Re-Inventing American Childhood: How did the nineteenth century heart of the home become the twentieth century child of the state?

Authors

Judith Sealander, Bowling Green State UniversityFollow

Files

Description

Professor Sealander outlines the major subject of 1 her current book-in-progress: state efforts to regulate children's work, education, health, and welfare. She demonstrates how a byzantine welter of laws and policies transformed the attitudes about children that Americans were supposed to support. Asking ''What have been the consequences of a twentieth century public reinvention of childhood," she suggests that by end of the twentieth century, coming of age had become a public ritual. It was and is one frequently in conflict with an earlier nineteenth century rhetoric that • glorified families, increased the responsibilities of mothers, and sentimentalized children as the heart of the home.

Publication Date

Spring 2-18-1999

Keywords

History

Recommended Citation

Sealander, Judith, "Re-Inventing American Childhood: How did the nineteenth century heart of the home become the twentieth century child of the state?" (1999). ICS Fellow Lectures. 33.
https://scholarworks.bgsu.edu/ics_fellow_lectures/33