Children are a critically important and omnipresent part of the American story but are frequently overlooked in archaeological analyses of domestic sites, institutions, and other social arenas in which children lived, played, and even worked. The social construction of childhood is codified and reproduced through material messages of cultural values, proper behavior, and expressions of identity. Baxter elucidates the unrealized potential of inclusive analyses of childhood at the intersection of socioeconomic class, gender, ethnicity, and other social prisms. In doing so, she makes an invaluable contribution to our understanding of this aspect of human experience, which is simultaneously universal and richly diverse through time and across space.
Baxter begins by situating childhood as a relational and ideological phenomenon, emphasizing the ways in which the ideals of American childhood connect to the nation's historical trajectory and are mediated through both public discourse and interpersonal relationships (Chapter 1). Material culture plays an integral role in the contestation and negotiation of identities that are embodied and performed. Baxter astutely notes that analyses of childhood are not just about children but also parenting practices, family dynamics, and community ideals. She presents five themes—risk and opportunity, diversity, consumerism, space, and disruption due to war and warfare—that are germane to the study of children.
The volume is well organized to capture the richness and nuance of the subject matter. Chapter 2 presents a historical overview of childhood specifically within the American cultural context. Baxter uses a temporal lens to examine the dialectical relationship between historical events, popular intellectual and social movements, and the ideologies that shaped parenting and childhood from the colonial period (1620–1750) through twentieth-century childhood and the emergence of adolescence (1900–1950). She emphasizes the materiality of childhood as it is constructed, idealized, and transformed.
Domestic sites, particularly children's living spaces, are the focus of Chapter 3. As critical loci of enculturation, domestic sites are naturally a rich arena for investigating childhood. Importantly, Baxter challenges us to move past “the tyranny of toys” and consider the lived experiences of children beyond simply their play. Chapter 4 is devoted to institutional arenas of importance to the socialization of American children, such as schools, orphanages, boarding schools, and other institutional settings. These cultural environments were (and are) designed for specific purposes, and the activities within them were structured to reflect particular ideological concerns of moral, spiritual, and social well-being. Therefore, the archaeological records of institutional settings illustrate the tensions between the “ideal” as it was envisioned and the “real” as it was negotiated and contested. Native American boarding schools and Japanese internment camps are particularly powerful arenas that not only shaped children's experiences but had profound impacts on their adulthoods as well.
Chapter 5 includes a fascinating examination of those who did not survive childhood and for whom there was unique mortuary behavior and material culture. Rituals of death elucidate how children were idealized as members of a community; yet their skeletal remains also illustrate stark realities of violence, disease, and enslavement. The volume concludes with an analysis of contemporary scholarship with particular interest in consumption, gender constructions, and the migration of children's material culture from the physical to the digital realm.
Baxter brings together a truly impressive array of data in her analyses. She cogently challenges our current assumptions and provides new and robust models for nuanced, deep, and rich interpretations of children in the past. Critical analyses of childhood and adolescence are imperative for understanding human experiences; after all, children grow up and carry the legacy of their experiences into adulthood.
