Abstract

This article explores the use of sudden death narratives to teach children lessons of safety and citizenship in mid-twentieth century North America. Police departments deployed images of public child death to warn viewers that accidents, while shocking, were the predictable outcome of the mixing of inexperienced, unskilled children and modern automobile-centric culture. As a linchpin between children and modern street life, officers made their way into North American schools, narrowed the gap between themselves and children, and played a principal role in the mid-twentieth century safety movement. Delivering a powerful message to elementary and high school students in the decades after World War II—that accidents may happen but children could prevent them—local police forces turned to necropedagogy and resituated law enforcement as friend and teacher rather than antagonist to youth.

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