“The gender segregation of nineteenth-century society reached deep into coeducational high schools. Students may have shared classes and competed for awards, but they were slow to lose their consciousness (if they ever did) that they belonged to two opposing corporate bodies, distinguished by culture and loyalty: the boys and the girls. Such distinctions were often made by teachers and administrators even in grammar schools.
One female letter writer to St. Nicholas noted a divided playground. (‘‘The cherry-trees are on our side, and I like it the best.’’) At Alice Blackwell’s neighborhood grammar school, girls and boys used different staircases (with demerits administered to violators). Jessie Wendover’s grammar school teacher ‘‘sent the girls down in the court to eat their dinner and gave the boys permission to talk and eat for twenty minutes.’’ The same kinds of arrangements in secondary schools allowed for separate girls’ and boys’ floors.
In the early days of Bridgton Academy in North Bridgton, Maine—and surely in many other schools as well—boys and girls sat on opposite sides of the room. Even where girls and boys intermingled freely in the classroom, though, they tended to be segregated in the free parts of the school day. The British observer Sara Burstall, who came to the United States in the 1890s to investigate the American education of girls, observed ‘‘no difference’’ between boys’ and girls’ conduct and freedom in the classroom.
But she noted, ‘‘out of class there seemed to be very little general intercourse—girls speaking to girls, and boys to boys. At recess the sexes are generally separated, the boys occupying the basement, and the girls the upper part of the buildings.’’ The Somerville, Massachusetts, student newspaper, observed, probably caustically, ‘‘We think that rail between the boys’ and girls’ side of the lunch room is quite an institution.’’
Where there were no such administrative separations, girls and boys often segregated themselves and participated in separate activities. Ellen Emerson loved the extraordinary Sanborn School, which she attended following Agassiz School in the late 1850s, in part because ‘‘boys and girls go together which I think is essential to a good school.’’ However, she went on, ‘‘They do not play together. I don’t think that could be done in this generation, but it will in the next, but the girls have at least the recreation of seeing the boys play, and it is a great one.’’
This wistful vision of girls watching boys play, sometimes football, sometimes leapfrog, suggests the distances which separated boys and girls even in this progressive midcentury private school run by the radical abolitionist Franklin Sanborn. And as Burstall reported, such separation did not end in the next generation. When a male classmate died in Jessie Wendover’s school in 1885, girls and boys separately sent flowers, the girls ‘‘in the form of a pillow,’’ the boys, ‘‘a broken pillar of flowers.’’
The same sense of distance between girls and boys was evident in Margaret Tileston’s discussion of interactions between the girls and boys in Salem High School, which still maintained separate classes for boys and girls. Tileston had several brothers, but within the context of her school experience, boys existed in Margaret Tileston’s diary (and in her view of the universe) as alien creatures. She noted a rare encounter that spring: ‘‘A boy sat in the room finishing his examination while we had our French. The girls stared at him as he came in as if he had been some strange animal.’’ Initially, even in coeducational schools, much divided girls and boys, who approached each other warily. In completely coeducational schools, the tone changed, though some divisions between the boys and girls seemed to hold up.
A boy’s description of corridor life in the Brookline, Massachusetts, Sagamore in 1896 noted an innovation in their new school building: ‘‘a roomy, pleasant, well-lighted gathering-place, where the whole school may meet on equal terms at recess.’’ The scene was raucous. The writer turned ‘‘his head just in time to escape a flying waste-basket, used as a foot-ball by some would-be members of next year’s team.’’ Boys with buns in their mouths and cups of chocolate in their hands from the lunch counter were playing leap-frog.
A curtain was lifted at the end of the hall, and a girls’ calisthenics class in ‘‘dainty slippered feet and bloomers’’ ran ‘‘the gauntlet, one after another, not altogether unwillingly,’’ the author concluded, encouraged by boys’ cheers. There was clearly a ‘‘boys’ side’’ and a ‘‘girls’ side.’’ ‘‘Teachers and girls, all eating their lunch and all talking at once, occupy the settees along the wall.’’ There was some fraternizing. ‘‘Several gallant fellows were entertaining groups of girls,’’ the author noted. But it took ‘‘gallantry’’ for boys to cross the line to the girls’ side, so clear, still, was the gender divide.
