Lisa See on the Meaning of "Modern Women" in 1930s Shanghai

At her Oct. 22 Friends of the USC Libraries Literary Luncheon, Lisa See shared the history and family stories that inspired her most recent novel, Shanghai Girls. In this clip, she talks about the "beautiful girls" in 1930s advertisements, which represented the hopes for independence among women of the period. These advertisements used figures of "modern women" to sell everything from motor cars and whiskey to bicycles and pesticides.

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