The Evolution of Childhood in Europe and America

In this essay, the author

• Analyzes how the evolution of childhood in europe and america was influenced by the nature of humankind, industry, urbanization, parents, and the women's movement.
• Explains that childhood in europe during the middle ages was a concept pretty much limited to members of the upper-class. with the advent of calvinism and protestantism in the late 1500s, the focus shifted.
• Explains that in the protestant view, humans were viewed as innately evil, soiled by original sin, and children were moral agents, in need of shaping.
• Explains the calvinist, or puritan, "work ethic," which valued hard work as a weapon in the battle against evil. industry easily accomodated this view.
• Explains that the development of industry had a profound influence on the history of childhood in the lower-classes.
• Argues that the factories brought urbanization, which contributed significantly to the shape of childhood.
• Explains that as industrial technology advanced, productivity went up, labor requirements went down, and children became a social problem in the new urban areas, which generated an effort to contain them.
• Explains that as the idea of universal schooling took hold, the minimum legal working age for children was rising and the maximum number of hours a child could legally work was declining.
• Explains that the third factor involved in the changing nature of childhood is the parents' attitudes toward children.
• Argues that the idea of the nurturant family is a mask for something quite different. parents in private homes have not only routinely neglected and neglected their children, but also sexually abused them.
• Argues that there was a countervailing, historical tendency opposed to the extension of childhood, though it is important to distinguish between classes.
• Analyzes the impact of the women's movement on the idea of childhood. shulamit firestone contends that childhood dependency was imposed on women in order to subjugate and confine them.
• Explains that the child-saving movement was a crusade that elevated the nuclear family and women as stalwarts of the family.
• Explains the "cult of childhood" which arose after the revolution, arguing that women organized during the war years and turned that then-unfocused energy inward toward the family.
• Analyzes how platt argues that the child-saving movement had both symbolic and status functions for middle-class, american feminists.
• Explains how the calvinist view of humankind characterized children as innately evil and therefore in need of shaping, and the women's movement, which resulted in a steadily increasing dependency period for children.
• Describes the works of arthur w. calhoun, marjorie cruickshank, and harriet fraad.
• Analyzes haralovich, mary beth, ivan, and anthony platt's work on the rise of the child-saving movement.
• Explains rose, lionel, shulamith, and charles strickland's the rise and fall of modern american childhood.