In fact, gender relations in the Victorian high school often crossed a highly charged field separating two opposing camps. Although a Victorian chivalry might govern official relations between ‘‘the young ladies’’ and other scholars, the open columns of school newspapers, bearing such titles as ‘‘Shavings’’ and ‘‘Scintillations,’’ allowed for ample sparring in an ongoing battle of the sexes. The intensity of that sparring suggests the extent to which coeducational high schools by their nature ended by challenging orthodoxies. Insults appeared in the earliest journals. The handwritten Winchester, Massachusetts, High School Offering of 1861, issued by two female editors, asked, ‘‘Why are the young gentlemen of this school like vessels plying between Boston and New York?’’ The answer: ‘‘Because they are coasters.’’
In 1879 the High School News of Great Falls, New Hampshire, published in two sections, with a ‘‘Supplement’’ from ‘‘The Young Ladies’ Department.’’ As befit their divided school and polarized presentation, the two sides found their best copy in each other. In their fifth issue in May 1879, ‘‘Vox Puellarum’’ (the voice of the girls) rallied her readers: ‘‘Girls, here it is again, a fling at us! can’t we retaliate? I propose ‘diamond cut diamond’ with such editors as ours!’’
Previously, she implied, the boys had made some cracks about the weaknesses of young ladies’ ‘‘anatomical construction.’’ ‘‘The following month . . . we present to them a Hero; again they retort with ‘Our Model Girl’ as if we (the H.S. girls) thought of nothing but promenades and spring styles.’’ Although the boys signed their pieces, such daring talk from young ladies required a pseudonym, and was signed with one. It was not until the 1890s that girls’ full and correct names accompanied their pieces.
Behind the reciprocal digs were some truths. Discipline fell most strenuously on male heads. (‘‘Poor young ladies! Too insignificant to be noticed!’’ commented one columnist on the apparent immunity of girls from punishment.) And boys often had to answer for girls’ relative accomplishments. An 1883 letter from a ‘‘former classmate’’ to the male editor of the Concord, New Hampshire, Comet observed, ‘‘Your success seems to be due in a great part to the literary ability of the fairer sex.’’ The letter writer went on: ‘‘It seems to be a peculiar fact . . . that women are born to rule, and, as in this case, to be among the first to start a paper which is open to the general criticism of the people.’’ The result was that some parries had undeniably violent subtexts.
In 1884, the year after the Comet editor heard of the accomplishments of ‘‘the fairer sex,’’ his successor ran an exchange item. Untitled, it was a first-person poem about the modern schoolgirl. The Comet ran it on the back page as filler. It bragged about schoolgirls’ appearance as ‘‘the handsomest girls of our race/ Superb in form and of exquisite face,’’ who ‘‘dress with perfect, consummate grace.’’ It then referred to their accomplishments, suggesting a critical lack: We know many tongues of living and dead,/In science and fiction we’re very well read:/But we cannot cook meat and cannot make bread,/And we’ve wished many times that we were all dead.
This verse took the common form of the assault on the New Woman, an attack on her lack of domestic accomplishments, managing to avoid fictive murder only by putting the action in the first person and arranging instead for a suicide wish. The compliment was returned in a poem published by the Comet’s successor, the Volunteer, in 1887. Under the title ‘‘Boys! Don’t Read This!’’ came an attack on the cigarette-smoking dandy.
Appealing to the nonreading boy with its sensational title, the poet asked To you who smoke the cigarette (I wonder if you’ve thought it)/Who made this little cigarette?/You only know you bought it./Perhaps some dark Italian,/Or Jew from foreign land,/Rolled up that little cigarette/With greasy, dirty hand. This nativist jab from the hinterlands on the new immigrant workforce was not the point of the poem, however, but only the vehicle to its ultimate pronouncement. But if boys will smoke cigarettes/Although the smoke may choke them,/One consolation still remains—/They kill the boys that smoke them.
Seeping through Victorian niceties, these death wishes illuminate only the obvious: that the gender challenges occurring in the nineteenth-century high school did not come without unleashing considerable unease as well as possibility. To understand the dynamics of this change, it makes sense to trace the action in a number of arenas. As we have seen, girls dominated the academic rankings in most high schools.
