Childhood in the Past

An International Journal

ISSN: 1758-5716 (Print) 2040-8528 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ycip20

The End of American Childhood: A history

of Parenting from Life on the Frontier to the
Managed Child

Jane Eva Baxter

To cite this article: Jane Eva Baxter (2017) The End of American Childhood: A history of
Parenting from Life on the Frontier to the Managed Child, Childhood in the Past, 10:1, 96-97, DOI:
10.1080/17585716.2017.1323509

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17585716.2017.1323509

Published online: 28 Jun 2017.

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 96 BOOK REVIEWS

The End of American Childhood: A history of Parenting from Life on the Frontier
to the Managed Child, by Paula S. Fass, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2016,
334 pp., £16.83 (hardback), ISBN 978-0-691-16257-7

When author Paula Fass begins her acknowledgements in The End of American Childhood, she
tells us, ‘This book has occupied me for years … ’. It shows Fass’ work is impeccably researched
and elegantly written, and has a depth and breadth that can only come from years of careful
and deliberate thinking in the course of a rich and productive career. Paula Fass is an American
historian who has been publishing on topics relating to childhood since the 1980s, beginning
with her early works on American education and immigration. These works have been followed
by research on kidnapping, globalization, policy, memory, and family life, as well as more criti-
cal and comprehensive works tackling broad issues in the historical study of childhood. Much
of her writing also establishes frameworks for considering the particular circumstances, events,
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and attitudes that combined to create something that might be best defined as an, ‘American
Childhood’. In this, Fass’ tenth monograph-length work, she brings all of her previous writing to
fruition in a cogent and dynamic historical analysis of that very topic.
This particular work arrives on an already crowded landscape of publications addressing
American Childhood. The 1990s saw a proliferation of edited volumes on the subject and
several early monographs on childhood histories of particular regions. The twenty-first
Century has seen historians tackle America as a concept for understanding childhood in
relationship to particular topics (play, nature) and different childhood populations (slaves, pio-
neers, urban labourers). Authors of these works have each developed their own unique
approaches to handling time and change when telling the American story. Most often, the
issue of change takes on a tone of marked declension, with American childhood being increas-
ingly lost to interventionist parents and concerns for risk, health, and safety. Fass’ book looks at
childhood with a historical gaze in the service of understanding contemporary American child-
hoods, but her emphasis on parenting and family allows the work to take a somewhat different
tone.
This work begins in 1800 in the early years of the new republic and traces developments and
change in American childhood to the present day. The introduction of the book acknowledges
the difficulties and tensions in bridging scales from the intimate world of family life to the
broad sweeping ideas of America, but also notes that there is a distinct and abiding relationship
between the two that demands historical attention. Chapters are organized based on major
shifts and changes in the American mindset on a very broad scale, from the revolutionary
spirit of the Early Republic to the emergence of institutions for child care in the later nineteenth
century that ultimately gave rise to a new twentieth century science of childhood. These his-
torical periods are not abrupt or episodic, but rather are woven together as broad changes
on a national stage and are made relevant based on the repercussions that percolate into
the lives of families and children. For each era, Fass repeatedly asks a reciprocal question of
what is it believed that parents owe children, and what do children owe their parents? This
theme of mutual, intergenerational responsibility and obligation takes many forms over
time, but helps to create a comparable structure for understanding family dynamics across
periods of broad historical change.
The argument for a uniquely American childhood is also a most convincing one in this
work. Beginning with external observers such as Toqueville, Fass characterizes American
childhood as one rooted in the values of what was itself a young nation including indepen-
dence, risk, and opportunity, as well as one grounded in the abundance of resources of a geo-
graphically expanding nation. Looking at how these values morph and change through major
 CHILDHOOD IN THE PAST 97

historical shifts is one aspect of Fass’ work. The other is a skilful application of individual life
histories and personal narratives taken from an array of archival sources. Many of the Amer-
ican’s profiled in her work are known only because of the accidental preservation of their
words across time, while others such as Ulysses S. Grant are famous products of particular
American childhoods.
From a broader perspective of childhood studies, this work is an excellent example of how
childhood offers a very potent and germane platform to examine aspects of human commu-
nities on many scales. The consideration of how parenting, community investment, and Amer-
ican ideals all intersect around the idea of childhood across a 200-year period of history is a
powerful illustration of how the cultural construction of childhood reveals much about a par-
ticular society. This book is highly recommended for those seeking an introduction to American
childhood, to those interested in engaging ideas of parenting and family in the past, those
undertaking multi-scalar studies of childhood, and those wishing to introduce students to
the historiography and social history of childhood.
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Jane Eva Baxter

DePaul University, Chicago, IL, USA
[email protected]
© 2017 Jane Eva Baxter
https://doi.org/10.1080/17585716.2017.1323509

Home Decoration, by Charles Franklin Warner, Sydney, Wentworth Press, 2016,

374 pp., £15.97 (paperback), ISBN 978-1-36325-029-5

This is perhaps an unusual volume to review, one of a series of culturally significant ‘For-
gotten Books’ which are out of copyright but subsequently digitized and made available in
several formats (including eBooks which can be downloaded free of charge). First pub-
lished in 1911, it offers a fascinating insight into contemporary aspirations and ambitions
for children in early twentieth-century America. It documents a practical experiment in
housebuilding which actively involved school children aged between twelve and eighteen
years of age and resulted in the construction of a ‘model’ American home, ‘designed by
girls and built by boys’ (p. 2), incorporating the latest designs for household equipment
and furnishings.
The book is presented in twelve chapters, commencing with an introduction to a public (i.e.
state-funded) school project in an un-named New England city, building a simple one-story
timber house 24 feet by 35 feet (7.3 × 10.7 m) in a corner of the school yard. It was to serve
as a model dwelling for girls undertaking practical classes as part of their Household Technol-
ogy course, and one thousand dollars was allocated for building and furnishing it. The house
itself had eight rooms (kitchen, pantry, hall, living and dining rooms, bedroom, bathroom and a
linen closet), thought to be the minimum requirement for the aims of the course in teaching
practical housekeeping skills.
It is clear the division of labour was very largely determined by gender. Girls made the
outline drawings incorporating their designs for room size, function and desirable materials
for interiors. Preliminary drawings requiring ‘much study on the part of both boys and girls’
(p. 22) were passed to boys in the Mechanical Drawing class who drew up working blueprints.
These were for the use of the boys in the vocational elementary classes (aged fourteen years
upwards) who would be undertaking the actual building. Although qualified adults would be