Introduction

We all know that childhood is a social construction, meaning different things to different people at different times. The historians featured in this issue of the JHCY explore an extraordinary range of actors and programs that attempted to create certain constructions of children and childhood. They include social welfare initiatives that helped to define poverty in Britain and race in the United States, Nazi programs to bring young German nationals living outside the Reich into their notion of a Nazi “utopia,” and Orthodox educators’ efforts to shelter Jewish girls from the influence of 1970s American popular culture. They also address efforts in the early twentieth century to politicize youth by way of the commemoration of the American Revolution, the awakening of interest in the plight of poor children in post-World War II Mexico, and the contested ground of defining childhood and labor in colonial Tanganyika. And the object lesson explores the way that Puerto Rican childhood was observed and defined in a rare collection of children’s books and texts.

Of course, calling childhood a “construction” jargonizes the simple fact that adults are constantly prodding and pulling children, trying to shape them to meet adult needs and cultural expectations. Childrearing is a way of ensuring the survival of a culture, of an economy, of a community, of a family—and most of these articles offer case studies of exactly that. And several also show that children and youth often push back against society’s impositions and parental insistence.

Announcement

It is my pleasure to introduce the new members of the JHCY’s editorial staff. Nicholas Syrett of the University of Northern Colorado and Corinne Field of the University of Virginia are the new co-editors of the Book Review section. Contact them if you want to be added to their reviewer database or if you want to suggest books for review.