Working Class Childhood. History 1080. October 7, 2005.

1. Introduction: industrial capitalism → separate middle & working classes

2. Middle class culture & sheltered childhood

A. separation of ‘work’ and ‘home’

B. public vs. ‘woman’s sphere’

C. shift from economically useful to sheltered, emotionally priceless ideal child

3. Traditional Children’s Work

A. Apprenticeship

- unfree labour: room & board in exchange for a skill

B. Breaks down in late 18th century

- apprentices assert their rights

(but indenture continues for black ex-slaves and orphans)

4. The changing work of children

A. Factories

- Slater’s Mill (Rhode Island, 1793): first factory in US; produces textiles

- Lowell (Mass.) Textile Mills (1820s & 1830s):

a. Lucy Larcom: enjoys independence & peer group companionship, but…

b. long workday, brutal conditions

B. Varieties of jobs - domestic service = most common job

5. Growing class divergence in childhood experience, values and ideals

A. Economically useful vs. emotionally priceless ideal child

B. Incipient youth culture rooted in commercial leisure, expressive sexual styles =

very different from the middle class ideal

3. How working-class children lived

- overcrowded urban tenements

- pioneer children moving west

6. Rise of Universal Public Education

A. Basic literacy and common values: democracy or social control?

B. Horace Mann, Massachusetts Board of Education, 1837

- lengthened school year (to 6 months)

- professional teachers (women)

- standard curriculum (McGuffey Readers)

C. Schools as social control?

- US: promotes protestant values, work discipline, racial segregation

- Canada: promotes English values, established church, and monarchy

D. Egerton Ryerson, school superintendent, Upper Canada, 1844-76

- Ontario School Act 1871

E. Obstacles

- work, weather, poor roads, money