Imaginary Citizens

Child Readers and the Limits of American Independence, 1640-1868
Erscheinungsjahr 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4214-0721-0
Verlag: Johns Hopkins University Press

Buch, Englisch, 280 Seiten, Format (B × H): 159 mm x 227 mm, Gewicht: 494 g

How did Ichabod Crane and other characters from children’s literature shape the ideal of American citizenship?

2015 Honor Book Award, Children's Literature Association

From the colonial period to the end of the Civil War, children’s books taught 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. 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. 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. Yet Americans also based their concept of citizenship on the idea that all people are free and accountable at every age. Courtney Weikle-Mills discusses such characters as Goody Two-Shoes, Ichabod Crane, and Tom Sawyer in terms of how they reflect these conflicting ideals.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Weikle-Mills, Courtney

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Kinder- und Jugendliteratur, Märchen, Mythen, Sagen
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Amerikanische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Englische Literatur Amerikanische Literatur

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments
Introduction: From Subjects to Citizens: The Politics of Childhood and Children's Literature
1. Youth as a Time of Choice: Children's Reading in Colonial New England
2. Affectionate Citizenship: Educating Child Readers for a New Nation
3. Child Readers of the Novel: The Problem of Childish Citizenship
4. Reading for Social Profit: Economic Citizenship as Children's Citizenship
5. Natural Citizenship: Children, Slaves, and the Book of Nature
Conclusion: The Legacy of the Fourteenth Amendment: LimitedThinking on Children's Citizenship
Notes
Index

Über Autor(innen)

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

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