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Huck’s Raft: A History of American Childhood
Like Huck’s raft, the experience of American childhood has been both adventurous and terrifying. For more than three centuries, adults have agonized over raising children while children have followed their own paths to development and expression. Now, Steven Mintz gives us the first comprehensive history of American childhood encompassing both the child’s and the adult’s tumultuous early years of life.
Underscoring diversity through time and across regions, Mintz traces the transformation of children from the sinful creatures perceived by Puritans to the productive workers of nineteenth-century farms and factories, from the cosseted cherubs of the Victorian era to the confident consumers of our own. He explores their role in revolutionary upheaval, westward expansion, industrial growth, wartime mobilization, and the modern welfare state. Revealing the harsh realities of children’s lives through history―the rigors of physical labor, the fear of chronic ailments, the heartbreak of premature death―he also acknowledges the freedom children once possessed to discover their world as well as themselves.
Whether at work or play, at home or school, the transition from childhood to adulthood has required generations of Americans to tackle tremendously difficult challenges. Today, adults impose ever-increasing demands on the young for self-discipline, cognitive development, and academic achievement, even as the influence of the mass media and consumer culture has grown. With a nod to the past, Mintz revisits an alternative to the goal-driven realities of contemporary childhood. An odyssey of psychological self-discovery and growth, this book suggests a vision of childhood that embraces risk and freedom―like the daring adventure on Huck’s raft.
Underscoring diversity through time and across regions, Mintz traces the transformation of children from the sinful creatures perceived by Puritans to the productive workers of nineteenth-century farms and factories, from the cosseted cherubs of the Victorian era to the confident consumers of our own. He explores their role in revolutionary upheaval, westward expansion, industrial growth, wartime mobilization, and the modern welfare state. Revealing the harsh realities of children’s lives through history―the rigors of physical labor, the fear of chronic ailments, the heartbreak of premature death―he also acknowledges the freedom children once possessed to discover their world as well as themselves.
Whether at work or play, at home or school, the transition from childhood to adulthood has required generations of Americans to tackle tremendously difficult challenges. Today, adults impose ever-increasing demands on the young for self-discipline, cognitive development, and academic achievement, even as the influence of the mass media and consumer culture has grown. With a nod to the past, Mintz revisits an alternative to the goal-driven realities of contemporary childhood. An odyssey of psychological self-discovery and growth, this book suggests a vision of childhood that embraces risk and freedom―like the daring adventure on Huck’s raft.
464 pages, Paperback
First published November 15, 2004
33 people are currently reading
1136 people want to read
About the author
Steven Mintz
42 books8 followersSteven Mintz is an American historian at the University of Texas at Austin.
In addition to a commitment to pedagogy, interests on which he has published widely include the history of the American family and children, film and history, immigration and ethnic history.
A cultural historian trained in the methods of the new social history, he is the author and editor of 14 history books, focusing on such topics as families and children, antebellum reform, slavery and antislavery, ethnicity, and film.
In addition to a commitment to pedagogy, interests on which he has published widely include the history of the American family and children, film and history, immigration and ethnic history.
A cultural historian trained in the methods of the new social history, he is the author and editor of 14 history books, focusing on such topics as families and children, antebellum reform, slavery and antislavery, ethnicity, and film.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 60 reviews
July 2, 2021
It's possible this book is better than I give it credit for. It's just that the author is interested primarily in the legal and economic aspects of childhood, much much less about the quiddities of the everyday lives of children, and not at all about the mythology, internal and external, of childhood and how it is romanticized or reimagined either by art or by children themselves. Since this is pretty much the exact opposite of the order of my interests, I found the book frustrating.
If you're interested in who passed what laws to keep sweeps out of your chimneys, you may find Huck's Raft more congenial. If you're looking for "the good stuff" try Inventing Wonderland, A Boy's Town, In Our Convent Days or The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren.
If you're interested in who passed what laws to keep sweeps out of your chimneys, you may find Huck's Raft more congenial. If you're looking for "the good stuff" try Inventing Wonderland, A Boy's Town, In Our Convent Days or The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren.
April 28, 2025
very dense, but very interesting
June 29, 2015
A very absorbing history of American childhood, from the Puritans to the Columbine High School shooting. I am always pleasantly surprised at how much I genuinely enjoy learning and relearning American history. Mintz has compiled a detailed and engaging story of how childhood has evolved in our country and takes particular care to debunk myths about American children. The prose can be repetitive in places, but the anecdotes, observations, and conclusions are compelling.
