In the decades after the Civil War, urbanization, industrialization, and immigration marked the start of the Gilded Age, a period of rapid economic growth but also social upheaval. Reformers responded to the social and economic chaos with a "search for order," as famously described by historian Robert Wiebe. Most reformers agreed that one of the nation's top priorities should be its children and youth, who, they believed, suffered more from the disorder plaguing the rapidly growing nation than any other group. Children and Youth during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era explores both nineteenth century conditions that led Progressives to their search for order and some of the solutions applied to children and youth in the context of that search. Edited by renowned scholar of children's history James Marten, the collection of eleven essays offers case studies relevant to educational reform, child labor laws, underage marriage, and recreation for children, among others. Including important primary documents produced by children themselves, the essays in this volume foreground the role that youth played in exerting agency over their own lives and in contesting the policies that sought to protect and control them.
Part I. Shaping the Future: Institutions and the Law 17 1 Playing Progressively? Race, Reform, and Playful Pedagogies 19 in the Origins of Philadelphia's Starr Garden Recreation Park, 1857-1904 Deborah Valentine 2 Model Schools and Field Days: Colorado Fuel and Iron's 42 Construction of Education and Recreation for Children, 1901-1918 Fawn-Amber Montoya 3 Of Families or Individuals? Southern Child Workers and the 59 Progressive Crusade for Child Labor Regulation, 1899-1920 Gwendoline Alphonso 4 "I Was So Glad to Be in School Here": Religious Organizations 81 and the School on Ellis Island in the Early 1900s Claire B. Gallagher 5 The Trajectory of Benevolence: Progressivism in the 102 Little Colonel Books Sarah E. Clere Part II. Managing Change: Children, Youth, 121 and Families 6 Willful Disobedience: Young People and School Authority 125 in the Nineteenth-Century United States James D. Schmidt 7 The Contested Meanings of Child Marriage in the 145 Turn-of-the-Century United States Nicholas L. Syrett 8 Sex, Abortion, and Prostitution in the Lives of Gilded Age 166 Chicago Girls Mary Linehan 9 Ohio Departures: George as Progressive Youth in Sherwood 187 Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio John James and Tom Ue 10 Fit Body, Fit Mind
