Results by title

Winner of the 2015 Aidoo-Snyder Book Prize for outstanding book on African women's experiences. (African Studies Association)
Honorable Mention, New York African Studies Association Book Prize

In Making Modern Girls, Abosede A. George examines the influence of African social reformers and the developmentalist colonial state on the practice and ideology of girlhood as well as its intersection with child labor in Lagos, Nigeria. It draws from gender studies, generational studies, labor history, and urban history to shed new light on the complex workings of African cities from the turn of the twentieth century through the nationalist era of the 1950s.

The two major schemes at the center of this study were the modernization project of elite Lagosian women and the salvationist project of British social workers. By approaching children and youth, specifically girl hawkers, as social actors and examining the ways in which local and colonial reformers worked upon young people, the book offers a critical new perspective on the uses of African children for the production and legitimization of national and international social development initiatives.

Making Modern Girls demonstrates how oral sources can be used to uncover the social history of informal or undocumented urban workers and to track transformations in practices of childhood over the course of decades. George revises conventional accounts of the history of development work in Africa by drawing close attention to the social welfare initiatives of late colonialism and by highlighting the roles that African women reformers played in promoting sociocultural changes within their own societies.

A groundbreaking study of Yoruba-language print culture in colonial Lagos

Much Matter in a Penny Paper offers the first in-depth exploration of the emergence of an African-language print culture in early twentieth-century Lagos, Nigeria. Focusing on the 1910s and 1920s—a period of rapid experimentation and innovation—Karin Barber examines the rise of Yoruba-language newspapers and the vibrant civic sphere they helped create.

The 1910s was notable for an upsurge of local Yoruba-language history books, and during the 1920s entrepreneurial editors and writers launched five Yoruba-language weeklies in quick succession. These publications drew in readers beyond the educated elite, expanding public discourse and experimenting with new genres of writing. From moralizing pamphlets and dramatic sketches to serialized narratives voiced by women, Yoruba print producers reimagined oral and written traditions, blending popular songs, anecdotes, and poetic forms into a dynamic new medium.

This book is about not only what was printed but also how and why. It investigates the material practices of print production, the motivations of its creators, and the expectations of its audiences. Drawing on editorials, reader correspondence, and other paratextual commentary, it reveals how Yoruba writers and readers understood the role of print in capturing the present, preserving the past, projecting the wisdom of the day forward for the benefit of future generations, and generating deep Yoruba texts rich in poetic energy.

Through detailed portraits of key figures—editors, pamphleteers, and a mysterious oral historian—Barber traces the interconnections between publications and genres, showing how they formed an active bilingual sphere of communication. The interplay between Yoruba- and English-language media, as well as the creative exploitation of both languages, emerges as a defining feature of this period’s print culture. By treating the Yoruba print archive as a “transcript of emergence,” this study offers new insights into how cultural innovations take shape. It is essential reading for scholars of African history, media studies, sociolinguistics, and print culture.