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This article traces historical uses of the phrase "why girls go wrong" to provide a context for analysis of Progressive Era reading guidance for girls and then turns to actual girls' responses to reading. The historic context depicts the milieu in which young women and the advisors who sought to guide them lived and read as a time of intense concern with adolescent female sexual activity. Further, the era also witnessed suspicion about the way that public spaces were used, particularly by women and girls. Librarians constructed, through arguments that selected titles that represented persuasively pure and feminine ideals, a female sphere in the public library. Images of the early twentieth-century library as a wholesome, protective space for young women acknowledged contemporary social issues and responded to ensure that the bookish domains would be seen as appropriate venues for adolescent girls.

The Sheppard-Towner Act, popularly known as the Maternity and Infancy Act of 1921, was one of the first pieces of federal legislation designed to address the concerns of nationally enfranchised women voters. The Act also represented one of the earliest instances of U.S. women acting as producers and consumers of government information. In response to the unique, and then unmet, needs of child-bearing women, new sources of government information were developed. Prior to the law's inception, reports published by the Children's Bureau documented dramatic, widespread conditions that threatened the ability of women and infants to survive pregnancy, labor, and the first years of life. These information and advocacy pieces represented new government direction regarding access to health information.