The Children Accuse - The Testimony of Łazarz Krakowski
In recent years, testimonies, diaries and memoirs of Holocaust victims have gained belated recognition as essential (not auxiliary) data for historical reconstruction. In spite of the sketchy nature of postwar children's testimonies, a critical analysis of this invaluable documentation provides a deeper understanding of the process of survival among Jewish children.
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Orphan Records, Early Modern France
Much of early modern Europe saw increasing numbers of abandoned children, and new institutions designed to care for them. Published notarial documents, such as the two excerpted here, allow a glimpse into the fortunes of individual orphaned children in early modern Europe.
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Orphan Biographies, Early Modern France
Like much of early modern Europe, France saw increasing numbers of abandoned children, and new institutions designed to care for them. Orphanage records are one of a few rare types of sources available for historians to chart the histories of the abandoned children.
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Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The years following World War II marked a key shift in international policy related to human rights. Few, however, connect the history of human rights to the children's rights movement. By the early 20th century, urbanization and industrialization led many reformers to focus on child welfare and on children's rights as separate from those of adults.
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Convention on the Rights of the Child
Official interest in the rights of children has grown over the course of the 20th century. Urbanization and industrialization led reformers at the turn of the century to focus on child welfare and on children's rights as separate from those of adults. The American Congress responded by creating the U.S.
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The Dolben's Act of 1788
The Dolben's Act of 1788 was proposed by noted abolitionist Sir William Dolben before the English Parliament. While it was meant to restrict the slave trade, it actually had an adverse effect on children. The act mandated that no more than two fifths of a ship's cargo be children, and it also limited the number of African men to 1 male per ship ton.
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Request: Playden Onely to the Royal African Company, 1721
This excerpt is of a request made by Playden Onely to the members of the Royal African Company in 1721 for 130 children to be taken from West Africa to the West Indies for sale as slaves. The RAC commissioned the slave ship Kent for the task, and the operation was a success. As a result, Onely contracted the RAC to deliver 500 children annually to specifically designated ports.
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Solidarity Election Poster, “High Noon, 4 June 1989”
This is probably the most famous image circulated by Solidarity in the run-up to the June 4 elections. Gary Cooper, the actor who starred in the film “High Noon,” is shown with a Solidarity insignia on his badge and a ballot in hand.
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Vaclav Havel wrote this work in 1979. The essay begins the intellectual attacks that Havel, the future President of a democratic Czechoslovakia, made against the Communist regime controlling his country. Rather than rely solely on political arguments, Havel argues here that, in fact, cultivating an individual "sphere of truth" will ultimately destroy the totalitarian communist government.
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