North/Central America
Long Teaching Module: Sexuality, Marriage, and Age of Consent Laws, 1700-2000
In western law, the age of consent is the age at which an individual is treated as capable of consenting to sexual activity. Consequently, any one who has sex with an underage individual, regardless of the circumstances, is guilty of a crime.
The INF Treaty
In December 1987, President Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) in Washington, DC. The treaty eliminated both nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic missiles with a range of 300-3,400 miles.
Gender Roles among the Nahua in the Codex Mendoza
From the time of birth, children in Aztec, or Nahua, society were socialized into gender roles. In the birth ritual introducing the infant to society, symbolic objects clearly differentiated. Boys were to be warriors and craftsmen, and girls were to tend to domestic chores.
Food
The material culture of early childhood in the 21st century is characterized by an emphasis on biological age and related levels of cognitive and motor skill development.
Diapers
The material culture of early childhood in the 21st century is characterized by an emphasis on biological age and related levels of cognitive and motor skill development.
Short Teaching Module: Children and Daguerreotypes (19th c.)
For historians, there are several ongoing debates about the periodization of childhood and its transformation over time. When did children become important and in what capacity? As economic contributors? As the focus of emotional attachment or as subjects prone sentimental idealization?
Short Teaching Module: Graffiti, Gender, and Youth (20th c.)
I use "graffiti art" – the unmediated writings, paintings, and drawings that began to appear in public spaces in New York, Philadelphia, and elsewhere on the east coast during late 1960s – in order to examine the: status of young people as valid historical actors and "citizens" relative to adults
Short Teaching Module: Winsor McCay's Little Nemo in Slumberland
A young, tousled-haired boy about the age of seven is slumbering away in his bed, ensconced in a non-descript, middle class bedroom (fig. 1). He is jarred awake by the revelation that his bed is levitating, and slowly floating out his window and into space.
Short Teaching Module: Children and Disability (19th, 20th c.)
In studying the historical meaning of disability in the U.S., official reports of the myriad institutions established for the care, education, training, and sometimes merely confinement, of persons whose differences set them apart have been a key source of information.
Short Teaching Module: Girlhood and Little Women
Scholars often label the period between 1865 and 1920 the "Golden Age" of Anglo-American children's literature, as this is the period when many of the classics were written and published, including Alice in Wonderland (1865), Ragged Dick (1868), Tom Sawyer (1876), Treasure Island (1884), Rebecca