Imaginary citizens : child readers and the limits of American independence, 1640-1868 / Courtney Weikle-Mills.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Weikle-Mills, Courtney

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Children--Books and reading--United States--History.

Children.

Children--Books and reading.

United States.

History.

Children's literature, American--History and criticism.

Children's literature, American.

Citizenship--United States--History.

Citizenship.

Physical Description:

x, 265 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013.

Summary:

Imaginary Citizens argues that the origin and evolution of the concept of citizenship in the United States centrally involved struggles over the meaning and boundaries of childhood. Children were thought of as more than witnesses to American history and governance-they were representatives of "the people" in general. From the colonial period to the end of the Civil War, children's books instructed young Americans how to be good citizens and gave them the freedom, autonomy, and possibility to imagine themselves as such, despite the actual limitations of the law concerning child citizenship.

Early on, the parent-child relationship was used as an analogy for the relationship between England and America, and later, the president was equated to a father and the people to his children. There was a backlash, however. In order to contest the patriarchal idea that all individuals owed childlike submission to their rulers, Americans looked to new theories of human development that limited political responsibility to those with a mature ability to reason. Characters such as Goody Two Shoes, Ichabod Crane, and Tom Sawyer were role models for children and taught them the consequences of bad citizenship.

Americans also based their concept of citizenship on the idea that all people are free and accountable at every age. Courtney Weikle-Mills explores these conflicting ideals through bedtime stories and other tales.

Courtney Weikle-Mills is an assistant professor of literature at the University of Pittsburgh. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Youth as a Time of Choice: Children's Reading in Colonial New England 32

2 Affectionate Citizenship: Educating Child Readers for a New Nation 63

3 Child Readers of the Novel: The Problem of Childish Citizenship 95

4 Reading for Social Profit: Economic Citizenship as Children's Citizenship 131

5 Natural Citizenship: Children, Slaves, and the Book of Nature 168.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781421407210

9781421408071

1421407213

1421408074

OCLC:

784125284