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Infectious Diseases Killed Victorian Children at Alarming Rates. Novels Show the Fragility of Health

Between 40% and 50% of children didn’t live past 5 in the US during the 19th century. Authors documented the common but no less gutting grief of losing a child.
by Andrea Kaston Tange via The Conversation on December 11, 2024
A drawing of a playground slide painted like a road.

What Adults Lost When Kids Stopped Playing in the Street

In many ways, a world built for cars has made life so much harder for grown-ups.
by Stephanie H. Murray via The Atlantic on July 29, 2024
Grave marker for "Special Case - Baby 1."

The Search for Special Case–Baby 1

Who was buried in the lonely grave in New York’s potter’s field? The year-long search led to a lost world in the history of AIDS.
by Lizzy Ratner via The Nation on March 12, 2024
Children in a Head Start classroom look out a window at others in the playground.
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America Already Knows How to Address Child Poverty

The history of Head Start shows that child poverty is a choice.
by Michelle Bezark via Made By History on October 5, 2023
Painting of children with sticks and hoops. By Ethel Spowers, 1936.
Exhibit

Kidding Around

Stories of American children at work and play.
Child laborers cleaning fruit.

The Child Labor of Early Capitalism Is Making a Big Comeback in the US

Child labor was common in urban, industrial America for most of the country’s history. Now lawmakers are making concerted efforts to repeal statutes that prohibit it.
by Steve Fraser via Jacobin on July 7, 2023
Black family of a mother and six kids stting outside a cabin.

Segregation Doubled the Odds of Some Black Children Dying In U.S. Cities 100 Years Ago

Research shows structural racism in 1900s U.S. society harmed Black health in ways still being felt today.
by Rodrigo Pérez Ortega via Science on June 13, 2023
Baby Drew in a dress and sitting on a chair, 1913.

Boys in Dresses: The Tradition

It’s difficult to read the gender of children in many old photos. That’s because coding American children via clothing didn’t begin until the 1920s.
by Matthew Wills, Jo B. Paoletti via JSTOR Daily on April 11, 2023
Black and white photo of the young Mary Ellen next to an empty chair

Origins of Child Protection

Legend says that the campaign to save abused children in New York was driven by the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The truth is more complicated.
by Matthew Wills, Lela B. Costin via JSTOR Daily on November 26, 2022
A father and son stand in front of an illustration of a circular target, while the son holds a small gun.

American as Apple Pie

How marketing made guns a fundamental element of contemporary boyhood.
by Rachael Kay Albers via JSTOR Daily on October 19, 2022
Chalk drawing of parent holding hands with child thinking about two-parent family

The “Benevolent Terror” of the Child Welfare System

The system's roots aren't in rescuing children, but in the policing of Black, Indigenous, and poor families.
by Dorothy E. Roberts, Nia T. Evans via Boston Review on March 31, 2022
Two photos of children being vaccinated.

Vaccinating Kids Has Never Been Easy

Uptake of COVID vaccines for kids has been slow, but it has been slow for other vaccines too.
by Sarah Zhang via The Atlantic on March 10, 2022
Unaccompanied children in a train station

Novel Transport

The anatomy of the “orphan train” genre.
by Kristen Martin via Lapham’s Quarterly on November 1, 2021
Immigrant mother and child embracing

As American as Family Separation

Though the cruelties of the Trump administration’s “Zero Tolerance” policy were unique, they were part of an American tradition of taking children from parents.
by Hari Kunzru via New York Review of Books on June 9, 2021
Masked person wearing transgender flag around their neck holding heart-shaped sign with colors of transgender flag (blue, pink, and white) that reads "TRANS PEOPLE BELONG"
partner

Anti-Trans Legislation has Never Been About Protecting Children

The roots of “protecting children” in U.S. political rhetoric lie in efforts to defend white supremacy.
by Nikita Shepard via Made By History on May 10, 2021

Part of the Long History of Child Trafficking: 18th-Century French Louisiana

In the 1720s, French colonial authorities seized children off the streets of Paris and forced them to settle the New World.
by Julia M. Gossard via The Junto on June 27, 2018

Where Sunday School Comes From

Sunday school was a major part of nineteenth century reformers’ efforts to improve children’s lives and morals.
by Livia Gershon via JSTOR Daily on April 22, 2018

Why Does the U.S. Sentence Children to Life in Prison?

