Growing pains

In Growing Pains: Children in the Industrial Age, 1850-1890, the respected scholar Priscilla Ferguson Clement presents an unparalleled survey of the experience of American childhood during this turbulent era. Approaching her subject thematically, Clement chronicles the situation of American children in the spheres of home life, schooling, employment, and play. Detailed attention is given to distilling and clarifying the historical events shaping children's lives during this period, from the Civil War's impact on the children of freed slaves to urbanization's effect on the children of unskilled immigrant laborers; from the rise of the Boy and Girl Scouts and the American Federation of Labor to the grave economic downturns of the 1870s and 1880s; and from the child-rearing practices of Victorian times to the social institutions established to address child poverty and delinquency. Throughout, Clement imbues her text with crisp details and an arresting perspective on the ways in which race, sex, geography, and growing class distinctions influenced all facets of children's lives.