Children bound to labor
Subtitle: the pauper apprentice system in early America
By: edited by Ruth Wallis Herndon and John E. Murray.
Contributors: Herndon, Ruth Wallis.; Murray, John E., 1959-
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 2009
Place of publication: Ithaca
Language: eng
Number of pages: 264
ISBN-13: 9780801446245
Subjects: Apprenticeship programs -- United States -- History -- 18th century; Apprenticeship programs -- United States -- History -- 19th century; Indentured servants -- United States -- History -- 18th century; Indentured servants -- United States -- History -- 19th century; Poor children -- United States -- History -- 18th century; Poor children -- United States -- History -- 19th century; Child labor -- United States -- History -- 18th century; Child labor -- United States -- History -- 19th century; United States -- Social conditions -- 18th century; United States -- Social conditions -- 19th century
Description: The history of early America cannot be told without considering unfree labor. At the center of this history are African and Native American adults forced into slavery; the children born to these unfree persons usually inherited their parents' status. Immigrant indentured servants, many of whom were young people, are widely recognized as part of early American society. Less familiar is the idea of free children being taken from the homes where they were born and put into bondage. This work makes clear, pauper apprenticeship was an important source of labor in early America. The economic, social, and political development of the colonies and then the states cannot be told properly without taking them into account. Binding out pauper apprentices was a widespread practice throughout the colonies from Massachusetts to South Carolina. Poor, illegitimate, orphaned, abandoned, or abused children were raised to adulthood in a legal condition of indentured servitude. Most of these children were without resources and often without advocates. Local officials undertook the responsibility for putting such children in family situations where the child was expected to work, while the master provided education and basic living needs. The authors how the various ways in which pauper apprentices were important to the economic, social, and political structure of early America, and how the practice shaped such key relations as master-servant, parent-child, and family-state in the young republic. In considering the practice in English, Dutch, and French communities in North America from the mid-seventeenth century to the mid-nineteenth century, this book even suggests that this widespread practice was notable as a positive means of maintaining social stability and encouraging economic development.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: "A proper and instructive education" : raising children in pauper apprenticeship / Ruth Wallis Herndon and John E. Murray; title: Recreating proper families in England and North America : pauper apprenticeship in transatlantic context / Steve Hindle and Ruth Wallis Herndon; title: "Proper" magistrates and masters : binding out poor children in southern New England, 1720-1820 / Ruth Wallis Herndon; title: Orphans in city and countryside in nineteenth-century Maryland / T. Stephen Whitman; title: Bound out from the almshouse : community networks in Chester County, Pennsylvania, 1800-1860 / Monique Bourque; title: Preparing children for adulthood in New Netherland / Adriana E. van Zwieten; title: Mothers and children in and out of the Charleston orphan house / John E. Murray; title: The extent and limits of indentured children's literacy in New Orleans, 1809-1843 / Paul Lachance; title: "To train them to habits of industry and usefulness" : molding the poor children of antebellum Savannah / Timothy J. Lockley; title: Responsive justices : court treatment of orphans and illegitimate children in colonial Maryland / Jean B. Russo and J. Elliott Russo; title: The stateless and the orphaned among Montreal's apprentices, 1791-1842 / Gillian Hamilton; title: Apprenticeship policy in Virginia : from patriarchal to republican policies of social welfare / Holly Brewer; title: Conclusion : reflections on the demand and supply of child labor in early America / Gloria L. Main.