Children in the House: The Material Culture of Early Childhood, 1600-1900
Calvert, Karin (1992).
Boston: Northeastern University Press; 189 pages. $NPL (out of print). ISBN 1555531385.
Karin Calvert's fine book is a comprehensive account of the everyday objects used in rearing middle-class American children from colonial times to the turn of the twentieth century. She discusses clothing, hairstyles, toys, furniture, and the arrangement of household space as expressions of our society's changing vision of childhood over time.
Calvert claims that there were three distinct stages in both world view and child rearing philosophy over the period of time discussed. In the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries when mortality was high and nature a force to be reckoned with, the colonists were influenced by both the precariousness of their young children's lives, and by a fear of their animal nature. The emphasis was on getting children through infancy and fashioning them as quickly as possible into an upright semblance of civilized adulthood.
Swaddling bands were imperative, both to protect babies from chill and to mould their infant limbs. Standing stools, corsets, and long gowns disguised childish proportions and helped promote erectness. Crawling was to be prevented at all costs; the colonists, says Calvert, regarded it as an animal form of locomotion, beneath the dignity of human beings. The main function of the few toys and furnishings made for children was not to amuse or protect them, but to get them on their feet and hasten the transition to maturity. Children, once past the risk of the early years, dressed like adults and shared their activities.
After 1750 there was an increase confidence in the benevolence of nature and the perfectibility of humankind. Swaddling bands fell out of use as people became convinced that infants would develop adequately without interference. Childhood was seen increasingly as an important time of preparation for life, between the helplessness of infancy and the responsibilities of adulthood. Children's dress and hairstyles became differentiated from those of adults and allowed for more physical freedom; childish play was not only acceptable but encouraged. The notion of childhood as a distinct stage with its own needs was far more fully developed for boys than for girls however; in her strong analysis of gender differences, Calvert point out that the 'childhood' of this era might more reasonably be called 'boyhood.'
During the nineteenth century the concept of childhood became increasingly romanticized. Children were seen as pure and innocent, and childhood was a stage to be cherished and prolonged. The transition to maturity was seen as an inevitably corrupting process, and the duty of parents was to protect and preserve childish innocence as long as possible. Young boys and girls were dressed alike well beyond infancy, their androgynous appearance an expression of both angelic innocence and their separateness from the adult world. Nurseries and separate bedroom for children became an important means for isolating them from adult society and from the contaminating influence of servants and older siblings. Where infant furnishings of the seventeenth century were designed to propel babies into the adult world, the high chairs, cribs and perambulators of Victorian times were intended to contain and protect.
In her conclusion Calvert touches briefly on our own era. She feels that in some respects we have returned to the outlook of colonial times. It is no longer possible to isolate children from many of life's unpleasant realities, and Victorian attempts topreserve innocence are unrealistic. The protected child, Calvert notes, is once again the child who can cope competently with the adult world.
Calvert's information comes from a variety of sources- diaries, periodicals, scientific words, and advice literature. she turns particularly to the art of the period, an adventure also taken by Philippe Aries in his classic work, Centuries of Childhood. Works of art are an appealing source, but can be a misleading one. Material culture, seen from a distance, is revealing, but there is also much that it does not reveal. Calvert suggests herself that a look at contemporary Americans, dressed in T-shirts, blue jeans, and sneakers, might imply to other eyes a homogeneity that would belie the divisions in culture, age and gender that actually exist in our culture.
Formal portraits are misleading in their own way; with their potential for editing and elaborating reality, they say far more about adult beliefs and ideals than they do about the lives of the children portrayed. We might conclude from a study of Victorian portraits that dolls were far and away the most popular toy for girls. Of those girls portrayed with a toy, says Calvert, over 80 percent hold a doll. But she also cites an intriguing survey conducted in 1898 by T.R. Crowell which revealed that less than a quarter of the one thousand girls interviewed considered dolls a favorite toy. Most of them preferred playing with hoops, generally considered a boy's pastime. Most of the information that Calvert gleans from the art of various periods is not accompanied by the kind of corrective that the Crowell survey provides, and while Calvert is aware of the biases inherent in formal portraiture, she non the less relies on it a good deal in her account. Calvert acknowledges that this study has a much to say about the adults who made decisions in children's lives as it does about the children who were the object of those decisions. In fact I believe it says far more about adults than about children; the book might more appropriately be sub-titled 'the material culture of parenting.'
The other missing element in the book for this reader is one that Calvert is also quick to acknowledge: it neglects to investigate the lives of poor children or the ideals of their parents. The purpose of this book, Calvert says, is to look at the well-documented middle class in a new way. A study of working class and immigrant children remains to be written.
These reservation are quibbles though. While the title might lead the reader to expect more, Calvert is clear in her introduction about the limits of her study. Within these limits, the book is informative, clearly organized, and a pleasure to read.
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