Five prevalent myths about American childhood, according to Mintz:
1. Myth of a carefree childhood in the past
2. Myth of home as a haven/bastion of stability
3. Myth that childhood is the same for all children regardless of gender, ethnicity, class
4. Myth that the US is a peculiarly child-friendly society
5. Myth of progress (or in reverse, belief that childhood is disappearing and that kids are growing up too quickly)
Five prevalent myths about American childhood, according to Mintz:
1. Myth of a carefree childhood in the past
2. Myth of home as a haven/bastion of stability
3. Myth that childhood is the same for all children regardless of gender, ethnicity, class
4. Myth that the US is a peculiarly child-friendly society
5. Myth of progress (or in reverse, belief that childhood is disappearing and that kids are growing up too quickly)
February 28, 2013
A massive project, lightly written, hugely readable. There's something interesting on every page.
June 20, 2011
Brilliant and fascinating book that I will certainly reread. This view covers American history from the perspective of children. How did childhood change throughout different periods of our country's history? What does it mean to be a child? Should children be sheltered and protected from the world, or are they ready to work and be a part of society from a young age? Why is education important and how did it change? What is the ideal family unit and how did regional differences come into play? How about Native Americans and Afraican American childhood over the years? These are just a few topics covered.
Quotes
In the Puritans' eyes, children were adults in training who needed to be prepared for salvation and inducted into the world of work as early as possible…As a struggling minority, their survival depended on ensuring that their children retained their values. 10
Against this background of disruptive social change, radically conflicting conceptions of the nature of childhood had emerged in Tudor and Stuart England…for them, children were malleable, and all depended on the nature of the upbringing and education. 11
Childbirth in colonial New England was a difficult and sometimes life-threatening experience. During the seventeenth century, between 1 and 1.5 percent of births ended in the mother’s death, the result of exhaustion, dehydration, infection, hemorrhage, or convultions. Since the typical mother gave birth to between seven and nine children, her lifetime chances of dying from childbirth ran as high as one in eight. 14
The feminization of New England religion carried profound social and religious consequences. It was apparent in a theological shift away from an emphasis on a vengeful god the father, demanding obedience and submission to his laws, towards an emphasis on the figure of Christ, protecting his followers. It was also evident in a sift away from a stress on the patriarchal household as the central social institution. No longer able to trust male household heads with properly educating and catechizing their children and servants, New Englanders placed greater emphasis on catechism within churches, on public schools, and on maternal nature. Ministers increasingly argued that the pious, virtuous mother should assume primary responsibility for educating young children. 27
To foster independence and initiative, Native American parents rarely restrained their children…Threats, coercion, and physical punishment, it was feared, would make children timid and submissive; parents’ goal was to foster pride, independence, and courage. They did so by honoring certain rites of passage that demarcated the passage from childbirth to adulthood. 35
The direction of family change in the Chesapeake colonies was the reverse of that found in New England. In the Chesapeake region, family life grew more stable over time and, among the planter class, more hierarchical and patriarchal. Yet the prevalence of slavery produced patterns of parenting decisively different from those in New England by diverting paternal discipline from children onto slaves. Meanwhile planter families placed far less emphasis on shaping a child’s conscience. Despite certain trends towards uniformity over the eighteenth century, regional difference remained a defining feature of colonial childhood. 41
It is not an accident that the very terms used to describe young people – boy and girl – were words also applied to servants regardless of age, since subordination and dependency characterized both the condition of service and the condition of childhood and youth. 52
During the Revolution the young assumed adult responsibilities at an early age. The conflict intensified and accelerated the erosion of social hierarchy and deference. 64
[Post Independence USA] Boyhood was defined in opposition to the confinement, dependence, and restraint of the domestic realm. Boys were freer to roam than girls, and their chores, such as tending animals or running errands, took place free from adult oversight. Boys’ games – such as races, fistfights, sledding and skating, swimming or ball games – invariably took place outside the home and emphasized physical play, self-assertion, physical prowess, stoicism and competition. Boys’ culture simultaneously challenged the dictates of respectable adulthood and prepared boys for it. It was a world of physicality, dirt, violence, but also a world in which boys learned to channel aggression and to function in groups. 83
After 1830, however, there were growing efforts to impose order on children, especially urban middle-class children between the ages of seven and thirteen. Tolerance of precocious behavior declined, and there was a growing concern with ensuring children’s proper chronological development. Perhaps the most dramatic development was greater systematization of a haphazard system of education. The emergence of Sunday schools represented one of the first attempts to rein in young people’s lives…Before the advent of public education in the early 1830s, formal schooling was sporadic and unsystematic. 90
[Civil War period] Perhaps the most striking development was the politicization of childhood…Schoolbooks, which had avoided the controversy before the war, became politicized to an astonishing extent. 127
[First stage of American childhood 1790s through 1840s, Civil War = second era sparked a second phase in child-saving as a new generation of reformers invoked the state’s police powers to protect children] The Progressive era, the period stretching from 1890s to WWI marked a third phase in the history of child-saving.
