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 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 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 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 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 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 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?
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 Children s Interests Mothers Rights written by Sonya Michel and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1999-01-01 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Annotation The current child care system in the United States can be described as erratic, inadequate, and stigmatized. In this comprehensive history of American child care policy and practices from the colonial period to the present, Sonya Michel explains why child care has evolved as it has and compares U.S. policy to that of other democratic market societies.
Download or read book A History of Child Protection in America written by John E. B. Myers and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2004 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A History of Child Protection in America is the first comprehensive history of American efforts to protect children from abuse and neglect. The book begins in colonial times and chronicles child protection into the twenty-first century. Among the important nineteenth century events detailed in these pages are the rise of orphanages for "dependent" children, the "orphan trains" operated by the New York Children's Aid Society, the birth of the juvenile court, the reforms of the Children's Progressive Era, and the dramatic rescue of Mary Ellen Wilson, which led to the creation of the world's first organization devoted entirely to child protection, the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Twentieth century milestones include the gradual transition from private child protection societies to government operated child protection, the obscurity of child abuse from the 1920's to the 1960's, the "discovery" of child abuse in 1962, and the creation of the child protection system we know today.
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 The Tragedy of Child Care in America written by Edward Zigler and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2009-01-01 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why the United States has failed to establish a comprehensive high-quality child care program is the question at the center of this book. Edward Zigler has been intimately involved in this issue since the 1970s, and here he presents a firsthand history of the policy making and politics surrounding this important debate. Good-quality child care supports cognitive, social, and emotional development, school readiness, and academic achievement. This book examines the history of child care policy since 1969, including the inside story of America's one great attempt to create a comprehensive system of child care, its failure, and the lack of subsequent progress. Identifying specific issues that persist today, Zigler and his coauthors conclude with an agenda designed to lead us successfully toward quality care for America's children.
Download or read book Mean Dads for a Better America written by Tom Shillue and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2017-06-06 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a comedian and conservative thinker, whip-smart funny Tom Shillue grounds his ideas about our current culture and political climate in stories from his childhood — a portrait of growing up in 1970s America. Growing up as one of five kids in a devout Irish Catholic family in a small town outside of Boston, Tom sincerely believes that the rough-and-tumble, rules-dominated world in which he came of age was a better America—a time and place that made him into the well-adjusted, happy, successful man he is today. In Mean Dads for a Better America, Tom reminisces about his childhood, his family, and the traditional values he cherishes. He takes us back to a time when neighbors disciplined each other’s children without fear of being sued, when kids made it to the family table for dinner, when parents’ rules were gospel, when the occasional fistfight was considered a fair way to solve a problem, and when children were free to roam, make mistakes, and experience the first tastes of independence. Tom debates, debunks, and entertains with his hilarious approach to issues of the day, tackling the issues that confound many Americans, like our hypersensitive culture and overzealous parenting. As Tom celebrates the stability of family life and the sanity of days gone by, he encourages us to hold on to our sense of humor and look back at our own lives, as we work towards creating a better future for ourselves and our kids, all while making us laugh.
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 Child Labor in America written by John A. Fliter and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2018-05-23 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Child labor law strikes most Americans as a fixture of the country’s legal landscape, involving issues settled in the distant past. But these laws, however self-evidently sensible they might seem, were the product of deeply divisive legal debates stretching over the past century—and even now are subject to constitutional challenges. Child Labor in America tells the story of that historic legal struggle. The book offers the first full account of child labor law in America—from the earliest state regulations to the most recent important Supreme Court decisions and the latest contemporary attacks on existing laws. Children had worked in America from the time the first settlers arrived on its shores, but public attitudes about working children underwent dramatic changes along with the nation’s economy and culture. A close look at the origins of oppressive child labor clarifies these changing attitudes, providing context for the hard-won legal reforms that followed. Author John A. Fliter describes early attempts to regulate working children, beginning with haphazard and flawed state-level efforts in the 1840s and continuing in limited and ineffective ways as a consensus about the evils of child labor started to build. In the Progressive Era, the issue finally became a matter of national concern, resulting in several laws, four major Supreme Court decisions, an unsuccessful Child Labor Amendment, and the landmark Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. Fliter offers a detailed overview of these events, introducing key figures, interest groups, and government officials on both sides of the debates and incorporating the latest legal and political science research on child labor reform. Unprecedented in its scope and depth, his work provides critical insight into the role child labor has played in the nation’s social, political, and legal development.
