Childhood transformed
Subtitle: working-class children in nineteenth-century England
By: Eric Hopkins.
Publisher: Manchester University Press; Distributed exclusively in the USA and Canada by St. Martin's Press
Published: 1994
Place of publication: Manchester, UK; New York; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 343
Subjects: Children -- England -- History -- 19th century.; Children -- England -- History -- 20th century.; Education -- England -- History -- 19th century.; Child labor -- England -- History -- 19th century.; England -- Social conditions -- 19th century.
Description: Childhood Transformed provides a pioneering study of the remarkable shift in the nature of working-class childhood in the nineteenth century from lives dominated by work to lives centered around school. The author argues that this change was accompanied by substantial improvements for many in the home environment, in health and nutrition, and in leisure opportunities. The book breaks new ground in providing a wide-ranging survey of different aspects of childhood in the Victorian period, the early chapters examining life at work in agriculture and industry, in the home and elsewhere, while the later chapters discuss the coming of compulsory education, together with changes in the home and in leisure activities. A separate section of the book is devoted to the treatment of deprived children, those in and out of the workhouse, on the streets, and also in prison, industrial schools and reformatories. Offering a fresh and more focused approach to the history of working-class children, this book should be of interest to all lecturers and students of nineteenth-century social history.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [323]-333) and index.