The Children's Table: Childhood Studies and the Humanities

Childhood Studies and History: Catching a Culture in High Relief

52 “Childhood,” writes Joseph M. Hawes, “is where you catch a culture in high relief.” This deceptively simple statement reveals the possibilities created by the merger of childhood studies and history. Although children and youth do not make laws, declare wars, manage corporations, or write books and plays—although they do not feature in traditional measures of progress— they are at the center of many kinds of cultural markers, including support for education, respect for the family, and provision for adequate health care, all of which not only measure the status of children and youth but also reveal the ways in which a society sets its priorities. That insight has led scholars to exploit the opportunities offered by the intersection of childhood studies and history. The first section of this chapter samples a few areas in American history that reflect this combination of fields. The second explores the special value of combining childhood studies and history in the study of war. Finally, the third section highlights selected primary sources to show how my own work on Civil War–era children can provide more nuanced approaches to that much-studied period. Two distinct approaches to the history of children and youth developed as the field grew and prospered: many historians, mainly because of the nature of the source material, had to be satisfied with talking about children. Children may be among the least articulate of all members of society. By the time they are fully literate and aware of the possibilities and challenges posed by their surroundings, they are hardly children at all. And they are, it Childhood Studies and History Catching a Culture in High Relief James Marten Childhood Studies and History 53 goes without saying, literally without political power. As a result, it is very difficult to get at their points of view, and most treatments examine institutions , ideas, or policies that shape the lives of children and youth rather than flesh-and-blood youngsters. On the other hand, a few historians, taking advantage of unusual sources, casting fresh eyes on traditional sources, or simply exerting more imagination than most scholars, provide at least glimpses of the points of view of the children they study. When they are done well, these histories help us better understand both the lives of children and youth and the times in which they lived. Rooted in the early Republic, Jacqueline S. Reinier’s research shows how the junction of history and childhood studies can tell us something new about each. The founders and their successors, Reinier writes, developed “the staggering notion that one could mold the human personality in a desired direction.” This, in turn, “generated optimism that a truly new affectionate and voluntary society could emerge.” Few human institutions were untouched by this confidence. “In a general revolt against tyranny and patriarchy, philosophers , physicians, journalists, and printers championed and publicized the affectionate nuclear family,” which stressed “voluntary ties” and functioned, in their view, as “a kind of school for citizenship.” In addition, Enlightenment notions of the “malleable child” led to the belief that youngsters could be “shaped by affectionate parents and educators” into “material for the virtuous , autonomous adult.” All would help create and sustain the republican experiment. Moreover, because the “republican virtue” that inspired both revolution and nation building depended on a disinterested, engaged, and incorruptible citizenry, Americans consciously built institutions and developed child-rearing strategies to inculcate those virtues in their offspring. Reinier argues that a number of institutions and ideas aimed to instill the values of hard work, modesty, independence, and other distinctive traits that formed the American “character.” They included Protestant theology and the creation of Sunday schools, the development of public schools as laboratories for republican behavior, and the integration of children into the free market workplace. Not all historians can make such direct links between traditional topics in American history and the history of children and youth, but Reinier nevertheless provides a model for the value of child studies. Two of the “founding documents” in the modern historiography of children and youth came out of the wave of New England town studies and the 54 James Marten rise of family history. In his famous 1970 book on Plymouth Colony, John Demos foreshadowed his later interest in children by making them central to the work of creating family structures that would sustain the “little commonwealth ” developed by the earliest settlers of New England. A few...