Growing Up in England: The Experience of Childhood 1600-1914

Description

This book presents an entirely fresh view of the upbringing of English children in upper and professional class families over three centuries. Drawing on direct testimony from contemporary diaries and letters, the book revises previous understandings of parenting and what it was like to grow up in the period between 1600 and 1914. Using advice literature which set out developing ideologies of childhood, gender and parenting, the book explores the separate but complementary roles of mothers and fathers in raising their children. Male upbringing is discussed in terms of schooling, female through the moral and social context of a domestic schoolroom dominated by a governess. Boys were trained for the world, girls for society and marriage. Rare teenage diaries surviving from the Georgian and Victorian periods show teenagers speaking for themselves about education; relationships with parents, siblings and friends;  and their social, class and gender identity. Contents Preface and Acknowledgements Introduction PART I Prescription 1. Childhood 2. Boyhood 3. Girlhood 4. Parenthood PART II Parenting 5. Care and Affection 6. Marital Partnership 7. Children Who Died 8. Maternity 9. Motherly Performance 10. Fatherly Performance 11. Fathers and Educating Boys 12. Mothers and Educating Boys 13. The Public Schools 14. Boys at University 15. The Schoolroom 16. Girls at School 17. Training for Society PART III Children 18. Personal Testimony 19. Home 20. School 21. Travel 22. Friendship and Love 23. Identity: Class, Nation and Gender Abbreviations Notes Bibliography Index