"Helgren's book provides an excellent model for study of youth organizations over time."—Elizabeth Tucker, Journal of Folkore Research Reviews
"The Camp Fire Girls is truly a pleasure to read. From excellent analysis to captivating writing, Helgren's addition to the scholarship on youth organizations, girlhood, and outdoor education and programming is invaluable. Accessible to both the academy and the general population, The Camp Fire Girls is a fantastic piece of scholarship that succeeds in a multitude of ways and is a significant contribution to the field."—Montana Chandler, H-Environment
“Jennifer Helgren provides a rich narrative about the Camp Fire Girls, a chapter of twentieth-century American youth culture that has been largely overlooked by historians. This is an important study of an organization that often found itself betwixt and between—empowering diverse modern girlhoods while promoting eclectically conservative visions of feminism.”—Susan A. Miller, author of Growing Girls: The Natural Origins of Girls’ Organizations in America
“A fascinating book that grapples with the construction of American girlhood during the twentieth century. Captivating and multilayered. . . . The book is a model for how to write an organizational history that tells a far larger and more important story than that of a single organization.”—Sara Fieldston, author of Raising the World: Child Welfare in the American Century
“By resisting the impulse to regard girls’ organizations as mere tools of gender indoctrination or middle-class indulgences, Jennifer Helgren’s examination of Camp Fire Girls makes a compelling case for the importance of revisiting a so-called familiar or known topic. Its meticulous research and stellar use of archives will serve as an example for undergraduates, graduate students, and her colleagues about what is possible in the history of childhood and youth. Helgren’s book will buttress the exciting array of new works in the history of girls and girlhood in the United States.”—Marcia Chatelain, author of South Side Girls: Growing Up in the Great Migration
