MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

In 1897, Protestant minister Sylvanus Stall began to publish the Self and Sex Series, eight books that offered advice about sexual and physical health. Of the eight, four volumes were meant for American youths – What Every Boy Ought to Know; What Every Girl Ought to Know; What Every Young Man Ought to Know; and What Every Young Woman Ought to Know. Stall himself authored the texts for boys, while he hired Dr. Mary Wood-Allen to write for the girls. This book series would go on to become best-selling advice literature and would be translated into many languages, with new editions being released into the 1930s. First published in 1897 and 1898, these four books were some of the earliest in the newly popular publishing field of sex education for children and adolescents. An analysis of these four books illustrates the mixture of moral and scientific information that would become the standard format for educating young people about puberty, sexuality, and reproduction. These books show how authors could combine a scientific approach to “the birds and the bees” (quite literally relating human reproduction to flowers and birds) with a Christian understanding of human morality, along with a healthy dose of nineteenth-century gender ideology. In a period when many parents were unable to discuss such topics with their children – whether from ignorance or unwillingness – such books aimed to shore up ideals of moral Christianity among the youngest generations of white, Protestant Americans, while providing a modern medical understanding of sexuality.