Today the prisonlike orphan asylums and reformatories of the early nineteenth century stand as relics of a seemingly more repressive, less enlightened past. But these institutions were inspired, to varying degrees, by a utopian faith that it was possible to solve social problems and reshape human character by removing children from corrupting outside influence and instilling self-control through moral education, work, rigorous discipline, and an orderly environment. 161
Progressive educators, led by John Dewey, launched a revolt-against drill and rote memorization in favor of a more natural, child-centered education…methods of pedagogy that appealed to all of a child’s senses and were tailored to children’s individual needs. Ironically, the Progressive era also saw the rise of standardized testing. 175
Its standardized norms also altered the way young people were reared by inspiring new kinds of childrearing manuals, written by physicians and psychologists rather than by ministers and moralist, and espousing rational rather than spiritual advice. 189
If the contours of young people’s lives were increasingly imposed by adults, the content would be largely shaped by young people themselves. 199
Early twentieth-century parents sensed that they were living in a new era, fundamentally different from the one preceding it. Self-conscious modernity was the defining characteristic of this era….baby girls began to be dressed in white and baby boys in blue….boys started to wear pants and have their hair trimmed at two or three…Meanwhile a new commercial children culture appeared…the young had broken away from the world of adults and established their own customs. 214
Quotes
In the Puritans' eyes, children were adults in training who needed to be prepared for salvation and inducted into the world of work as early as possible…As a struggling minority, their survival depended on ensuring that their children retained their values. 10
Against this background of disruptive social change, radically conflicting conceptions of the nature of childhood had emerged in Tudor and Stuart England…for them, children were malleable, and all depended on the nature of the upbringing and education. 11
Childbirth in colonial New England was a difficult and sometimes life-threatening experience. During the seventeenth century, between 1 and 1.5 percent of births ended in the mother’s death, the result of exhaustion, dehydration, infection, hemorrhage, or convultions. Since the typical mother gave birth to between seven and nine children, her lifetime chances of dying from childbirth ran as high as one in eight. 14
The feminization of New England religion carried profound social and religious consequences. It was apparent in a theological shift away from an emphasis on a vengeful god the father, demanding obedience and submission to his laws, towards an emphasis on the figure of Christ, protecting his followers. It was also evident in a sift away from a stress on the patriarchal household as the central social institution. No longer able to trust male household heads with properly educating and catechizing their children and servants, New Englanders placed greater emphasis on catechism within churches, on public schools, and on maternal nature. Ministers increasingly argued that the pious, virtuous mother should assume primary responsibility for educating young children. 27
To foster independence and initiative, Native American parents rarely restrained their children…Threats, coercion, and physical punishment, it was feared, would make children timid and submissive; parents’ goal was to foster pride, independence, and courage. They did so by honoring certain rites of passage that demarcated the passage from childbirth to adulthood. 35
The direction of family change in the Chesapeake colonies was the reverse of that found in New England. In the Chesapeake region, family life grew more stable over time and, among the planter class, more hierarchical and patriarchal. Yet the prevalence of slavery produced patterns of parenting decisively different from those in New England by diverting paternal discipline from children onto slaves. Meanwhile planter families placed far less emphasis on shaping a child’s conscience. Despite certain trends towards uniformity over the eighteenth century, regional difference remained a defining feature of colonial childhood. 41
It is not an accident that the very terms used to describe young people – boy and girl – were words also applied to servants regardless of age, since subordination and dependency characterized both the condition of service and the condition of childhood and youth. 52
During the Revolution the young assumed adult responsibilities at an early age. The conflict intensified and accelerated the erosion of social hierarchy and deference. 64
