Huck's Raft: a History of American Childhood.

AuthorKellman, Steven G.
PositionBy Steven Mintz - Book Review

HUCK'S RAFT: A History of American Childhood

BY STEVEN MINTZ HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2004 445 PAGES, $29.95

George Washington never was a teenager--not because the father of our country was born at 50--but because the concept did not exist; the word did not appear in print until 1941. A 13-year-old has more in common with a 12-year-old than a 19-year-old, but because the suffix "teen" occurs in both numbers, our Anglophonic society consigns 13 and 19 to the same category. Treated like "teenagers," people 13-19 act the part, confirming the dominion of culture over physiology.

"Childhood" is the most widely distributed of American inventions, and its models differ dramatically from era to era. To the Puritans, children were miniature and deficient adults who had to be restrained from wasting time on sinful play. The American Revolution was, according to University of Houston historian Steven Mintz, a children's revolt, in which juvenile soldiers played a decisive part and national independence meant a conscious rejection of the mother country and its paternalistic monarchy.

The 19th century, claims Mintz, offered two versions: useful childhood, in which young people were, from an early age, expected to be productive members of their household; and protected childhood, in which they were regarded as innocent, malleable, and fragile. Protected childhood, a chronological sanctuary whose temporary occupants were free to devote themselves exclusively to education and play, became the middle-class norm.

By the early 20th century, it was universalized through child-labor laws and compulsory schooling. An elaborate infrastructure of playgrounds, nurseries, juvenile courts, orphanages, pediatricians, toy manufacturers, clothing designers, book publishers, and censors served to construct childhood as an isolated, sheltered oasis, insulated from death, profanity, and sex. During the past 50 years, that shelter has been breached in what Mintz calls "postmodern childhood."

Young people now are more likely to hold a paying job, undergo family breakup, and experience sexual relations. Yet, in contrast to the premodern model, they...

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