Early Modern (1450 CE - 1800 CE)

Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy

Long Teaching Module: Children in Late Imperial China, 900-1930

An exploration of primary sources on childhood in late imperial China (framed broadly as the Song through Qing dynasties, ca. 960-1911 CE) offers a window into lived experience and the diverse ways in which childhood itself could be imagined and articulated.

Long Teaching Module: Educational Reform in Japan (19th c.)

Soon after overthrowing the Tokugawa government in 1868, the new Meiji leaders set out ambitiously to build a modern nation-state. Among the earliest and most radical of the Meiji reforms was a plan for a centralized, compulsory educational system, modeled after those in Europe and America.

Long Teaching Module: Children during the Black Death

The Black Death was the first and most lethal outbreak of a disease that entered Italy during the end of 1347 and the beginning of 1348 and then spread across Europe in the following few years.

Long Teaching Module: Children’s Health in Early Modern England

Children and youth in early modern England (1500-1800) were subject to many diseases and physical hardships.

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.

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.

Short Teaching Module: Codex Mendoza (16th c.)

In Mexico City, towards the middle of the 16th century, Nahuatl-speaking painters created the Codex Mendoza, one of the most lavish indigenous accounts of history and moral behavior known today. Across pages of expensive, imported paper, the painters of the C.

Short Teaching Module: Orphans and Colonialism (17th c.)

The story of colonialism in the early modern era is generally told as one of adults—and primarily adult men—exploring, conquering, and transporting goods and ideas.

Short Teaching Module: Children and Witchcraft (16th c.)

The overall details of the rise and decline of this cultural focus on witches are generally accepted.