kerber, coeditor of U.S. History as Women’s History: New Feminist Essays