Project MUSE®: The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth - Latest Articles
https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/400
Project MUSE®: Latest articles in The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth.daily12026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00text/htmlen-USVol. 1 (2008) through current issueLatest Articles: The Journal of the History of Childhood and YouthTWOProject MUSE®The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth1941-35991939-6724Latest articles in The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth. Feed provided by Project MUSE®Children, Work and Freedom in Nineteenth-Century Cape Town
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/979005
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On April 20, 1830, the Cape of Good Hope Philanthropic Society manumitted an eight-year-old enslaved girl named Eva. Records indicate that Eva had been purchased by the Society two years earlier but, at least initially, this transfer of ownership changed little in her life. Rather than free Eva immediately, the Society apprenticed the girl to her former slaveholder. This meant that Eva remained in the household with her enslaved mother, Louisa. Although Eva’s status within the household changed from slave to apprentice, the material circumstances of her life, the work she likely performed and perhaps most importantly, her access to her kin remained unchanged.1Focusing on the lives of the enslaved and formerly
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/400/image/coversmallChildren, Work and Freedom in Nineteenth-Century Cape Town2026-01-06text/htmlen-USChildren, Work and Freedom in Nineteenth-Century Cape Town2026-01-062026TWOProject MUSE®859932026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-01-06The Girl Who Jumped over Childhood: Evolutionary Time and Peru’s Youngest Mother in the World, 1939*
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/979006
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By June 1939, something highly unusual had become common: newspaper stories about a five-year old mother in Peru, the “youngest mother in the world,” were splayed on breakfast tables and folded under arms on streetcars throughout the world.1 Wire services tapped out articles about the case that were then adapted to local readerships, while doctors and scientists from the Western hemisphere weighed in. A June 15th article in the Peruvian tabloid daily La Crónica, which had been published the prior day in Colombia, was, then, just a fleck in a sea of international reports about the little girl, Lina Medina.2 And it was merely one among dozens published in that Peruvian paper in the three months since the pregnancy
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/400/image/coversmallThe Girl Who Jumped over Childhood: Evolutionary Time and Peru’s Youngest Mother in the World, 1939*2026-01-06text/htmlen-USThe Girl Who Jumped over Childhood: Evolutionary Time and Peru’s Youngest Mother in the World, 1939*2026-01-062026TWOProject MUSE®1231832026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-01-06“A terrible, terrible sense of isolation and fear and ostracism”: The Experiences of Children of Anti-Apartheid Activists in the late 1950s–1960s in South Africa
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/979007
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As stated in the title of this paper, Ruth Carneson expressed the acute sense of isolation and ostracism, that she, as the daughter of Cape Town-based South African Communist Party (SACP) activists Sarah and Fred Carneson, experienced by the late 1960s.1 Her family life had been drastically upended by the tightening grip of repression in apartheid South Africa during the 1950s and 1960s. In the early 1950s, both her parents were banned from participation in political activity, and by 1954 restricted from participation in any gathering. By December 1956, this repression accelerated, when her father was one of 156 activists detained to be prosecuted in the Treason Trial. The trial “marked the end of the legitimate
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/400/image/coversmall“A terrible, terrible sense of isolation and fear and ostracism”: The Experiences of Children of Anti-Apartheid Activists in the late 1950s–1960s in South Africa2026-01-06text/htmlen-US“A terrible, terrible sense of isolation and fear and ostracism”: The Experiences of Children of Anti-Apartheid Activists in the late 1950s–1960s in South Africa2026-01-062026TWOProject MUSE®1311922026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-01-06Playhouses and Privilege: The Architecture of Elite Childhood by Abigail A. Van Slyck (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/979009
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While watching the television series The Gilded Age, I am often struck by the absence of children in its depiction of elite New York society in the 1880s. Fortunately, Abigail Van Slyck’s book, Playhouses and Privilege: The Architecture of Elite Childhood, dives into this same gilded society and unearths a fascinating story of parents, children, and play spaces. In a wide-ranging analysis of playhouses and cottages from Victoria and Albert’s early nineteenth-century Swiss Cottage to Shirley Temple’s 1930s glass block playhouse, Van Slyck uncovers what these seemingly innocent nineteenth-and twentieth-century playhouses really meant in elite society. Her book is a rewarding journey into the world of these
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/400/image/coversmallPlayhouses and Privilege: The Architecture of Elite Childhood by Abigail A. Van Slyck (review)2026-01-06text/htmlen-USPlayhouses and Privilege: The Architecture of Elite Childhood by Abigail A. Van Slyck (review)2026-01-062026TWOProject MUSE®75152026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-01-06Historia mínima de las infancias en México by Beatriz Alcubierre and Susana Sosenski (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/979010
