I’ve been writing, speaking, blogging, and tweeting about the history of American children and their childhoods for many decades. When I went to school—a long time ago—the subject did not come up, nor did I learn much in college or graduate school. I went out and dug up the story as did many of the authors I list here. I read many novels and autobiographies featuring childhood, and I looked at family portraits in museums with new eyes. Childhood history is fascinating and it is a lot of fun. And too, it is a great subject for book groups.
I wrote...
Babies Made Us Modern: How Infants Brought America Into the Twentieth Century
By
Janet Golden
What is my book about?
Babies Made Us Modern analyzes the dramatic transformations in the lives of babies during the 20th century. I take my readers through the story of how babies shaped American society and culture. Babies led their families into the modern world, helping them to become more accepting of scientific medicine, and leading adults into consumer culture as parents and others shopped for baby items. Curiosity about babies led Americans to become open to new theories about human development and to welcome government programs and advice.
Babies weren’t just pathbreakers, they also kept families rooted in traditions, from religious celebrations to cultural practices, to folk medicine. This is also a story about diversity that explains how gender, race, region, class, and community shaped life in the nursery and was, in turn, shaped by the vulnerabilities of babies.
When you buy a book we may earn a small commission.
The Books I Picked & Why
Brown Girl, Brownstones
By
Paule Marshall
Why this book?
This coming-of-age novel set in the Great Depression and World War II Brooklyn has it all: girlhood, poverty, and cultural conflict between Barbadian immigrants and black Americans. The voice of the narrator, a young first-generation immigrant girl, is captivating. Although published in 1959, it is timeless and fresh today, you’ll ask yourself, “why isn’t this story going to became a major motion picture?”.
When you buy a book we may earn a small commission.
Huck's Raft: A History of American Childhood
By
Steven Mintz
Why this book?
Your schoolbooks left them out, but young people are American history makers and they have been so for over 300 years. Huck’s Raft presents the way children shaped the American experience and how their lives evolved over time. You’ll meet young people here from the seventeenth-century port cities to the nineteenth-century slave plantations to the Depression-era hobo camps and on to the end of the twentieth century. It’s history you need to know and will have fun learning.
When you buy a book we may earn a small commission.
Playing with History: American Identities and Children's Consumer Culture
By
Molly Rosner
Why this book?
Toys! Dolls! Amusement Parks! They aren’t just playthings and play places; they are part of our national character and our consumer culture, as well as our private objects and experiences. Childhood is manufactured—created in our homes, communities, schools, and yes, by play. This book has a lot to say about our history but it is also a fun reminder of the things many of us grew up with or wish we had. It just might have you rooting through your attic or old photo books.
When you buy a book we may earn a small commission.
Teenagers: An American History
By
Grace Palladino
Why this book?
This is a book about my life—growing up in the middle of the twentieth century. Bobby Soxers, juvenile delinquents, popular music, MTV, Freedom Riders, Anti-War protestors…it’s all here, along with much more. It isn’t about the good old days; this book takes us to the heart of the culture created decades ago and still influencing us today. We knew teenage life was complex and this book reveals just why that is the case. You’ll wish it came with a playlist.
When you buy a book we may earn a small commission.
Children and Drug Safety: Balancing Risk and Protection in Twentieth-Century America
By
Cynthia Connolly
Why this book?
The Covid-19 pandemic makes this book a must-read as the author, reminds us that so many medications prescribed for children have not received all the tests for safety necessary to protect them. Yes, we got the heroin out of teething syrups, and our bottles now have child safety caps. Fun fact: the author you will learn, was as they put it at the time, an aspirin poisoned child thanks to those good-tasting baby aspirin. Shocking reality: pediatric drug research and regulation often follows disasters rather than preventing them. That’s why we, fortunately, have to wait for full testing before those covid vaccines get into the arms of the young. This book is an eye-opener.
