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Locate primary sources, including images, objects, media, and texts. Annotations by scholars contextualize sources.

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World War II American Soldiers and a Bengali Child

These photographs are among a series of fifteen taken in 1945 by U.S. soldier Glenn S. Hensley. Hensley was a professional photographer participating in aerial surveillance of Burma for the U.S. Army. The images illustrate an encounter between Hensley and four fellow U.S. airmen with the residents of the village of Kharagpur, West Bengal.

Indus Valley Climbing Monkey Toy

The monkey figurine shown in two views is mounted on a wooden platform for display, but it was apparently designed with the ability to slide down a string or thin rod so as to appear to climb or jump. The figurine is hand-modeled from terracotta and features a fully rounded body in a complicated, lifelike pose with a realistic facial expression, ears, and incised lines representing its fur.

Thumbnail of a photo of a child in costume riding a creature

Chinese Children at the Tjap Go Meh Festival in Makassar

This photograph, dated 1880, shows Chinese children in a procession in the Tjap Go Meh Festival in Makassar, the largest city on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. Tjap Go Meh is a Chinese festival that takes place 15 days after the Chinese New Year and marks the beginning of spring. It is also known as the Lantern Festival. People celebrate with parades and performances, such as acrobats.

Hariti Relief Panel at Candi Mendut, Java

The carved stone relief is from the interior of Candi Mendut, a Buddhist temple in Central Java. Mendut was built during the early Shailendra dynasty in about 824 CE. It may have been built on the site of a Hindu temple from a previous century. The rectangular, stone temple is 26.4 meters (86.6 feet) tall and is constructed on a 2 meter (6.5 feet) platform.

Kuwera Relief Panel at Candi Mendut, Java

Krishna Tied to a Mortar for Stealing Butter

Krishna is known in the stories of the Bhagavata-Purana as the 8th incarnation of the god Vishnu, destined to perform great deeds and remove the evils of the world. Shown in this Indian miniature watercolor painting as a child with grey-blue skin, he is a popular deity, a divine hero who personifies superhuman powers as well as human hopes and failings.

Krishna Defeats the Whirlwind

Krishna and the Cremation of Putana

Soccer Ball Assembly Using Child Labor

This photograph of a boy stitching together the parts of a soccer ball was taken in Pakistan in 1998 to document the use of child labor in manufacturing soccer balls and other athletic equipment in South Asia. In the upper right hand corner of the photo, a young girl is also working.

Fire Hair Shaving and Khwan Ceremony, Thailand

The text and photographs above describe a traditional Thai birth ritual that celebrates the child's reaching the milestone of one month old, at which time its survival seems more assured than at birth, and it becomes a full-fledged member of the family. Before the infant is one month old, according to tradition, it may have belonged merely to spirits.

Doorstep School-on-Wheels, Mumbai

The photograph shows the School-on-Wheels, a project of the Doorstep School in Mumbai, or Bombay, India, which has been functioning since 1998. The School-on-Wheels is a converted bus fitted with cabinets filled with stationery supplies, books, toys, and chalkboards, decorated with curtains and children’s art, and staffed by a teacher and roving supervisor.

Loy Krathong Celebration

The young boy in the photograph is placing a krathong, or "leaf cup," into the water to celebrate "Loy Krathong," a festival on the night of the full moon in November, the traditional celebration described in the text as a custom of long standing in Thailand (formerly called Siam).

Indus Valley Wheeled Ram Toy

The hand-modeled, terracotta, wheeled figurine of a bird with a ram's head was excavated from an archaeological site in the Indus Valley called Mohenjo-daro, a city that flourished between 2600 and 1900 BCE. Museum curators added the wooden axle attaching the wheels to the body as the original had not been preserved.

Trafficking Child Beggars in Southeast Asia

The young child in the photograph sits on a walkway in Jakarta, Indonesia, a victim of trafficking for the purpose of begging. Trafficking of women and girls for prostitution has been a well-known phenomenon in Southeast Asia, but trafficking for begging on the streets is a more recent trend.

Sanitarium Weet-Bix Packet

The only such product endorsed by world famous mountaineer and humanitarian, Sir Edmund Hillary, Sanitarium's sugar-free wholegrain wheat biscuit, Weet-Bix, has long been the country's most preferred breakfast cereal. Since 1992, the company has actively sought to promote children's sport, holding Tryathlons (the spelling is deliberate) at 11 centers throughout the country.

New Zealand School Photographs, 1950 and 1964

Going to school was a universal experience for New Zealand children during the 20th century. Most attended locally if they were not at a boarding school, and the Special and Correspondence Schools served those who were disabled, ill or, living in isolated conditions. By 1910, the numbers of Maori children in public schools outnumbered those enrolled in the country's Native schools.

Isn't she a little young?

This billboard was erected across the American state of Virginia in the summer of 2004 as part of a state health department campaign aimed at reducing statutory rape (the crime of sex with an underage girl). Napkins, stickers, coasters, and matchbooks bearing the same message were distributed to bars and restaurants where young men congregated.

Beatles Petition and Response

In April 1964, the U.S. Labor Department announced new rules for foreign entertainers. Applying through Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), entertainers with unique talent would be allowed to enter. The Labor Department would evaluate all others to assess availability of American workers.

Children and Daguerreotypes

Daguerreotypes were the first commercially viable photographic process. Developed by French chemist Louis Daguerre in 1839, the technique quickly made its way to the US in the 1840s, the beginning of what some historians characterize as the "golden age" of childhood.

Delaware School Alumni Interviews

In 1954, the Supreme Court declared the "separate but equal" doctrine unconstitutional in Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka. Years earlier, however, Pierre S. du Pont, President of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. and General Motors in the 1920s, took bold steps to modernize the education system for African Americans.