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This slim and accessible survey of the history of Mexican childhoods masterfully compiles the knowledge produced in this field over the past two decades. Co-authors Beatriz Alcubierre and Susana Sosenski, are both pioneers of Mexican childhood history in their own right, with respective expertise in the late colonial period and twentieth century. The format addresses a broad readership and does not use footnotes or citations, but it does include major historiographical contributions in the prose, and the robust bibliography directs the interested reader to a comprehensive overview of the scholarship. It serves as an important corrective to the idealized, often romanticized narratives of childhood that have
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/400/image/coversmallHistoria mínima de las infancias en México by Beatriz Alcubierre and Susana Sosenski (review)2026-01-06text/htmlen-USHistoria mínima de las infancias en México by Beatriz Alcubierre and Susana Sosenski (review)2026-01-062026TWOProject MUSE®75012026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-01-06Good Neighbor Empires: Children and Cultural Capital in the Americas by Elena Jackson Albarrán (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/979011
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Elena Jackson Albarrán situates her monograph within the field of childhood studies “to present a history of transnational processes in Latin America, with Mexico as a nexus, in the first half of the 20th century” (4). More concretely, she analyzes the ways children’s art, migration and travel were deployed as a form of soft power between nations in the Americas during the 1930s and 1940s, decades when the United States saw Latin America as an infantilized Other. The author argues that this strategy allowed the American empire to disseminate its colonial narrative, given that its main objective was to civilize a Latin America that displayed traits like those of children: “underdeveloped, subordinate, naive
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/400/image/coversmallGood Neighbor Empires: Children and Cultural Capital in the Americas by Elena Jackson Albarrán (review)2026-01-06text/htmlen-USGood Neighbor Empires: Children and Cultural Capital in the Americas by Elena Jackson Albarrán (review)2026-01-062026TWOProject MUSE®72982026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-01-06Budapest’s Children: Humanitarian Relief in the Aftermath of the Great War by Friederike Kind-Kovács (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/979012
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Friederike Kind-Kovács’ Budapest’s Children examines how the post-World War I suffering of Hungarian children became a focal point for both national and transnational humanitarian interventions. Structured into nine thematic chapters, the book presents Budapest as a “laboratory” for early twentieth-century child relief efforts.Budapest’s Children may be broadly divided into two main parts. The first, covering migration, hunger, and physical destitution, traces the root causes of children’s suffering in postwar Hungary. Kind-Kovács shows how migration to Budapest from territories ceded by Hungary dramatically altered the city’s demographic landscape, doubling its population. This influx placed immense pressure on
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/400/image/coversmallBudapest’s Children: Humanitarian Relief in the Aftermath of the Great War by Friederike Kind-Kovács (review)2026-01-06text/htmlen-USBudapest’s Children: Humanitarian Relief in the Aftermath of the Great War by Friederike Kind-Kovács (review)2026-01-062026TWOProject MUSE®88342026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-01-06Familiar Violence: A History of Child Abuse. by Heather Montgomery (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/979013
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In this broadly researched and well-written synthesis, anthropologist Heather Montgomery offers a history of violence against children within the family in England. Montgomery aims to identify “children’s experience of abuse” and “where the boundary between unacceptable and acceptable parental behaviour lies, and how it has changed over time” (10). By “abuse,” she means “violence against children” and “child cruelty” (6). Within that broad definition, she devotes separate chapters to infanticide, abandonment, neglect, physical punishment and discipline, and sexual abuse, tracing each from the medieval and early modern periods to the present day. The final two chapters are dedicated to interventionism and child
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/400/image/coversmallFamiliar Violence: A History of Child Abuse. by Heather Montgomery (review)2026-01-06text/htmlen-USFamiliar Violence: A History of Child Abuse. by Heather Montgomery (review)2026-01-062026TWOProject MUSE®73802026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-01-06Lived Resistance Against the War on Palestinian Children ed. by Heidi Morrison (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/979014
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The book Lived Resistance Against the War on Palestinian Children, edited by Heidi Morrison, critically examines Palestinian childhood under Israeli settler-colonial rule. Moving beyond portrayals of Palestinian children as passive victims, the book argues that they actively resist Israeli state violence through creative expression, legal defiance, digital activism, and intergenerational resilience. Its interdisciplinary approach—drawing from history, law, psychology, and media studies—positions it within broader discussions on settler-colonial governance and Indigenous resistance.The introduction and historical backdrop establish the book’s core frameworks. Morrison introduces lived resistance as defiance embedded