They made slower inroads in extracurricular activities, especially in the important male-gendered activities, debate, athletics, and military drill. The awarding of direct political power, in the election of class officers, remained surprisingly uncontested, with boys seemingly the only possibility for class president. The more substantial role of girls in student newspapers, however, was particularly important by virtue of the power this bestowed to influence school opinion.”
- Jane H. Hunter, “High School Culture: Gender and Generation.” in How Young Ladies Became Girls: The Victorian Origins of American Girlhood
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24/SEVEN Dance Convention, Provo, UT: RESULTS
High Scores by Age:
Sidekick Solo
1st: Stella Brinkerhoff-’Fly
2nd: Mila Renae-’Move’
2nd: Sylvie Win Szyndlar-’Rainbow Connection’
3rd: Monaco Gonzales-’B.E.A.T.S’
3rd: Ivy Mcewan-’Dance Like Your Daddy’
3rd: Finley Nielsen-’Make You Feel My Love’
4th: Malia Tuaileva-’Stupid Cupid’
4th: Navie Mees-’Sweet Child’
4th: Melina Blitz-’The Poet Creature’
5th: Avery Van Cott-’Blood, Sweat and Tears’
6th: Brinley Lulloff-’Speaking French’
7th: Naomi Harper-’Speechless’
8th: Penelope Prager-’Here Comes The Sun’
8th: Kai Diaz de Leon-’What A Wonderful World’
9th: Addalyn Daley-’Smallest Light’
10th: Olivia Foote-’It’s Oh So Quiet’
Mini Solo
1st: Ruby Taylor-’I Got It’
2nd: Tiara Sherman-’..And The Things That Remain’
2nd: Ellary Day Szyndlar-’Snow’
3rd: Elsie Sandall-’Almost Gone’
3rd: Tessa Ohran-’Knock 1-2-3′
3rd: Alexis Alvarez-’Welcome Home’
4th: Kylie Lawrence-’Breathe In’
4th: Karyna Majeroni-’Pistolette’
4th: Kendyl Miller-’Stand By Me’
4th: Kalista Greer-’Yesterday’
5th: Reegan Francis-’Just A Girl’
6th: Kate Baker-’I’ll Stand By You’
7th: London Smith-’Feel My Love’
8th: Brielle Maciel-’Lean On Me’
9th: Anistyn Larsen-’Desire’
9th: Addison Price-’We Will Not Give In’
10th: Claire Hansen-’By The Roses’
10th: Esprit Frank-’Grains’
10th: Brooklyn Ward-’Here I Am’
10th: Khloe Douros-’Not About Angels’
10th: Tabitha Nan-’Torn’
10th: Hadlee Heriford-’Unbroken’
10th: Patience Hughes-’Weird People’
Junior Solo
1st: Brooke Toro-’As The Dust Settles’
2nd: Stella Condie-’Go Away’
2nd: Bella Fernandez-’She Was Running’
3rd: Kylie Kaminsky-’Beneath the Surface’
3rd: Mya Tuaileva-’Can’t Unhear’
3rd: Kamri Peterson-’Crawl When You Can’t Walk’
3rd: Colby Rich-’Exhale’
4th: Taylor Harrison-’Dawn Chorus’
4th: Makaia Roux-’Everything I Wanted’
4th: Abbi Francis-’Feel It Still’
5th: Kortlynn Rosenbaugh-’Concentration’
5th: Victoria Johnson-’Genius’
5th: Brooke Dubbs-’I Know’
5th: Seren Carter-’Natural’
5th: Alita Kneeland-’Spine’
6th: Lena Hirsch-’Forsaken’
6th: Bosco Wong-’Malaguana’
6th: Vivienne Mitchell-’Metamorphosis’
6th: Blakely Bell-’Shifting’
7th: Caroline McGowan-’Everything Evaporates’
7th: Amaya Llewellyn-’Must’
7th: Kanon Greer-’To The Sky’
8th: Mia Olson-’Marionette Mischief’
8th: Stella Paxton-’Punching In A Dream’
8th: Taytym Ruckle-’Ultraviolet’
9th: Anna Hendershot-’Human’
10th: Reese Kringlen-’Enough’
10th: Aida Nielsen-’Heart of Glass’
10th: Reese Newmarker-’Small World’
Teen Solo
1st: Brady Farrar-’And You’ll See Me’
2nd: Beth Anne McGowan-’Informally Cool’
2nd: Izzy Howard-’Labryinth’
2nd: Hailey Bills-’You’
3rd: Allie Andrew-’Coiled’
3rd: Addison Middleton-’Dark Dissonance’
3rd: Jordan Lassiter-’Joyful Girl’
3rd: Sabine Nehls-’No Regrets’
3rd: Oana Barber-’Tenderness’
4th: Alexis Adair-��A.M.’
