Download or read book Childhood in America written by Paula S. Fass and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2000-01-01 with total page 1 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Free Teacher's Guide available for Childhood in America! Childhood in America is a unique compendium of sources on American childhood that has many options for classroom adoptions and can be tailored to individual course needs. Because the subject of childhood is both relatively new on campuses and now widely recognized as vital to a range of specialties, the editors have prepared a Teacher's Guide to assist you in making selections appropriate for your courses. Collecting a vast array of selections from past and present- from colonial ministers to Drs. Benjamin Spock and T. Berry Brazelton, from the poems of Anne Bradstreet to the writings of today's young people- Childhood in America brings to light the central issues surrounding American children. Eleven sections on childbirth through adolescence explore a cornucopia of issues, and each section has been carefully selected and introduced by the editors.
Download or read book Suffering Childhood in Early America written by Anna Mae Duane and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2011-11-01 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nothing tugs on American heartstrings more than an image of a suffering child. Anna Mae Duane goes back to the nation's violent beginnings to examine how the ideal of childhood in early America was fundamental to forging concepts of ethnicity, race, and gender. Duane argues that children had long been used to symbolize subservience, but in the New World those old associations took on more meaning. Drawing on a wide range of early American writing, she explores how the figure of a suffering child accrued political weight as the work of infantilization connected the child to Native Americans, slaves, and women. In the making of the young nation, the figure of the child emerged as a vital conceptual tool for coming to terms with the effects of cultural and colonial violence, and with time childhood became freighted with associations of vulnerability, suffering, and victimhood. As Duane looks at how ideas about the child and childhood were manipulated by the colonizers and the colonized alike, she reveals a powerful line of colonizing logic in which dependence and vulnerability are assigned great emotional weight. When early Americans sought to make sense of intercultural contact—and the conflict that often resulted—they used the figure of the child to help displace their own fear of lost control and shifting power.
Download or read book Huck s Raft written by Steven Mintz and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2006-04-30 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Childhood Lost written by Sharna Olfman and published by Praeger. This book was released on 2005-03-30 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Experts from across disciplines join forces here to focus attention on current American culture and the devastating effects it is having on its children. From children developing surprising physical maturity and sexual awareness at younger and younger ages, to those estranged when television and computer screens replace family time, and those warped by national junk food/fast food habits bringing an explosion of obesity and diabetes among boys and girls, this book takes a harsh look at the results of American social norms. The damage being done by governmental policies is examined, including inadequate parental leave, a minimum wage that is not a living wage, unregulated day care, and a public education system that delivers inferior education to poor children. A call to action, this is a work from some of the best-known child experts nationwide. Every person who has or cares about a child will find this of interest. Experts from across disciplines join forces here to focus attention on current American culture and the devastating effects it is having on its children. From children developing surprising physical maturity and sexual awareness at younger and younger ages, to those estranged when television and computer screens replace family time, and those warped by national junk food/fast food habits bringing an explosion of obesity and diabetes among boys and girls, this book takes a harsh look at the results of American social norms. It highlights the damage being done by governmental policies, including inadequate parental leave, a minimum wage that is not a living wage, unregulated day care, and a public education system that delivers inferior education to poor children. A call to action, this is a work from some of the best known child experts nationwide. Every person who has or cares about a child—or the future of U.S. socity— will find this of interest. Most experts writing about childhood address issues from their own particular perspective. This work draws together a team of top scholars from across fields. They connect the dots in engaging and clear essays. Altogether, they demonstrate that the problems facing children today come from an underlying crisis of adult values, and they suggest that individuals must join forces to turn back this crisis.
Download or read book Beyond the Boundaries of Childhood written by Crystal Lynn Webster and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2021-04-27 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For all that is known about the depth and breadth of African American history, we still understand surprisingly little about the lives of African American children, particularly those affected by northern emancipation. But hidden in institutional records, school primers and penmanship books, biographical sketches, and unpublished documents is a rich archive that reveals the social and affective worlds of northern Black children. Drawing evidence from the urban centers of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, Crystal Webster's innovative research yields a powerful new history of African American childhood before the Civil War. Webster argues that young African Americans were frequently left outside the nineteenth century's emerging constructions of both race and childhood. They were marginalized in the development of schooling, ignored in debates over child labor, and presumed to lack the inherent innocence ascribed to white children. But Webster shows that Black children nevertheless carved out physical and social space for play, for learning, and for their own aspirations. Reading her sources against the grain, Webster reveals a complex reality for antebellum Black children. Lacking societal status, they nevertheless found meaningful agency as historical actors, making the most of the limited freedoms and possibilities they enjoyed.
