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Period: to
Childhood from the Enlightenment to the Late 20th Century
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The High Enlightenment of France
The publication of Jean-Jacque Rousseau's Emile, Or: On Education is a significant moment in the high Enlightenment period, as the treatise freely discusses the importance of education for a child, and the consequences of children taking on the duties of adults before they've been exposed to an adequate and natural education. Rousseau details his own struggles with self awareness and memories of childhood, and encourages the separation of children from adult affairs. -
The Late Industrial Revolution in Britain
The publication of the 1834 British Parliamentary Report brings to light the disturbing estimate by the parliament that children under the age of thirteen made up, on average, ten to twenty percent of the work forces in the cotton, wool and silk mills in 1833. Children aged thirteen to eighteen comprised roughly 23 to 57 percent of the work forces in the same industries. Clearly, child labour was pervasive in late Industrial Britain. -
The Bolshevik Revolution and Russian Civil War
The article "Petrograd under the Terror" published in The Times on August 8, 1919, discusses the education of children in the "communistic" schools of Petrograd.The article was based on the words of a former Russian officer who escaped Russia, and describes that children received lectures from Bolshevik leaders who stressed the importance of community involvement and action, suggesting the great contributions of children during the Bolshevik Revolution and Russian Civil War. -
World War II in Germany
In 1939, the Hitler Youth organization became a mandatory program while the German authorities dissolved competing youth organizations. The linked 1939 propaganda poster for Hitler Youth perfectly displays the desire of the Nazi party to continue their legacy by training all men and boys to be the next potential Hitler, suggested by the way the boy is positioned in the poster. Hitler Youth prepared the premature for battle.
https://www.ushmm.org/propaganda/archive/poster-hitler-youth/