[Post Independence USA] Boyhood was defined in opposition to the confinement, dependence, and restraint of the domestic realm. Boys were freer to roam than girls, and their chores, such as tending animals or running errands, took place free from adult oversight. Boys’ games – such as races, fistfights, sledding and skating, swimming or ball games – invariably took place outside the home and emphasized physical play, self-assertion, physical prowess, stoicism and competition. Boys’ culture simultaneously challenged the dictates of respectable adulthood and prepared boys for it. It was a world of physicality, dirt, violence, but also a world in which boys learned to channel aggression and to function in groups. 83
After 1830, however, there were growing efforts to impose order on children, especially urban middle-class children between the ages of seven and thirteen. Tolerance of precocious behavior declined, and there was a growing concern with ensuring children’s proper chronological development. Perhaps the most dramatic development was greater systematization of a haphazard system of education. The emergence of Sunday schools represented one of the first attempts to rein in young people’s lives…Before the advent of public education in the early 1830s, formal schooling was sporadic and unsystematic. 90
[Civil War period] Perhaps the most striking development was the politicization of childhood…Schoolbooks, which had avoided the controversy before the war, became politicized to an astonishing extent. 127
[First stage of American childhood 1790s through 1840s, Civil War = second era sparked a second phase in child-saving as a new generation of reformers invoked the state’s police powers to protect children] The Progressive era, the period stretching from 1890s to WWI marked a third phase in the history of child-saving.
Today the prisonlike orphan asylums and reformatories of the early nineteenth century stand as relics of a seemingly more repressive, less enlightened past. But these institutions were inspired, to varying degrees, by a utopian faith that it was possible to solve social problems and reshape human character by removing children from corrupting outside influence and instilling self-control through moral education, work, rigorous discipline, and an orderly environment. 161
Progressive educators, led by John Dewey, launched a revolt-against drill and rote memorization in favor of a more natural, child-centered education…methods of pedagogy that appealed to all of a child’s senses and were tailored to children’s individual needs. Ironically, the Progressive era also saw the rise of standardized testing. 175
Its standardized norms also altered the way young people were reared by inspiring new kinds of childrearing manuals, written by physicians and psychologists rather than by ministers and moralist, and espousing rational rather than spiritual advice. 189
If the contours of young people’s lives were increasingly imposed by adults, the content would be largely shaped by young people themselves. 199
Early twentieth-century parents sensed that they were living in a new era, fundamentally different from the one preceding it. Self-conscious modernity was the defining characteristic of this era….baby girls began to be dressed in white and baby boys in blue….boys started to wear pants and have their hair trimmed at two or three…Meanwhile a new commercial children culture appeared…the young had broken away from the world of adults and established their own customs. 214
June 30, 2021
This was such a good read on a perspective of history that is often ignored. I think it was really great how Mintz interweaved the stories of children to make his points. Furthermore, the focus on many types of diverse experiences was great. I would have liked to seen more on queer kids and families but overall this book was fantastic.
December 19, 2017
Super dry style, very interesting content. Could have been more inclusive of native children, but not too terrible, diversity-wise.
July 12, 2025
An impressive story of the resilience American kids have shown through some remarkable periods of history.
March 9, 2013
Goodness grief! Talk about religious freedom when actually the protestants played a large role in how parents reared children, teachers taught students, and society treated minors. Also, people say the pioneers built America when it's really the indentured servants and slaves, who were children and adults, that did all the land clearing, crop planting and harvesting, home building, to name a few! Finally, the values of the middle-class society had a huge influence in how the data from scientific studies were used to define child development, the psychology of adolescence etc. as well as how parents should raise children, teachers educate students, and society handle minors. There are many astonishing accounts of how children lived in all periods, starting with colonial America and ending with the start of the 21st century. Fascinating read! A must read!
April 2, 2012
This text was very informative survey of American childhoods.
Favorite quote:
"Huck Finn was an abused child, whose father, the town drunk, beat him for going to school and learning to read. Who would envy Huck's battered childhood? Yet he enjoyed something too many children are denied and which adults can provide: opportunities to undertake odysseys of self-discovery outside the goal-driven, over structured realities of contemporary childhood."