Download or read book Young America written by Claire Perry and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A delightful look at how nineteenth-century American artists portrayed children and childhood
Download or read book Racial Innocence written by Robin Bernstein and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2011-12 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner, Outstanding Book Award, Association for Theatre in Higher Education Winner, Grace Abbott Best Book Award, Society for the History of Children and Youth Winner, Book Award, Children's Literature Association Winner, Lois P. Rudnick Book Prize, New England American Studies Association Winner, IRSCL Award, International Research Society for Children's Literature Runner-Up, John Hope Franklin Publication Prize, American Studies Association Honorable Mention, Book Award, Society for the Study of American Women Writers Part of the American Literatures Initiative Series In Racial Innocence, Robin Bernstein argues that the concept of "childhood innocence" has been central to U.S. racial formation since the mid-nineteenth century. Children--white ones imbued with innocence, black ones excluded from it, and others of color erased by it--figured pivotally in sharply divergent racial agendas from slavery and abolition to antiblack violence and the early civil rights movement. Bernstein takes up a rich archive including books, toys, theatrical props, and domestic knickknacks which she analyzes as "scriptive things" that invite or prompt historically-located practices while allowing for resistance and social improvisation. Integrating performance studies with literary and visual analysis, Bernstein offers singular readings of theatrical productions from blackface minstrelsy to Uncle Tom's Cabin to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz literary works by Joel Chandler Harris, Harriet Wilson, and Frances Hodgson Burnett; material culture including Topsy pincushions, Uncle Tom and Little Eva handkerchiefs, and Raggedy Ann dolls; and visual texts ranging from fine portraiture to advertisements for lard substitute. Throughout, Bernstein shows how "innocence" gradually became the exclusive province of white children--until the Civil Rights Movement succeeded not only in legally desegregating public spaces, but in culturally desegregating the concept of childhood itself. Check out the author's blog for the book here.
Download or read book Childhood Obesity in America written by Laura Dawes and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2014-06-09 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Obesity among American children has reached epidemic proportions. Laura Dawes traces changes in diagnosis, treatment, and popular conceptions of the most serious health problem facing American children today, and makes the case that understanding the cultural history of a disease is critical to developing effective public health policy.
Download or read book Growing Up in America written by N. Ray Hiner and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 1985 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Growing Up in America offers substantial and dramatic evidence that the history of childhood has come of age. Its authors demonstrate the breadth and depth of interest, as well as high quality of work, in a field that is finally attracting the attention it deserves. Strongly influenced by new social history and its concern for the powerless and inarticulate, Growing Up in America provides illuminating insights on children from infancy to adolescence and from the colonial period to present. "The very title of this fine and enormously instructive anthology of essays makes its quiet but important point---that children grow up in a particular nation, rather than in a family or home isolated from the influence of social, cultural, political, and historical forces. . . . An admirably diverse and instructive collection." -- Georgia Historical Quarterly
Download or read book Stolen Childhood written by Wilma King and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "King provides a jarring snapshot of children living in bondage. This compellingly written work is a testament to the strength and resilience of the children and their parents".--"Booklist". "King's deeply researched, well-written, passionate study places children and young adults at center stage in the North American slave experience".--"Choice". 16 photos.
Download or read book Child Labor in America written by Chaim M. Rosenberg and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2013-07-30 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the close of the 19th century, more than 2 million American children under age 16--some as young as 4 or 5--were employed on farms, in mills, canneries, factories, mines and offices, or selling newspapers and fruits and vegetables on the streets. The crusaders of the Progressive Era believed child labor was an evil that maimed the children, exploited the poor and suppressed adult wages. The child should be in school till age 16, they demanded, in order to become a good citizen. The battle for and against child labor was fought in the press as well as state and federal legislatures. Several federal efforts to ban child labor were struck down by the Supreme Court and an attempt to amend the Constitution to ban child labor failed to gain enough support. It took the Great Depression and New Deal legislation to pass the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (and receive the support of the Supreme Court). This history of American child labor details the extent to which children worked in various industries, the debate over health and social effects, and the long battle with agricultural and industrial interests to curtail the practice.
Download or read book Minding the Children written by Geraldine Youcha and published by Da Capo Lifelong Books. This book was released on 2009-04-28 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beyond childcare theories and early childhood gurus, here is how children have actually been raised in America over the last four centuries. From wet nurses and Southern mammys, settlement houses and orphan trains, to rigid British nannies, foster care, and the modern two-worker family, Geraldine Youcha's delightful book paints a wide-ranging picture of American childhood. In this updated paperback edition a lively new chapter brings the story through current childcare wars and present economic realities. All in all, it is a reassuring picture, for despite a bewildering array of different styles and fads, children have survived and often thrived. While there are some harsh lessons to be learned here, there is also plenty to lend optimism and help anxious parents relax.
Download or read book Child Health in America written by Judith Palfrey and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2006-11-27 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author examines the meaning of advocacy to children's health and outlines how health providers, community agencies, teachers, parents, and others can work together to bring about needed change. She presents a conceptual framework for child health advocacy consisting of four interconnected components: clinical, group, professional, and legislative.
