Children’s labor and learning in 20th century US: Is it possible to move beyond ‘child as victim’ when doing archival research?
Topics: Historical Geography
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Keywords: children, representation, deservingness, knowledge production
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Monday
Session Start / End Time: 2/28/2022 08:00 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/28/2022 09:20 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 59
Authors:
Dena Aufseeser, UMBC
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Abstract
In this paper, I explore some of the challenges of ongoing research about children’s work, care labor and education in the first half of the 20th century in the United States. Children are rarely included as authors of history. Archival sources about children’s everyday lives are limited to materials such as case study reports from social workers and charitable organizations. This is especially true when examining the lives of immigrant and Black children. Such sources frequently represent children along the familiar tropes of vulnerable angels/dangerous delinquents. In this paper I consider the tension between efforts to address the absence of children in mainstream accounts of urban history, and the real possibility that ways of doing so may reinforce problematic representations of such children. A partial solution has been to analyze the narrow spaces in which children assert themselves in stories that are not officially about them. Relying on census information, household surveys, and news article provides snippets of young people’s actions that both challenge (and reinforce) official reports about child poverty. Further, a focus on absences, such as who is excluded from particular reports, can reveal the role race and gender play in representations of deservingness.
Children’s labor and learning in 20th century US: Is it possible to move beyond ‘child as victim’ when doing archival research?
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Virtual Paper Abstract
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