Favorite quote:
"Huck Finn was an abused child, whose father, the town drunk, beat him for going to school and learning to read. Who would envy Huck's battered childhood? Yet he enjoyed something too many children are denied and which adults can provide: opportunities to undertake odysseys of self-discovery outside the goal-driven, over structured realities of contemporary childhood."
January 6, 2009
This is one of the BEST books I have ever read! The history of childhood is explored from colonial times to current day. I learned SOOO much.
May 24, 2016
An outstanding work of cultural history--accessible, engrossing, enlightening, and fascinating.
May 1, 2022
"YOU'VE COME A LONG WAY, KID"
You can’t swing a dead beatnik without hitting an older person complaining that kids nowadays are less respectful, less knowledgeable, more violent, less innocent, and more sexually irresponsible than they were. Hell, there are more Internet memes that denigrate younger generations than there are zits on all the teenagers in the world. It’s always annoyed this now 61-year-old reviewer when people talk such poppycock. Denigrating younger people is more about puffing up our own self-esteem and recalling our youth through unreliable nostalgia. ‘Huck’s Raft’ puts the history of American childhood in proper perspective.
Mr. Mintz begins the book by explaining how children were treated by the Puritans when they settled in the New World. It comes as no surprise that religion was the center of their universe and child rearing reflected it. The author then shows how regional differences between New England, the Middle Colonies, and the South resulted in different approaches towards raising children. Advancements in technology, a broader mix of immigrants, and slavery kept changing child development practices. Naturally, older generations lamented the new child-rearing methods. Mr. Mintz also explains Native Americans, Quaker, Mexican-Americans, Japanese-Americans and African American child-rearing techniques. The chapter on the horrific abuses endured under slavery was especially infuriating to read. ‘Huck’s Raft’ covers such topics as patriarchal authority; indentured servitude; the emergence of the private family; the American Revolution’s ripple effects on child rearing and education; the creation of modern childhood; their participation during the Civil War; child labor; immigrant children exploited, abused, and enduring countless hardships; poverty; juvenile delinquency; slums; orphanhood; child prostitution; “Americanizing” Native Americans; reform schools; juvenile courts; daycare; the Great Depression and the New Deal; World War II; Japanese-American internment camps; the teenage consumer market; frontier living; gangs; the Civil Rights Movement; the misperceptions of the 1950s; children’s rights; and concludes with school shootings. The caterwauling seen today about education curricula in public schools and colleges is not new and has been a pissin’-and-moanin’ staple since its inception. The work includes lots of personal stories from the various eras and has a handful of black-and-white photos scattered throughout it.
Idyllic images of childhoods’ past, especially the 1950s, are simply wrong. ‘Huck’s Raft’ shows that there are solid reasons why child rearing continues to evolve even from the earliest days of our nation’s founding. Advances in mortality, sexual demographics, new forms of commerce, technological advances, and regional environmental challenges were and still are constant contributors to childhood’s evolution. While Mr. Mintz’s book that was published in 2004 gives a good overview of American childhood, it is somewhat dated because it understandably does not address the seismic changes to childhood due to the Internet, cell phones, and the plethora of social platforms. However, I found ‘Huck’s Raft’ an interesting and illuminating work.
You can’t swing a dead beatnik without hitting an older person complaining that kids nowadays are less respectful, less knowledgeable, more violent, less innocent, and more sexually irresponsible than they were. Hell, there are more Internet memes that denigrate younger generations than there are zits on all the teenagers in the world. It’s always annoyed this now 61-year-old reviewer when people talk such poppycock. Denigrating younger people is more about puffing up our own self-esteem and recalling our youth through unreliable nostalgia. ‘Huck’s Raft’ puts the history of American childhood in proper perspective.
