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

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Kaichi and Mitsuke Schools

While most pre-Meiji commoner schools were held either in temples or in the homes of the teachers, most teachers and officials associated with the Meiji education reforms emphasized the importance of having schools in new buildings created specifically for the purpose of education.

Two Girls Carrying Children

One of the major obstacles to consistent attendance at the new elementary schools was the fact that children played an important role in the household economy. One such role was that of caregiver for younger children.

Thumbnail of New Year celebration painting

Joyous Celebration at the New Year

This image offers an artistic view of a household celebrating the New Year's holiday. Here we find children at play amidst a scene of domestic joy and prosperity for an elite family of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911). The detail of the image is rich in its representation of material culture, shared domestic space, as well as visions of play and the culinary endeavor of a grand feast.

Yin Yu Tang: A Chinese Home

The Yin Yu Tang house provides a perspective on childhood in a period that bridges the conclusion of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) and the rise of a new 20th-century republic in China.

Children and Toys

These photographs come from The Hedda Morrison Photographs of China, 1933-1946 website, a collection of photographs that provide a perspective on childhood in a period that bridges the conclusion of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) and the rise of a new 20th-century republic in China.

Selling Toys

Thumbnail of poster of family eating at a table

The happy life Chairman Mao gave us, 1954

Visual images provide valuable material for the exploration of childhood, youth and history. Propaganda posters from the People's Republic of China (1949-present) are particularly rich, offering images that are both bold and subtle, and which many students find as nicely accessible sources to explore.

Protect the Great Results of the Cultural Revolution, 1974

Visual images provide valuable material for the exploration of childhood, youth and history. Propaganda posters from the People’s Republic of China (1949-present) are particularly rich, offering images that are both bold and subtle, and which many students find as nicely accessible sources to explore.

Studying for the mother country, 1986

Bat Mitzvah

The girl in the photograph, Cecelia Nealon-Shapiro, reads from the Torah as part of her bat mitzvah, a rite of passage ceremony, at Congregation Rodeph Sholom in New York City. Prior to this day, she attended classes in Jewish history and tradition, Hebrew, and recitation at the Reform synagogue, where girls now participate in a rite formerly reserved for boys, the bar mitzvah.

Thumbnail of girl holding plastic baby doll

Child with Purple Plastic Doll near Kumasi, Ghana

The girl in the photograph is from the Asante peoples in Ghana. She is holding a purple plastic baby doll of a type that is frequently found in markets in Ghana. The doll is both imported from Taiwan and made domestically in Ghana. The modern plastic doll is based on an older, traditional form of wooden figurine manufactured by village blacksmiths to represent the adult, female figure.

Organization of British Imperial Scouting

This chart shows the official lines of authority in the imperial Boy Scout movement. In theory, the Imperial Scout Headquarters had direct control over local versions of scouting through its territorial associations.

Pathfinder Warrant

Imperial scout headquarters and the national and territorial scout associations were deeply concerned with ensuring that only respectable and responsible men became scoutmasters. In colonial Africa, this meant that potential scoutmasters had to also respect the political realities of European minority rule.

The Scout's and King's African Rifles Uniforms

The top photograph shows members of a South African scout troop specifically for blind adolescents and young men c.1950. The bottom photograph is of non-commissioned officers from the King's African Rifles in the mid-1950s. Note that both groups wear similar clothing consisting of khaki shirt and shorts, knee-length socks, clasp belts, and wide brimmed hats.

Mau Mau Fighters in Scout Uniforms

In the early 1950s, tens of thousands of poor and landless Kikuyus revolted against the Kenyan colonial government and wealthy members of their own community who were allied with the British regime. Known as the "Mau Mau Emergency," this rebellion was one of the most serious threats to British rule in Africa.

Thumbnail of drawing of Africans liberated from slaving vessel

Captured Africans Liberated from a Slaving Vessel

The Graphic, a London periodical owned by liberal reformer William Luson Thomas, was not an abolitionist publication per se, but it did seek to inspire action against those causes that Thomas felt demanded immediate attention, such as poverty, crime, and slavery.

Slave Coffle, Central Africa, 1861

This image shows children and adults making their way from the African interior to the coast in a slave coffle. While some may think that children were given special treatment because of their age, and some may have, this image suggests that this was not always the case.