Books that are going back to UIUC
There are some important books that are now going to leave my bookshelves, because it's time to turn them in and make the U of I library happy again. I have put my dissertation, in full, up on my website: www.katemcdowell.com, linked from "projects," in case you're curious.
This post is more shorthand for myself than news for my readers, but I promise to make the next post interesting to others....
3 major works on Progressive Era history:
-Wiebe The Search for Order
-Hofstadter The Age of Reform
-McGerr A Fierce Discontent
-Glanz Bureaucracy and Professionalism
On Children/Childhood:
-Heininger, ed. A Century of Childhood 1820-1920. Broad overview in intro of Rousseau/Locke influencing Protestant ideas about children, moving from born damned to born innocent, and therefore the responsiblity to raise them well
-Graff, Conflicting Paths: Growing Up in America. Graff argues, using a series of case studies, that childhood in the 19th century was more diverse than at any time before or since, especially in how those children (male, female, black, white, poor, middle-class, rich) came to have education or not, and how they moved from childhood to adulthood. (xerox intro)
-Meckel, Save the Babies: American Public Health Reform and the Prevention of Infant Mortality, 1850-1929.
-Calvert, Children in the House: The Material Culture of Early Childhood, 1600-1900. This would certainly be a useful resource for exploration of the material culture of public library children's spaces and other cultural artifacts related to children's reading. I'm xeroxing part iii, which covers 1830-1900.
-Beisel, Imperiled Innocents: Anthony Comstock and Family Reproduction in Victorian America. This was one of the first books I read in the dissertation process, and I really ate it up because it made sense out of the fear of reading that I found in librarians' writings regarding what might cause harm to children. Since then, it has become a background text, but I'm still grateful for its role as an early anchor in my work. I'm removing an inordinate number of sticky notes from this title....
-Ferguson, Growing Pains: Children in the Industrial Age, 1850-1890. This is less directly connected to the industrial revolution than I had hoped. It's more an attempt to do what Mintz does in Huck's Raft, but for a smaller span of years. Again another Twayne Publishers title.
Immigrant Children
-Berrol, Growing Up American: Immigrant Children in America, Then and Now. Twayne History of American Childhood series, 1995. Overview, but not in-depth, b/c time span is too broad and book is 130p.
-Higham, Send These to Me: Immigrants in Urban American. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984.
Institutions for Children: Asylums, Orphanages, Reform Schools
-Dulberger, "Mother Donit fore the Best:" Correspondence of a Nineteenth-Century Orphan Asylum. Much of this is primary source material, and it feeds into my curiosity about asylums, orphanages, and reform schools in terms of what libraries they had and what books they contained. Further research!
-Brenzel, Daughters of the State: A Social Potrait of the First Reform School for Girls in North American, 1856-1905. Again, like Dulberger, this connects to that to-be-pursued interest about books in institutions for children.
-Cmiel, A Home of Another Kind: One Chicago Orphanage and the Tangle of Child Welfare. As above, linked to those interests. Of the 3 books, this was the one that I enjoyed reading most, and I'll xerox several chapters.
-Ashby, Endangered Children: Dependency, Neglect, and Abuse in American History. Twayne History of American Childhood series, 1997. This provided great background info on the Children's Aid Society in Boston. Xeroxing at least 1 chapter.
-Renier, From Virtue to Character: American Childhood, 1775-1850. Twayne History of American Childhood series, 1996. Especially Chpt 5: Forming Character (to xerox).
This did give me a simple but clear idea: Find out more about the Twayne History of American Childhood series, not only titles but also who is editing now, and think about how to aim my dissertation toward being a book in this series. If that's not the right series, find another publisher that might be closer.
That's one shelf down! Now I only have about 5 shelves of books to go.
This post is more shorthand for myself than news for my readers, but I promise to make the next post interesting to others....
3 major works on Progressive Era history:
-Wiebe The Search for Order
-Hofstadter The Age of Reform
-McGerr A Fierce Discontent
-Glanz Bureaucracy and Professionalism
On Children/Childhood:
-Heininger, ed. A Century of Childhood 1820-1920. Broad overview in intro of Rousseau/Locke influencing Protestant ideas about children, moving from born damned to born innocent, and therefore the responsiblity to raise them well
-Graff, Conflicting Paths: Growing Up in America. Graff argues, using a series of case studies, that childhood in the 19th century was more diverse than at any time before or since, especially in how those children (male, female, black, white, poor, middle-class, rich) came to have education or not, and how they moved from childhood to adulthood. (xerox intro)
-Meckel, Save the Babies: American Public Health Reform and the Prevention of Infant Mortality, 1850-1929.
-Calvert, Children in the House: The Material Culture of Early Childhood, 1600-1900. This would certainly be a useful resource for exploration of the material culture of public library children's spaces and other cultural artifacts related to children's reading. I'm xeroxing part iii, which covers 1830-1900.
-Beisel, Imperiled Innocents: Anthony Comstock and Family Reproduction in Victorian America. This was one of the first books I read in the dissertation process, and I really ate it up because it made sense out of the fear of reading that I found in librarians' writings regarding what might cause harm to children. Since then, it has become a background text, but I'm still grateful for its role as an early anchor in my work. I'm removing an inordinate number of sticky notes from this title....
-Ferguson, Growing Pains: Children in the Industrial Age, 1850-1890. This is less directly connected to the industrial revolution than I had hoped. It's more an attempt to do what Mintz does in Huck's Raft, but for a smaller span of years. Again another Twayne Publishers title.
Immigrant Children
-Berrol, Growing Up American: Immigrant Children in America, Then and Now. Twayne History of American Childhood series, 1995. Overview, but not in-depth, b/c time span is too broad and book is 130p.
-Higham, Send These to Me: Immigrants in Urban American. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984.
Institutions for Children: Asylums, Orphanages, Reform Schools
-Dulberger, "Mother Donit fore the Best:" Correspondence of a Nineteenth-Century Orphan Asylum. Much of this is primary source material, and it feeds into my curiosity about asylums, orphanages, and reform schools in terms of what libraries they had and what books they contained. Further research!
-Brenzel, Daughters of the State: A Social Potrait of the First Reform School for Girls in North American, 1856-1905. Again, like Dulberger, this connects to that to-be-pursued interest about books in institutions for children.
-Cmiel, A Home of Another Kind: One Chicago Orphanage and the Tangle of Child Welfare. As above, linked to those interests. Of the 3 books, this was the one that I enjoyed reading most, and I'll xerox several chapters.
-Ashby, Endangered Children: Dependency, Neglect, and Abuse in American History. Twayne History of American Childhood series, 1997. This provided great background info on the Children's Aid Society in Boston. Xeroxing at least 1 chapter.
-Renier, From Virtue to Character: American Childhood, 1775-1850. Twayne History of American Childhood series, 1996. Especially Chpt 5: Forming Character (to xerox).
This did give me a simple but clear idea: Find out more about the Twayne History of American Childhood series, not only titles but also who is editing now, and think about how to aim my dissertation toward being a book in this series. If that's not the right series, find another publisher that might be closer.
That's one shelf down! Now I only have about 5 shelves of books to go.