Mr. Mintz begins the book by explaining how children were treated by the Puritans when they settled in the New World. It comes as no surprise that religion was the center of their universe and child rearing reflected it. The author then shows how regional differences between New England, the Middle Colonies, and the South resulted in different approaches towards raising children. Advancements in technology, a broader mix of immigrants, and slavery kept changing child development practices. Naturally, older generations lamented the new child-rearing methods. Mr. Mintz also explains Native Americans, Quaker, Mexican-Americans, Japanese-Americans and African American child-rearing techniques. The chapter on the horrific abuses endured under slavery was especially infuriating to read. ‘Huck’s Raft’ covers such topics as patriarchal authority; indentured servitude; the emergence of the private family; the American Revolution’s ripple effects on child rearing and education; the creation of modern childhood; their participation during the Civil War; child labor; immigrant children exploited, abused, and enduring countless hardships; poverty; juvenile delinquency; slums; orphanhood; child prostitution; “Americanizing” Native Americans; reform schools; juvenile courts; daycare; the Great Depression and the New Deal; World War II; Japanese-American internment camps; the teenage consumer market; frontier living; gangs; the Civil Rights Movement; the misperceptions of the 1950s; children’s rights; and concludes with school shootings. The caterwauling seen today about education curricula in public schools and colleges is not new and has been a pissin’-and-moanin’ staple since its inception. The work includes lots of personal stories from the various eras and has a handful of black-and-white photos scattered throughout it.
Idyllic images of childhoods’ past, especially the 1950s, are simply wrong. ‘Huck’s Raft’ shows that there are solid reasons why child rearing continues to evolve even from the earliest days of our nation’s founding. Advances in mortality, sexual demographics, new forms of commerce, technological advances, and regional environmental challenges were and still are constant contributors to childhood’s evolution. While Mr. Mintz’s book that was published in 2004 gives a good overview of American childhood, it is somewhat dated because it understandably does not address the seismic changes to childhood due to the Internet, cell phones, and the plethora of social platforms. However, I found ‘Huck’s Raft’ an interesting and illuminating work.
November 1, 2019
This was a well-researched and well-written look at a really expansive topic: childhood from the Puritans to 2000. You learn an interesting factoid about American history on every page, to the point where your family gets sick of you looking up from reading and saying, "Did you know...?" (But be aware the print on each page is tiny and dense, and reading it will take you twice as long as you think!)
As a parenting blogger, not only did I glean not only a lot of interesting facts from this book, I began to more broadly question a lot of the "givens" that are out there in the blogosphere about the "right" way to raise children. What is the mission of education? What is the purpose of childhood, and how long does it last? How much responsibility for themselves and the family should children carry? Through the 300 years of history this book covers, the answers have been widely different. Fantastic to read.
I learned about this book because it was cited in the reference section of All Joy and No Fun, a book that examines the condition of the modern-day parent. If you're interested in parents and children, I would recommend All Joy and No Fun as well, although it approaches the topic very differently and is a much quicker read.
As a parenting blogger, not only did I glean not only a lot of interesting facts from this book, I began to more broadly question a lot of the "givens" that are out there in the blogosphere about the "right" way to raise children. What is the mission of education? What is the purpose of childhood, and how long does it last? How much responsibility for themselves and the family should children carry? Through the 300 years of history this book covers, the answers have been widely different. Fantastic to read.
I learned about this book because it was cited in the reference section of All Joy and No Fun, a book that examines the condition of the modern-day parent. If you're interested in parents and children, I would recommend All Joy and No Fun as well, although it approaches the topic very differently and is a much quicker read.
December 7, 2021
This was a very interesting and thorough look into changing ideas and experiences of American childhood. Mintz takes care to portray the multitude of childhoods present at particular junctures of time, punctuated by differences of race, class, gender, and sexuality. I found the end of the book, which looked at childhoods in the 1990s a bit less interesting, just because it felt like it was edging the line of assumption and judgement at times. Overall, though, Mintz shows how childhood and the figure of the child shifts throughout American history, telling different stories about the family, freedom, and holding anxieties, promise, and fear.
April 9, 2024
I’ve spent months reading this, but more due to my own life than an unwillingness to pick it back up. Eye opening and truly thought provoking, in each successive era the “adulting” being done by young people was sobering, as well as the lack of care, concern, or investment by the adults, including institutionally. As it progressed to the decades corresponding to my adult years, my thoughts increasingly sharpened on what I can do to best support the young people in my own life, and putting those thoughts into action, which is a great feeling at thx end of a read. Well done.
January 21, 2025
Ok listen I had to read this as a textbook for my History class BUT I really enjoyed it; Every chapter starts with a case story to get you hooked, then seamlessly weaves through every detail of the story and others from the topic of the time period being discussed. The author makes it so easy to be able to not only understand the context in which people’s knowledge of childhood and child-rearing developed, but also find how our own context has been developed because of history.
