ECU Libraries Catalog

Fit citizens : a history of Black women's exercise from post-Reconstruction to postwar America / Ava Purkiss.

Author/creator Purkiss, Ava author.
Format Book and Print
Publication Info Chapel Hill : The University of North Carolina Press, [2023]
Descriptionxiii, 231 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm.
Subject(s)
Portion of title History of Black women's exercise from post-Reconstruction to postwar America
Series Gender and American culture
Gender & American culture. ^A228874
Contents Exercising citizenship -- Making fit citizens: race, gender, and the rise of physical culture -- Healthy bodies: Black women's exercise and public health in the early twentieth century -- Plenty of good exercise: beauty, fatness, and the fit Black female body in the interwar years -- Never idle: Black women's active recreation during the Great Depression -- 34-24-36: Black women's diet, exercise, and fitness in the postwar era -- The possibilities and pitfalls of Black fitness.
Abstract "Ava Purkiss examines how Black women demonstrated their literal and figurative 'fitness' for citizenship through exercise. Using public health records, beauty columns, physical education reports, cookbooks, newspapers, and magazines, she centers race and gender; challenges how historians have written about the relationship between physical fitness, civic fitness, and national belonging; and provides historical context for numerous public health studies concerned with the health of African American women and girls"-- Provided by publisher.
Bibliography noteIncludes bibliographical references (pages 199-217) and index.
Issued in other formebook version : 9781469670508
Genre/formHistory.
LCCN 2022033515
ISBN9781469672724 paperback
ISBN1469672723 paperback

Available Items

Library Location Call Number Status Item Actions
Joyner Ronnie Barnes African American Collection RA778.4.A36 P87 2023 Featured Display - First Floor Reading Lounge Want This?