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Beyond the Boundaries of Childhood

By Webster, Crystal Lynn

Beyond the Boundaries of Childhood Books

Beyond the Boundaries of Childhood

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Description
For all that is known about the depth and breadth of African American history, we still understand surprisingly little about the lives of African American children, particularly those affected by northern emancipation. But hidden in institutional records, school primers and penmanship books, biographical sketches, and unpublished documents is a rich archive that reveals the social and affective worlds of northern Black children. Drawing evidence from the urban centers of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, Crystal Webster’s innovative research yields a powerful new history of African American childhood before the Civil War. Webster argues that young African Americans were frequently left outside the nineteenth century’s emerging constructions of both race and childhood. They were marginalized in the development of schooling, ignored in debates over child labor, and presumed to lack the inherent innocence ascribed to white children. But Webster shows that Black children nevertheless carved out physical and social space for play, for learning, and for their own aspirations.
Reading her sources against the grain, Webster reveals a complex reality for antebellum Black children. Lacking societal status, they nevertheless found meaningful agency as historical actors, making the most of the limited freedoms and possibilities they enjoyed.
Product details
Binding:
Paperback
Number of Pages:
206
Release Date:
2021-06-07
Publication Date:
2021-06-07
Publisher:
The University of North Carolina Press
Languages:
Original: English
ISBN10:
1469663236
ISBN13:
9781469663234
Weight:
359 g
Height:
156 cm
Width:
234 cm
Thickness:
12 cm
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