School newspapers and literary societies. "Editorials" / "The history of the Lygaeum" / "The mouse" / "Are you building a house or a shack?" / "Irresistible charm" / The girls' league gazette (1944) -- Friendship albums and yearbooks. Friendship album / "Our class history" / "Class history" / "Class prophecy" / Signatures / Signatures / Poetry and short stories. Reliquiae turrellae, et lachrymae paternae / "On virtue" (1766) ; "To the University of Cambridge, in New-England" (1767) ; "On being brought from Africa to America" (1768) ; "On the death of a young lady of five years of age" (1770) / "Some verses" / "The young hunter" / "Lines to my classmates" / "Too young" / "Sixteen" / "I never knew" / "My plea" / "The bend in the road" / "Awakening" / "Busy Betty" / "I am" / Letters and notes. A girl's life eighty years ago / Letters of Mary L. Hood, Pearl Hobart, and Nettie Conine (1876-1878) -- Letter received by Mary Stuart (Robertson) Beard (1910) -- Undated letters / E-mail to Miriam Forman-Brunell / Diaries. Diary of Anna Green Winslow (1772) -- Diary / Diary / Diaries / Anonymous diary, high school girl (1943) -- Internet diary of bacon4u (2002).

Historical overview. The uses of literacy by girls in colonial America / "A few patchwork opinions" : piecing together narratives of U.S. girls' early national schooling / Nineteenth-century girls and literacy / Girls' literacy in the progressive era : female and American Indian identity at the Genoa Indian School / "That cosmopolitan feeling" : teenage girls and literacy, 1920-1970 / Expanding literacies at the end of the twentieth century : girls, writing, and science education / Primary documents. Instructional materials : [textbooks, conduct literature, periodicals, and book lists]. Hornbooks (ca. sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries) -- The New-England primer (1727) -- The teacher's assistant in English composition / The young lady's friend / First lessons in composition / The lady's guide to perfect gentility / McGuffey's fifth eclectic reader / "How to keep a journal" / "Keeping the cream of one's reading" / "Books for varying tastes" / "Books for the older girls" / "Dear diary" / "How to be popular tho' teacher's pet" / "Write a better book review this semester" / School assignments. "Imperfections of female education" / "Mystery" / "My will" / "Cotton" / "From field to kitchen" / "The circulation of the blood" ; "Surf bathing" / "All about me" ; "Dear Ellen" ; "What America Means to Me" / "Recommendation to a patient"