Female Adolescence in American Scientific Thought, 1830–1930

DeLuzio... breaks new ground in her assiduous examination of the relationship between science and society by using age and gender as dynamically connected categories of analysis... A broad cross-section of scholars is likely to find DeLuzio's 'essay on sources' particularly valuable for future research.

Deluzio skillfully weaves together social history and the intellectual history of science to show how ideas about age, drawn from nineteenth century views of social progress, intertwined with explanations of gender differences to construct the adolescent girl... This complex book will be the standard reference for those who want to know the scientific origins of modern perspectives on adolescent development.

Female Adolescence in American Scientific Thought addresses historians of childhood, medicine, and human science, but scholars of women and gender will also find it valuable.

A major contribution to many overlapping fields of scholarship—the history of childhood, women, developmental psychology, and education. It displays remarkable erudition and promises to substantially deepen our understanding of the contribution of social scientists in constructing the representation of adolescent girls in the past two centuries.

It is interdisciplinary history at its best and, I might add, 'gendered' history at its finest... It makes an original contribution to the nearly constant struggle by historians (and parents, for that matter) to define, explain, and understand the construction of youth and adolescence in American life.