Modern (1800 CE - 1950 CE)
Meiji Era School Attendence
Below are two tables that reveal both the accomplishments and the limitations of Meiji educational reforms. Table 1 shows an impressive increase in the number of schools and the enrollment rates for both girls and boys, one that culminates in 1905 with near-universal enrollment rates.
Tet Trung Thu Festival in Vietnam
The photographs show children during the mid-Autumn Harvest Festival, or Tet Trung Thu in Vietnam, a children's festival associated with the full moon.
Patience Monsignor Your Turn Will Come
Cartoons attacked the refractory clergy. Here, fat, overfed, and underworked clergy are squeezed down to an appropriate size. As elsewhere, visual images mocked the clergy by depicting them as subject to the threats and physical attacks of others.
Robespierre 10 Thermidor—Exposition of 1877
This painting from 1877 shows in romantic style Robespierre dying in a large room, surrounded by soldiers and others.
Boys' Initiation Mask (keweke)
This mask worn by boys during initiation rituals in Papua New Guinea is made of painted bark cloth and canvas stretched over a cane frame. The long fiber fringe adds movement to the mask, which is worn during dances and other secret rituals that that comprise boyhood initiation rites.
Gope, Ancestor or Spirit Boards
The object in the photograph is a gope, or spirit board (also called kwoi or hohao). This example is from Papua New Guinea near the Wapo Creek on the Gulf of Papua.
American Indian Girls Playing with Dolls
In this photograph, taken near the turn of the 20th century, American Indian girls in the southwestern United States are learning through play how to be mothers and keepers of the home.
Blocksom’s School
These two photographs show before and after pictures of Blocksom's School in Sussex County in rural Delaware. The first photo (taken in 1917) shows the pupils standing outside the original one-room schoolhouse made of wood.
Student Letter to Pierre DuPont
Thelma Norwood, a 7th-grade student in Nassau, Delaware, wrote this letter in 1925. The school was segregated, or used only by African Americans, while separate schools were maintained for white students.
The Lemonade Stand
The lemonade stand is a widely used and recognized symbol of capitalism and in particular entrepreneurship. The selling of lemonade on the streets of New York can be traced back to when a New York youngster sold it to thirsty street car riders over 130 years ago.