4th: Zoe Ridge-’A Thousand Eyes’
4th: Ceilidh McSeveney-’Harm Me’
4th: Gabriella Jensen-’Lost In Your Lies’
5th: Luke Barrett-’Eden’
5th: Emersyn Dickson-’Plans We Made’
5th: Jordynn Christianson-’Sideshow’
5th: Indy Benson-’Soundscape’
6th: Olivia Pinon-’Les Mots Bleus’
6th: Rylee Arnold-’Dirty Diana’
6th: Kya Story-’Gimme All Your Love’
6th: Cydney Heard-’I Dream of You Again’
6th: Hailey Nieva-’I Forgot’
6th: Cassandra Wagstaff-’Zucht 2′
7th: Mia Ibach-’Koladi Ola’
7th: Jaylynn Lindley-’Wisdom Cries’
7th: London Ludwig-’Work’
7th: Ella DeVore-’Zeita’
8th: Emma Martin-’Problem’
8th: Tessa Horsley-’Reflections’
9th: Tiffany Robinson-’Touch’
10th: Madison Goulding-’Mad World’
10th: Ava Allred-’Promises’
10th: London Williamson-’Slow Decent’
Senior Solo
1st: Carter Williams-’20 Years’
1st: Abby Dayton-’Acceptance’
1st: Elijah Hatch-’Escaping Darkness’
2nd: Brooklin Hunsaker-’Godspeed’
2nd: Brooke Melillo-’HIT’
2nd: Amanda Taylor-’I Was Wrong’
2nd: Sicily Redd-’Lamentation’
2nd: Natalia Jensen-’The Last Of Us’
2nd: Paige Wagstaff-’These Days’
3rd: Camry Blackhurst-’Airstrike’
3rd: Ashley Wilcox-’Emigre’
3rd: Taylor Tebbs-’Inertia’
3rd: Chloee Lowrence-’Recall’
4th: Emily Marsh-’Destination’
5th: Ambrie Kirkham-’Blues Run The Game’
5th: Remy Wright-’Moments Passed’
6th: Freddie Linden-’Rescue Me’
7th: Kelsey Tippetts-’Never Grow Old’
7th: Savannah Shaw-’Space Is Only Noise’
7th: Sydni Desmond-’Wild As The Wind’
8th: Abigail Crittenden-’Space’
8th: Charley Osterberg-’Woman’
9th: Rachel McEwan-’I Won’t Hurt You’
9th: Eleni Yannias-’Slow Down’
9th: Lyvia Day-’Tides’
9th: Chloe Baddley-’Volcanic’
10th: Caitlyn Lane-’My Strange Addiction’
Sidekick Duo/Trio
1st: Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’No More I Love Yous’
2nd: Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’I’ve Got Rhythm’
3rd: Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Hound Dog’
Mini Duo/Trio
1st: Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Blue Skies’
2nd: Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’King’
3rd: Danceology-’Do Something’
Junior Duo/Trio
1st: Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Size’
2nd: The Winner School-’Million Dollar Secret’
3rd: Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Weightless’
Teen Duo/Trio
1st: The Rock Center for Dance-’Last Light’
2nd: Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Not The News’
3rd: Empower Dance-’All My Friends’
Senior Duo/Trio
1st: Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’I’ll Never Love Again’
2nd: The Winner School-’In Search Of’
3rd: Artistic Dance Project-’Voodoov’
Sidekick Group
1st: Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Bird’
Mini Group
1st: The Winner School-’Big Time’
2nd: The Winner School-’Dance Bug’
3rd: The Winner School-’Stand By Me’
Junior Group
1st: The Winner School-’Icon’
2nd: The Winner School-’Searching Together’
3rd: The Winner School-’You Don’t Know Me’
Teen Group
1st: The Winner School-’Free Hand’
1st: The Winner School-’Moving On’
2nd: The Winner School-’Magnificent’
3rd: The Winner School-’War Song’
Senior Group
1st: Artistic Dance Project-’A Little After The Sun’
2nd: Artistic Dance Project-’Letting Go’
3rd: Artistic Dance Project-’Boombastic’
Sidekick Line
1st: Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Let’s Get Loud’
2nd: Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Scooby Doo’
3rd: Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’New Girl In Town’
Mini Line
1st: Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’The Moon’
2nd: Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’I Work 2020′
3rd: Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Uptown Girls’
Junior Line
1st: Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Girls’
2nd: Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Sad Day’
3rd: The Dance Company-’Entropy’
Teen Line
1st: Artistic Dance Project-’Greed’
2nd: Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Sometimes When It Rains’
3rd: The Winner School-’Feel It Still’
Senior Line
1st: Artistic Dance Project-’Storm’
2nd: Artistic Dance Project-’Mother’
3rd: Artistic Dance Project-’Live Another Life’
Mini Extended Line
1st: Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Time’
2nd: Artistic Dance Project-’Super Model’
Junior Extended Line
1st: Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’I Love It’
Teen Extended Line
1st: Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Could Look Away’
