Historians have been guilty of child neglect. Yes, they've studied
children, but only to learn about adults. Typically they've chosen
adult-centered research topics like child-rearing practices, social
attitudes toward children, and the evolution of public institutions
like education and juvenile courts.
The thirteen essays in "Small Worlds" take a different tack.
They treat children as active, influential participants in society.
Here children and adolescents from the pre-Civil War generation to
1950 are seen as actors in their own right, shapers of their own
history who not only mirror adult values, but also modify them.
Editors Elliott West and Paula Petrik have organized the essays
in Small Worlds around four topics: cultural and regional
variations, toys and play, family life, and the ways evolving
memories of childhood shape how adults think of themselves. And,
since photography provides the best record of childhood, they've
added a photographic essay by Ray Hiner entitled "Seen but Not
Heard."
"A youthful perspective on the past can provide a much better
understanding of changes in American material and economic life,"
write West and Petrik. Young people, they argue, performed many of
the essential jobs in newly industrialized America, and they
continued to play vital roles on their families' farms well into
the twentieth century. As a result, children have been increasingly
influential in American economic life--as consumers.
According to West and Petrik, the study of children also reveals
how values evolve out of the mutual give-and-take between society
and child in the socialization process. This enormously complex
evolution continues as the child matures and, in turn, tries
mightily to pass on values to a new generation of children who work
just as strenuously to make up their own minds.
"This book represents a new and imaginative reconception of the
American experience. . . . Especially noteworthy is the emphasis on
material culture."--David M. Katzman, author of "Seven Days a Week:
Women and Domestic Service in Industrializing America."
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