September 28, 2020
I borrowed this from a library in Illinois a long time ago and it has stuck with me ever since. What I remember most is that it was illegal to abuse animals before it was illegal to abuse children, and that the first child abuse case was tried under ASPCA guidelines. I hope I got the details right.
Fascinating book, in a mostly sad way.
Fascinating book, in a mostly sad way.
January 4, 2021
It is a fascinating overview of American Society and its treatment of childhood throughout the centuries. It is far from a perfect book, but I appreciate its efforts to show a wide ranged approach to gender, race, and ethnicity. The argumentative force comes in the final chapter, but those conclusions are no surprise based on the reading.
September 20, 2020
As far as content, this book has it. Whatever you want to know about childhood in America at any point in history. I would consider it a great reference book if such a thing could possibly be needed. But the writing is dry and factual and never drew me in.
November 7, 2025
Read for HIST 499, Senior Seminar in the history of children and childhood. I thought it was a pretty good intro into the history of children and childhood in the West. It did the best it could with such a broad topic!
June 28, 2018
This was one of those books that I found in a list of references while reading an assigned text. It provides a good summary of American history considering childhood and its manifestations.
February 18, 2024
I had to read this book for a grad class. It was an excellent view of “childhood” throughout the ages.
September 13, 2024
Very comprehensive view of the history of American childhood. Often exhaustive and often not convincing in arguments of historical patterns.
Read
December 4, 2024read for uni
May 21, 2012
The task Mintz sets himself is daunting: to trace the history of childhood in the United States from the beginning until the start of the 21st century, giving attention to both the commonalities and the crucial differences in the experiences of children of different races, genders, classes, and cultural backgrounds. He doesn't quite succeed--that would require many more pages--but he has produced a very useful reference book which will be of use to students and scholars who want a quick take on the status of children during particular historical eras. The strongest sections of the book are those dealing with the competing visions of childhood in the colonial period and 19th century, which saw the gradual emergence of a view of childhood as a time of life which should be protected and sheltered. Mintz is fully aware that this ideal emerged primarily from middle and upper class families; working class children, immigrant children, African Americans, and Mexican Americans were forced to contribute to the family economically from young ages. He also does a good job examining the differences in the upbringing of boys and girls. Perhaps the most revealing aspect of his story concerns the tension between approaches to child-rearing which emphasize patriarchal control (usually stressing children's need for strict discipline and moral instruction) and those which emphasize maternal care (usually seeing children as autonomous beings who should be encouraged to realize their individual potential). As he points out, governmental policies vacillate wildly as one or another of these approaches moves to the center of public consciousness. Lots of useful references to the "expert works" which shaped public debate at particular moments, and the popular culture's treatment of childhood (especially in books and movies--he doesn't have much useful to say about music).
What keeps this from being more than a three start book is Mintz's failure to provide a compelling sense of historical narrative or to clearly identify the key tensions which are implicit in his material. Each chapter begins with something of a tabula rasa, which leases to a somewhat irritating tendency to use phrases like "more than ever before" when describing something he's described in very similar terms a few chapters previously. I'm using this book as the foundation for a couple of lectures for a class on "childhood and youth in America" and it'll be invaluable for that; but I'm going to have to winnow out the crucial tensions for myself. In addition, Mintz relies a bit too heavily on specific sources to generalize about childhood at specific times. When I recognize the sources, I frequently paused to think "yeah, but the reason that's a good book is that his/her experience isn't at all typical." Finally, the chapters on more recent periods--the 50s and 60s, especially--tend to invoke and respond to stereotypes of childhood as a golden age. It's fine to make the point that those have limited utility in understanding what happened, but it doesn't need to be said repeatedly.
The style is plodding. The book won several awards--the Merle Curti Award most prominently--which I take as testimony to the breadth rather than the depth of research. Glad I read it, glad I'm done.
What keeps this from being more than a three start book is Mintz's failure to provide a compelling sense of historical narrative or to clearly identify the key tensions which are implicit in his material. Each chapter begins with something of a tabula rasa, which leases to a somewhat irritating tendency to use phrases like "more than ever before" when describing something he's described in very similar terms a few chapters previously. I'm using this book as the foundation for a couple of lectures for a class on "childhood and youth in America" and it'll be invaluable for that; but I'm going to have to winnow out the crucial tensions for myself. In addition, Mintz relies a bit too heavily on specific sources to generalize about childhood at specific times. When I recognize the sources, I frequently paused to think "yeah, but the reason that's a good book is that his/her experience isn't at all typical." Finally, the chapters on more recent periods--the 50s and 60s, especially--tend to invoke and respond to stereotypes of childhood as a golden age. It's fine to make the point that those have limited utility in understanding what happened, but it doesn't need to be said repeatedly.