2nd: Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Aquatic’
3rd: Artistic Dance Project-’Can’t Pretend’
3rd: Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Pink and Blue’
Senior Extended Line
1st: Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Goliath’
2nd: Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’You’
3rd: Artistic Dance Project-’Knocking On Heavens Door’
Mini Production
1st: Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Swagger Jagger’
Junior Production
1st: Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Snitches and Rats’
1st: Artistic Dance Project-’Take It’
2nd: Artistic Dance Project-’Swish’
Teen Production
1st: Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Diamonds’
1st: Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’For Dodo’
2nd: Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Sexy Back’
Senior Production
1st: Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’No Bystanders’
High Scores by Performance Division:
Sidekick Contemporary
Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Bird’
Sidekick Lyrical
Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’The Rose’
Sidekick Specialty
Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Let’s Get Loud’
Sidekick Musical Theatre
Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’New Girl In Town’
Sidekick Hip-Hop
Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Scooby Doo’
Mini Musical Theatre
The Winner School-’Big Time’
Mini Jazz
Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’I Work 2020′
Mini Lyrical
Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’The Moon’
Mini Specialty
Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Uptown Girls’
Mini Contemporary
Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Time’
Mini Ballroom
Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Swagger Jagger’
Junior Contemporary
Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Sad Day’
Junior Jazz
Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’I Love It’
Artistic Dance Project-’Take It’
Junior Lyrical
Artistic Dance Project-’Bright Horses’
Junior Tap
Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Birds’
Junior Ballet
Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Going to School’
Junior Ballroom
Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Girls’
Junior Hip-Hop
Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Snitches and Rats’
Teen Contemporary
Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Could Look Away’
Teen Musical Theatre
The Winner School-’Next to You’
Teen Tap
Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Softly, Heavy’
Teen Jazz
Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Sexy Back’
Teen Lyrical
The Winner School-’Moving On’
Teen Ballet
Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Sometimes When It Rains’
Teen Specialty
Artistic Dance Project-’Greed’
Teen Ballroom
Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Diamonds’
Teen Hip-Hop
Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’For Dodo’
Senior Ballet
Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Lost Light’
Senior Contemporary
Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’You’
Senior Jazz
Artistic Dance Project-’Boombastic’
Senior Tap
Artistic Dance Project-’I Wanna Dance’
Senior Lyrical
Artistic Dance Project-’Letting Go’
Senior Specialty
Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Goliath’
Senior Hip-Hop
Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’No Bystanders’
11 O’Clock:
Sidekick
Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Let’s Get Loud’
Mini
The Winner School-’Big Time’
The Dance Company-’I Feel For You’
Artistic Dance Project-’Super Model’
Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Swagger Jagger’
Junior
Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Girls’
The Dance Company-’Entropy’
The Winner School-’Icon’
Artistic Dance Project-’Take It’
Teen
The Winner School-’Moving On’
Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Could Look Away’
Artistic Dance Project-’Greed’
Senior
Central Utah Ballet-’Embrace’
Artistic Dance Project-’A Little After The Sun’
Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’No Bystanders’
Studio Showcase:
The Winner School-’Moving On’
Center Stage Performing Arts Studio-’Could Look Away’
Artistic Dance Project-’A Little After The Sun’
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