Download or read book Kidnapped written by Paula S. Fass and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1997 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A look at the history of child kidnappings and abductions in the United States, the motives of the perpetrators, the activities of the media, and the results in the law and in public opinions.
Download or read book White Kids written by Margaret A. Hagerman and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2020-02-01 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner, 2019 William J. Goode Book Award, given by the Family Section of the American Sociological Association Finalist, 2019 C. Wright Mills Award, given by the Society for the Study of Social Problems Riveting stories of how affluent, white children learn about race American kids are living in a world of ongoing public debates about race, daily displays of racial injustice, and for some, an increased awareness surrounding diversity and inclusion. In this heated context, sociologist Margaret A. Hagerman zeroes in on affluent, white kids to observe how they make sense of privilege, unequal educational opportunities, and police violence. In fascinating detail, Hagerman considers the role that they and their families play in the reproduction of racism and racial inequality in America. White Kids, based on two years of research involving in-depth interviews with white kids and their families, is a clear-eyed and sometimes shocking account of how white kids learn about race. In doing so, this book explores questions such as, “How do white kids learn about race when they grow up in families that do not talk openly about race or acknowledge its impact?” and “What about children growing up in families with parents who consider themselves to be ‘anti-racist’?” Featuring the actual voices of young, affluent white kids and what they think about race, racism, inequality, and privilege, White Kids illuminates how white racial socialization is much more dynamic, complex, and varied than previously recognized. It is a process that stretches beyond white parents’ explicit conversations with their white children and includes not only the choices parents make about neighborhoods, schools, peer groups, extracurricular activities, and media, but also the choices made by the kids themselves. By interviewing kids who are growing up in different racial contexts—from racially segregated to meaningfully integrated and from politically progressive to conservative—this important book documents key differences in the outcomes of white racial socialization across families. And by observing families in their everyday lives, this book explores the extent to which white families, even those with anti-racist intentions, reproduce and reinforce the forms of inequality they say they reject.
Download or read book Crawling Behind America s Child Care Crisis and How to Fix It written by Elliot Haspel and published by Black Rose Writing. This book was released on 2019 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “I’ve totally washed away the dream of having one more child.” “I had never intended to be a stay-at-home-parent, but the cost of child care turned me into one.” “We had to pull our toddler out of his program because we couldn’t afford to have two kids in high-quality care.” These are not the voices of those down on their luck, but the voices of America’s middle class. The lack of affordable, available, high-quality childcare is a boulder on the backs of all but the most affluent. Millions of hard-working families are left gasping for air while the next generation misses out on a strong start. To date, we’ve been fighting this five-alarm fire with the policy equivalent of beach toy water buckets. It’s time for a bold investment in America’s families and America’s future. There’s only one viable solution: Childcare should be free.
Download or read book No Child Left Different written by Sharna Olfman and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2006-01-30 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A stellar group of authors from across disciplines explains the alarming increase in the use of psychotropic medications, questions the causes, and presents disturbing thoughts regarding this phenomenon and the risks it creates for children. They take an in-depth look at the conditions that have led to drugging our children, and stress how emotional, social, cultural, and physical environments can both damage and heal young minds. And they challenge the model that maintains that psychological disturbance is genetic and thus requires medication. This is riveting reading for all who care about the youngest members of society. Over the past 15 years, there has been a 300 percent increase in the use of psychotropic medications with girls and boys under the age of 20, and prescriptions for preschoolers have skyrocketed. A stellar group of authors from across disciplines explains this increase, questions the causes, and presents disturbing thoughts regarding this phenomenon as they describe the risks it creates for children. While there are certainly extreme cases where drugs are the only option, medication rather than psychotherapy and counseling has become the first choice for treatment rather than a last resort. The experts who joined forces for this book take an in-depth look at the conditions that have led to drugging our children, and stress how emotional, social, cultural, and physical environments can both damage and heal young minds. The so-called medical model, one maintaining that psychological disturbance is genetic and thus requires medication, is challenged in this volume. Contributors range from a pediatrician who has testified before Congress and been featured in a Time magazine cover story, to a top child psychiatrist who is an official for the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, along with a well-known child psychiatrist, psychologists, environmentalists, and a public policy consultant. This is riveting reading for all who care about the youngest members of society. Among other issues, this work looks at controversy over whether psychiatric medications are safe or effective for children—and what little we know about their effect on still-developing brains—as well as the role of corporate interests in the increased use of psychotropics for children. Chapters address the role of environment in both causing and curing disorders more and more often diagnosed in our youngsters: from ADHD, depression, and anxiety to eating disorders. The core questions addressed by this sage group of contributors are these: Why are so many children being diagnosed with psychiatric disturbances and given drugs? Why have drugs become the first treatment of choice to deal with those disorders?