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/400/image/coversmallLived Resistance Against the War on Palestinian Children ed. by Heidi Morrison (review)2026-01-06text/htmlen-USLived Resistance Against the War on Palestinian Children ed. by Heidi Morrison (review)2026-01-062026TWOProject MUSE®98212026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-01-06Dreaming the New Woman: An Oral History of Missionary Schoolgirls in Republican China by Jennifer Bond (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/979015
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Missionary schools for girls held a provocative place in the public imaginary of twentieth-century China. Seen as both symbols of cultural imperialism and as training grounds for wealthy young women, they garnered a reputation as isolated spaces, where pupils imbibed Western values as they prepared to enter the lofty echelons of a globalized treaty port elite. In her recent book, Dreaming the New Woman: An Oral History of Missionary Schoolgirls in Republican China, Jennifer Bond complicates this picture through a detailed analysis of students’ experiences at five of China’s prominent missionary schools. Drawing upon rich source materials, including extensive oral interviews with missionary school alumnae, Dreaming
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/400/image/coversmallDreaming the New Woman: An Oral History of Missionary Schoolgirls in Republican China by Jennifer Bond (review)2026-01-06text/htmlen-USDreaming the New Woman: An Oral History of Missionary Schoolgirls in Republican China by Jennifer Bond (review)2026-01-062026TWOProject MUSE®86382026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-01-06The Science of the Child in Liberal Italy. by Luisa Tasca (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/979016
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In the still underdeveloped panorama of the history of childhood in Italy, Luisa Tasca’s book offers a contribution that is as valuable as it is courageous, filling a historiographical gap and restoring dignity to a cultural season that has so far remained on the margins. The author takes us on a surprisingly rich and layered journey through the study of childhood between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—a period too often overshadowed by the towering figures of Maria Montessori or Giovanni Gentile and by the looming threat of fascism. Yet this earlier period is essential for understanding the origins, development, and specific nature of the Italian case.From the very first pages, the sense and
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/400/image/coversmallThe Science of the Child in Liberal Italy. by Luisa Tasca (review)2026-01-06text/htmlen-USThe Science of the Child in Liberal Italy. by Luisa Tasca (review)2026-01-062026TWOProject MUSE®72142026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-01-06Childhood and Youth in African History by Sarah E. Duff (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/979017
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Sarah E. Duff’s Childhood and Youth in African History is an articulate and important book that places children and young people at the center of African historiography. In a field long dominated by adult-focused political, economic, and institutional narratives, Duff argues that “childhood” and “youth” are not universal biological stages but historically and culturally constructed categories that have changed across regions, periods, and administrations (3). The book is thoughtfully organized into eight chapters: an introductory chapter, six thematic chapters, and a conclusion. The introduction establishes the tone and key concepts. Here, Duff challenges the persistent assumption drawn from European Romanticism
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/400/image/coversmallChildhood and Youth in African History by Sarah E. Duff (review)2026-01-06text/htmlen-USChildhood and Youth in African History by Sarah E. Duff (review)2026-01-062026TWOProject MUSE®98102026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-01-06Growing Up and Going Out: Youth Culture, Commerce, and Leisure Space in Post-War Britain by Sarah Kenny (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/979018
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This rich study historicizes the emergence of a vibrant night-time youth culture in post-war Britain, when a host of new possibilities opened up for young people who wanted to socialize outside the home. During the day, young consumers in regional towns and cities were drawn to retail and entertainment attractions, browsing in boutiques and record shops, visiting shopping centers that housed ice-rinks, bowling alleys and cinemas. But it was by night that the city became a young person’s domain, offering an increasing menu of spaces where young people could congregate, quite distinct in ambience from the types of public house and dancehalls their parents would frequent. Using the city of Sheffield as a case study
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/400/image/coversmallGrowing Up and Going Out: Youth Culture, Commerce, and Leisure Space in Post-War Britain by Sarah Kenny (review)2026-01-06text/htmlen-USGrowing Up and Going Out: Youth Culture, Commerce, and Leisure Space in Post-War Britain by Sarah Kenny (review)2026-01-062026TWOProject MUSE®75202026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-01-06