Children Reading, Reading Children. History 1080. October 22, 2004.

A Reading: What can literature tell us about concepts of childhood &

what can it tell us about children?

1. Children are symbols in and consumers of literature

2. Reading can be educational & didactic (like the New England Primer)

3. It can be subversive & transgressive (like reading in secret)

B. Literacy

1. 1860: US has one of highest literacy rates in the world

- 94% literacy in US north

- 58% literacy in US south (83% of southern whites)

- women as literate as men

2. Canada = similar trend (but slower): literacy higher in Ontario than rural Quebec

C. Stages of Children’s Literature

1. Before 1830: little written specifically for kids

2. 1830-1850s: new attention to child readers

- Sunday School Union = major publisher

* teaches ABCs with protestant moral values

* emphasizes evils of alcohol & evils of slavery

- Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852)

* Little Eva: pure, innocent child in a corrupt society → dead

* becomes a children’s classic, is mass-marketed, meaning is transformed

3. After 1865: more fantasy, adventure

- Horatio Alger, Ragged Dick (1868)

- Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer (1881) & Huckleberry Finn (1884)

* new child hero = “only mischievous”

- Mass-market magazines & dime novels appeal to working-class youth

E. Reading as resistance (Frederick Douglass)