No other nation sentences people to die in prison for offenses committed as minors.
by Katie Rose Quandt via JSTOR Daily on January 31, 2018
Chidren playing in a playground.

Children and Childhood

How changing gender norms and conceptions of childhood shaped modern child custody laws.
by Michael Grossberg via Child Custody Project on October 31, 2017
Composite photo of a child wearing a work clothes.

Composite Photographs of Child Labourers

A unique set of composite photographs by Lewis Hine depicting Southern cotton mill workers.
by Lewis Hine, Adam Green via The Public Domain Review on January 16, 2016
Portrait of stern looking John Winthrop.

Father’s Property and Child Custody in the Colonial Era

The rights and responsibilities of 17th-century fatherhood in England's North American colonies.
by Mary Ann Mason via Berkeley Law (University Of California) on April 11, 2015
A painting of an election taking place.

Children Will Listen

A political education begins with knockoff opinions amid the 1840 U.S. presidential election.
by Andrew Dickson White via Lapham’s Quarterly on March 1, 1905
Children at the Oakland Community School, 1973.

What Happens When the U.S. Declares War on Your Parents?

The Black Panthers shook America before the party was gutted by the government. Their children paid a steep price, but also emerged with unassailable pride.
by Ed Pilkington via The Guardian on March 25, 2025
Gail "Hal" Halvorsen interacts with children in West Berlin
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How a Cold War Airlift Saved Berlin With Food, Medicine and Chocolate

A Soviet blockade around Berlin cut the city off from the West. But in 1948 U.S. and British pilots began to fly food, fuel and medicine to the Allied sectors.
via Retro Report on March 20, 2025
A crowd of Black children walking into school.

How Delayed Desegregation Deprived Black Children of Their Right to Education

On the ongoing battle to desegregate schools across America throughout the 1960s.
by Noliwe Rooks via Literary Hub on March 19, 2025
Magazine article entitled "Don't take immunity for granted!"
partner

When Good Housekeeping Meant Getting Vaccinated Against Polio

The pages of 1950s lifestyle magazines offer a glimpse of a time when childhood vaccines were anything but controversial.
by Katherine Churchill via HNN on February 19, 2025
Newborn babies sleeping in a maternity ward.

The Coming Assault on Birthright Citizenship

The Constitution is absolutely clear on this point, but will that matter?
by Amanda Frost via The Atlantic on January 7, 2025
The “Little Red Schoolhouse” in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

Schoolhouse Crock

In every generation, charlatans come along with a plan to make education better by spending less money on schools.
by Jennifer C. Berkshire via The Baffler on January 2, 2025
American Indian children in boarding school.

More Than 3,100 Students Died at Schools Built to Crush Native American Cultures

The Washington Post has found more than three times as many deaths as the U.S. government documented in its investigation of Indian boarding schools.
by Dana Hedgpeth, Sari Horwitz, Joyce Sohyun Lee, Andrew Ba Tran, Nilo Tabrizy, Jahi Chikwendiu via Washington Post on December 22, 2024
Linda McMahon speaking at the Republican National Convention on July 18 in Milwaukee.

Back to the Future

Why “Let’s have public schools like the Founding Fathers had” is such a terrible idea.
by Adam Laats via Slate on November 20, 2024
Norma Gabler gives a press conference on July 20, 1977 holding up books in her hand.
partner

The Woman Who Gave Today's Book-Banning Moms a Blueprint

Norma Gabler's work in the 1960s, '70s, and '80s foreshadowed today's campaigns.
by Katie Gaddini via Made By History on November 13, 2024
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