Huck's raft : a history of American childhood
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Huck's raft : a history of American childhood
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006, c2004
- : pbk
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Note
"First Harvard University Press paperback edition, 2006"---T.p. verso
Includes bibliographical references (p. [387]-436) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Like Huck's raft, the experience of American childhood has been both adventurous and terrifying. For more than three centuries, adults have agonized over raising children while children have followed their own paths to development and expression. Now, Steven Mintz gives us the first comprehensive history of American childhood encompassing both the child's and the adult's tumultuous early years of life.
Underscoring diversity through time and across regions, Mintz traces the transformation of children from the sinful creatures perceived by Puritans to the productive workers of nineteenth-century farms and factories, from the cosseted cherubs of the Victorian era to the confident consumers of our own. He explores their role in revolutionary upheaval, westward expansion, industrial growth, wartime mobilization, and the modern welfare state. Revealing the harsh realities of children's lives through history-the rigors of physical labor, the fear of chronic ailments, the heartbreak of premature death-he also acknowledges the freedom children once possessed to discover their world as well as themselves.
Whether at work or play, at home or school, the transition from childhood to adulthood has required generations of Americans to tackle tremendously difficult challenges. Today, adults impose ever-increasing demands on the young for self-discipline, cognitive development, and academic achievement, even as the influence of the mass media and consumer culture has grown. With a nod to the past, Mintz revisits an alternative to the goal-driven realities of contemporary childhood. An odyssey of psychological self-discovery and growth, this book suggests a vision of childhood that embraces risk and freedom-like the daring adventure on Huck's raft.
Table of Contents
Preface Prologue 1. Children of the Covenant 2. Red, White, and Black in Colonial America 3. Sons and Daughters of Liberty 4. Inventing the Middle-Class Child 5. Growing Up in Bondage 6. Childhood Battles of the Civil War 7. Laboring Children 8. Save the Child 9. Children under the Magnifying Glass 10. New to the Promised Land 11. Revolt of Modern Youth 12. Coming of Age in the Great Depression 13. Mobilizing Children for World War II 14. In Pursuit of the Perfect Childhood 15. Youthquake 16. Parental Panics and the Reshaping of Childhood 17. The Unfinished Century of the Child Notes Index
by "Nielsen BookData"
