James Marten

Children and Youth During the Gilded Age and Progressive Era - Children and Youth in America James Marten

Marc Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.; In the decades after the Civil War, urbanization, industrialization, and immigration marked the start of the Gilded Age, a period of rapid economic growth but also social upheaval. Reformers responded to the social and economic chaos with a search for order, as famously described by historian Robert Wiebe. Most reformers agreed that one of the nation's top priorities should be its children and youth, who, they believed, suffered more from the disorder plaguing the rapidly growing nation than any other group. Children and Youth during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era explores both nineteenth century conditions that led Progressives to their search for order and some of the solutions applied to children and youth in the context of that search. Edited by renowned scholar of children's history James Marten, the collection of eleven essays offers case studies relevant to educational reform, child labor laws, underage marriage, and recreation for children, among others. Including important primary documents produced by children themselves, the essays in this volume foreground the role that youth played in exerting agency over their own lives and in contesting the policies that sought to protect and control them--; Provided by publisher. Table of Contents: Foreword / Paula S. Fass -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction / James Marten -- Part I. Shaping the Future: Institutions and the Law -- 1. Playing Progressively? Race, Reform, and Playful Pedagogies in the Origins of Philadelphia's Starr Garden Recreation Park, 1857-1904 / Deborah Valentine -- 2. Model Schools and Field Days: Colorado Fuel and Iron's Construction of Education and Recreation for Children, 1901-1918 / Fawn-Amber Montoya -- 3. Of Families or Individuals? Southern Child Workers and the Progressive Crusade for Child Labor Regulation, 1899-1920 / Gwendoline Alphonso -- 4. I Was So Glad to Be in School Here: Religious Organizations 81 and the School on Ellis Island in the Early 1900s / Claire B. Gallagher -- 5. The Trajectory of Benevolence: Progressivism in the Little Colonel Books / Sarah E. Clere -- Part II. Managing Change: Children, Youth, and Families -- 6. Willful Disobedience: Young People and School Authority in the Nineteenth-Century United States / James D. Schmidt -- 7. The Contested Meanings of Child Marriage in the Turn-of-the-Century United States / Nicholas L. Syrett -- 8. Sex, Abortion, and Prostitution in the Lives of Gilded Age / Chicago Girls, Mary Linehan -- 9. Ohio Departures: George as Progressive Youth in Sherwood Andersons Winesburg, Ohio / John James, Tom Ue -- 10. Fit Body, Fit Mind: Scandinavian Youth and the Value of Work, Education, and Physical Fitness in Progressive-Era Chicago / Erika K. Jackson -- 11. Duty and Destiny: A Progressive Reformers Coming of Age in the Gilded Age / Anya Jabour -- Documents: Thinking with Their Heads -- Questions for Consideration -- References -- About the Contributors -- Index. Brief Description: "In the decades after the Civil War, urbanization, industrialization, and immigration marked the start of the Gilded Age, a period of rapid economic growth but also social upheaval. Reformers responded to the social and economic chaos with a "search for order," as famously described by historian Robert Wiebe. Most reformers agreed that one of the nation's top priorities should be its children and youth, who, they believed, suffered more from the disorder plaguing the rapidly growing nation than any other group. Children and Youth during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era explores both nineteenth century conditions that led Progressives to their search for order and some of the solutions applied to children and youth in the context of that search. Edited by renowned scholar of children's history James Marten, the collection of eleven essays offers case studies relevant to educational reform, child labor laws, underage marriage, and recreation for children, among others. Including important primary documents produced by children themselves, the essays in this volume foreground the role that youth played in exerting agency over their own lives and in contesting the policies that sought to protect and control them"--Publisher Marketing: In the decades after the Civil War, urbanization, industrialization, and immigration marked the start of the Gilded Age, a period of rapid economic growth but also social upheaval. Reformers responded to the social and economic chaos with a "search for order," as famously described by historian Robert Wiebe. Most reformers agreed that one of the nation's top priorities should be its children and youth, who, they believed, suffered more from the disorder plaguing the rapidly growing nation than any other group. Children and Youth during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era explores both nineteenth century conditions that led Progressives to their search for order and some of the solutions applied to children and youth in the context of that search. Edited by renowned scholar of children's history James Marten, the collection of eleven essays offers case studies relevant to educational reform, child labor laws, underage marriage, and recreation for children, among others. Including important primary documents produced by children themselves, the essays in this volume foreground the role that youth played in exerting agency over their own lives and in contesting the policies that sought to protect and control them.

Contributor Bio:  Marten, James James Marten is professor of history at Marquette University in Milwaukee. He is director of the Children in Urban America Project: A Digital Archive. Contributor Bio:  Fass, Paula S Paula S. Fass is the Margaret Byrne Professor History at the University of California at Berkeley. She is the author of "Kidnapped: Child Abduction in America", "Outside In: Minorities and the Transformation of American Education", and "The Damned and the Beautiful: American Youth in the 1920s". She is the editor of "The Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood in History and Society" and (with Mary Ann Mason) "Childhood in America" (available from NYU Press).