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  • Introduction
  • James Marten

The most important characteristic of youth today,” wrote the author Anne Emery in 1958, “is his search for something to believe in, something that will remain honorable and admirable the longer he knows it, something that will make his life worthwhile.” Each of the five articles in this issue of the Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth show children, youth, and adults trying to make their own lives or the lives of others worthwhile. And, each in his or her own way, the authors address the needs of, restrictions on, or relationships between men and women, girls and boys. They include Boston educational reformers of the 1830s who tried to reform schools by segregating the sexes, Canadian university women who articulated their educational expectations and experiences on the cusp of the dramatic social changes of the 1960s, and American high school students confronting an older generation’s reluctance to engage the sexual issues of the day. Others examine competing images of girlhood: the Canadian Junior Red Cross’s efforts to integrate girls into the war effort during the World War II without militarizing them and the efforts by the novelist Anne Emery to provide more options for high school women than the ones allowed by the narrow gender conceptions of the 1950s. Among the unusual sources upon which the scholars in this issue have drawn are novels of a much-beloved writer for girls, long-lost student surveys from York University, and the radical high school newspaper Red Tide.1

There is no “Object Lesson” in 7:2, but future issues will certainly include this feature that has long distinguished our journal from others. Indeed, I invite readers to consider submitting object lessons on any object, image, or bit of ephemera that provides insight into the lives of children and youth or into ideas about rearing children and youth. Each “Object Lesson” should consist of about 800–1000 words and at least one illustration. In addition, I will also consider similar pieces—of perhaps 1500 words—on particular documents or sets of documents. Contact me if you have questions about either at james.marten@marquette.edu. Taylor McNeir was intern for this issue. [End Page 195]

Notes

1. Anne Emery, “Values in Adolescent Fiction,” Junior Libraries/Library Journal 4, no. 9 (May 1958): 1565. [End Page 196]

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