Jane Eva Baxter

Reflections on Interdisciplinarity in the Study of Childhood in the Past

ABSTRACT One of the hallmarks of research on childhood in the past is inclusive, interdisciplinary thinking. This reliance on interdisciplinarity to produce robust scholarship speaks, in part, to the ways we think about children and childhood today, as simultaneously embodied, material, cognitive, intersectional, relational, and developmental. Scholars working and connecting across disciplinary boundaries are also a product of the relatively recent emergence of childhood as an area of scholarly interest and the marginalization of the topic in traditional disciplinary silos. This paper takes a unique approach to addressing the interdisciplinary nature of scholarship on children and childhood in the past. Four scholars have produced reflective essays: a theatre historian, an art historian, an archaeologist/teaching professional, and a bioarchaeologist, which offer perspectives and insights into the importance of interdisciplinary thinking in their own work, and by extension in their larger fields of disciplinary practice.

Status, Sentimentality and Structuration: An Examination of ‘Intellectual Spaces’ for Children in the Study of America’s Historic Cemeteries

Abstract This paper presents a case study of the contemporary intellectual and scholarly spaces that children occupy in the study of America’s historic cemeteries. Published works on nineteenth-century cemeteries were evaluated, analytical frameworks were traced, and common themes were identified. The purpose of this exercise was not to evaluate the results of these studies, but rather to examine the ideas that informed them. This particular study identified two main themes in research on children’s headstones, funerary hardware, and epitaphs: children as indicators of a family’s wealth and status and children as subjects of grief, mourning, and sentimentality. Studies of wealth and status tended to focus on entire populations, and those primarily addressing grief and commemoration focused on individual monuments. Several underlying commonalities in these studies are presented and Giddens’ (1984) concept of structuration is introduced as a way to potentially reconcile analyses that focus on cemetery populations (status) and those that focus on individual actors (grief and commemoration). By tracing the historical trajectories of disciplinary thought that have informed contemporary research, it becomes possible to understand how the scholarship of children is constructed and limited in the present, and how new directions in thinking become possible because of this historical awareness.

Archaeology of Childhood

The archaeology of childhood has grown over the past decade and a half as a vibrant field of specialized interest within archaeology as a whole. A thematic treatment of the literature highlights a variety of approaches to how and why archaeologists should study children using the archaeological record. These themes are organized chronologically and begin with critiques of archaeological approaches that do not include children and an exploration of the relationship between childhood studies and studies of gender, identity, and agency in the archaeological record. Theoretical and methodological developments that draw attention to new ways of looking at the archaeological record to identify cultural constructions of childhood and lived experiences of children are presented. Finally, current tensions and pluralities in the literature are explored as the archaeology of childhood reaches a new stage in its own maturity as a field of inquiry.

From the Margins to the Mainstream: Perspectives on Nineteenth-Century Education

ABSTRACT This article offers an introduction to a special journal issue on nineteenth-century education. The three papers that comprise the issue are geographically and topically diverse, but all present cases of nineteenth-century educational expansion from elite institutions for privileged young men to more diverse populations, including those considered marginal or at risk, including women, the poor and disabled. This introduction contextualizes these works in broad historical terms, as well as contemporary intellectual ones by focusing on the convergence of scholarship on childhood education in both the newer field of childhood studies and the well-established field of the history of education.

Adult nostalgia and children’s toys past and present

ABSTRACT This paper explores the role of adult nostalgia for the things and experiences of childhood, and the resulting perpetuation of certain toys and playthings in the contemporary marketplace. In doing so, it addresses the place of objects in the cross-disciplinary study of play, and the common emphasis on play’s preparatory and adaptive nature. While such nostalgic objects do not introduce children to the technology and social worlds of the future, they do enable adults to insinuate their own childhoods into the experiences of the next generation. This analysis focuses on two specific popular toys, the Fisher-Price Chatter Telephone, and Mickey Mouse Ears. Through a focus on the nostalgic aspects of toys, several important issues may be addressed, including the strain of conservatism that is perpetuated by adults in children’s material culture, and the implications for nostalgia in studying play and intergenerational relationships in the past and present.

Los niños como actores culturales en las interpretaciones arqueológicas: grafitis del siglo XIX en San Salvador, Bahamas

Evidence of children in the material record can be both elusive and ambiguous, and most typical and comfortable interpretations of the archaeological record create a view of the past where adults are the only cultural actors. Literature on the archaeology of childhood presents a challenge for archaeologists to rethink their assumptions about childhood and to approach the archaeological record in a way that enables the social, economic, and symbolic contributions of children to become viable parts of the stories we tell about life in the past. This paper presents and engages this particular aspect of the literature on the archaeology of childhood using the case of graffiti identified at a former 19th century plantation site on the island of San Salvador, The Bahamas. Initial interpretations of graffiti in these contexts focused on the symbolic meanings and archival functions of such artwork in the world of adults. A careful examination of the graffiti, however, indicates that children were likely responsible for the creation and consumption of this artwork, and that a different set of symbolic meanings and social functions may have been the motivation behind its creation.