The style is plodding. The book won several awards--the Merle Curti Award most prominently--which I take as testimony to the breadth rather than the depth of research. Glad I read it, glad I'm done.
January 27, 2009
Good overview of how America, since its inception as a society, has handled the phenomenon of childhood. Bogged down a little in the section describing the 60s-90s, as that's when the litigious-speak kicked in but overall a very readable, interesting and enlightening history. Amazing that our current conception of childhood is such a young idea.
"History offers no easy solutions to the problems of disconnection, stress, and role contradictions that today's children face, but it does provide certain insights that might be helpful as we seek solutions. The first is that nostalgia for the past offers no solutions to the problems of the present ... No V-chip, internet filtering software or CD rating system will immunize children from the influence of contemporary culture. Since we cannot insulate children from all malign influences, it is essential that we prepare them to deal responsibly with the pressures and choices they face. That task requires knowledge, not sheltering ... Second, we must recognize that solutions to young people's problems cannot simply come from individual parents, nor should they ... our society can provide the young with meaningful opportunities to contribute to their communities and provide the young with adult mentoring relationships."
What childhood needs most of all are "opportunities to undertake odysseys of self-discovery outside the goal-driven, overstructured realities of contemporary childhood."
"History offers no easy solutions to the problems of disconnection, stress, and role contradictions that today's children face, but it does provide certain insights that might be helpful as we seek solutions. The first is that nostalgia for the past offers no solutions to the problems of the present ... No V-chip, internet filtering software or CD rating system will immunize children from the influence of contemporary culture. Since we cannot insulate children from all malign influences, it is essential that we prepare them to deal responsibly with the pressures and choices they face. That task requires knowledge, not sheltering ... Second, we must recognize that solutions to young people's problems cannot simply come from individual parents, nor should they ... our society can provide the young with meaningful opportunities to contribute to their communities and provide the young with adult mentoring relationships."
What childhood needs most of all are "opportunities to undertake odysseys of self-discovery outside the goal-driven, overstructured realities of contemporary childhood."
August 17, 2012
I got this book at a workshop I attended last year. Dr. Mintz spoke during the workshop and I had the pleasure of meeting him and getting his autograph on my book. I finally got around to reading the book this summer and I wish I had read it sooner. I don't usually say this about non-fiction books but I couldn't put this book down. It was so well written and each chapter was very interesting. It was great to read about how the major historical events that I teach about in my U.S. History class affected children in different ways. I will definitely be referring to this book next year for a new perspective for my class.
The language of the book is easy to follow. I would say this could be used as required reading for an Advanced Placement class as it would be very easy for students to understand and I think it would be of interest to them since it talks about teenage life throughout the decades in American History.
The language of the book is easy to follow. I would say this could be used as required reading for an Advanced Placement class as it would be very easy for students to understand and I think it would be of interest to them since it talks about teenage life throughout the decades in American History.
July 5, 2012
This was a really comprehensive book on the history of children and conceptions of childhood in American culture. The treatment of childhood in the twentieth century was especially extensive, covering the pre-war, WWI, inter-war, WWII and post war years in lots of detail. The book ends with a discussion of parental panics (kidnapping, molestation, murder) and the rise in mass-shootings in high schools. This text will be extremely useful to anyone studying children's literature, American culture or looking for information about the role of children in a specific time period in America. It is a hefty text (almost 400 pages) but for an academic text, the writing is engaging, with lots of anecdotes, stories about real children and excerpts from real children's letters and journals.
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November 15, 2011This book gives us a glimpse into the childhoods of America’s past. It covers being a Native American child during the time of colonization, a protestant child during the revolution, and everything in-between. While I find most history books to be dry and uninteresting, this book really kept my attention. It intersects facts with quotes from the people of the time, from letters and diaries. This method really allowed me to get the feel for the time period, it is defiantly something I’ll keep in mind for my own writings.
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