Finding Children’s Voices in The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines childhood as “the state or period of being a child” as well as “the early period in the development of something”.^[i] While accurate, these definitions miss something crucial to understanding childhood in both the past and the present. They miss the fact that childhood (and youth) are cultural constructs akin to race, class, and gender. As historians of childhood and youth have demonstrated, the experiences of these stages in life and when they are meant to end have varied significantly by time and place. For some, the transition from childhood to adulthood corresponds with major life milestones including puberty, work, marriage, or independence; for others, chronological age marks the formal transition to legal adulthood. By acknowledging that these markers of adult status are products of human invention rather than human nature, historians can reconstruct a more accurate understanding of the past; one that includes children and youth as the agentive historical actors they were (and still are).

Yet, studying the history of childhood and youth presents some difficult challenges. One archival challenge that historians face is a dearth of sources created by children. Because so few children left behind archival source material, early works in the field of childhood and youth lean heavily on sources written about children. Though important for understanding how a society defined childhood and its value, these contributions “mainly center on what adults were doing or saying” about children regarding law, education, and policy.^[ii] These studies ultimately lack children’s lived experiences and perspectives.

But scholars of childhood and youth refuse to be limited by the archive. Instead, many think creatively about how traditional source material can be used to uncover children’s voices and experiences. Much of this innovative scholarship has appeared in the pages of the Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth. For example, Karl Bergemann’s forthcoming article (issue 18.3, Fall 2025) “The Runaway Child: Identity Subterfuge and Employment Opportunity in an Emancipation Era Cape Colony, 1830-42” examines advertisements in colonial British newspapers to demonstrate that enslaved children exercised agency and resisted their enslaved status by running away.

Over the last sixteen years, JHCY authors have meaningfully contributed to some of the largest debates and questions in the historical discipline regarding agency, power, race, personhood, gender, and autonomy. Instead of being “peripheral to the important work of understanding social, political, national, and ethnic structures,”^[iii] JHCY authors have shown that children and young people were essential participants in each of these structures. Through its expansive geographic and temporal range, articles in the JHCY have firmly established the wide influence that children and young people had—and continue to have—on the world.

Bio:

Holly N.S. White (hnstevens@wm.edu) is an Adjunct Professor of History at William & Mary. She and Julia M. Gossard are the co-editors of The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth and Engaging Children in Vast Early America (Routledge, 2024). Her book, Constructing American Childhood: Age-Based Laws and the Illusion of Protection in the Early United States, will be published by UVA Press next spring.