Constructions of Childhood Prompt

When analyzing children's literature from early America, particularly 1820-1860, it is important to understand the mindset of people in this time frame. Recognizing that people in this time were very proud to be American yet anxious helps us to understand why writing of this time period for children may be seen as repetitive, predictable, and even boring. In the article by MacLeod we find a variety of examples, three in particular I find could play an important role in interpreting and analyzing this type of literature and I feel we should keep in mind. The Sanchez-Eppler reading also provides some noteworthy ideas about children’s literature and the way adults view children. For example seeing in them a sense of innocence and that they are individuals navigating their way through the world as best they can.
These ideas include a preoccupation with the future, repetition and, the idea that the focus of a given story was extremely narrow. MacLeod writes that “…it was undoubtedly the American preoccupation with the future that was the strongest impetus behind the development of a nonschool juvenile literature before 1860. The children who were to inherit the republic were increasingly the object of adult attention.” This effectively is the first time that American society adopts the idea of children as the future and they use it as building foundation for generation that follow. “Although they were produced in a nation experiencing great and rapid change, the children’s stories were static and repetitious. Controversy was rare and there were few departures from conventional opinion.” This quote from the reading puts forth the idea that children’s literature can often be stoic and trite in this time period due to the changes in society, that it the forming of a new nation. MacLeod makes it very apparent that the purpose of children’s literature of this time was to teach morality, subsequently the scope of stories was not very wide. “The focus of the stories was extremely narrow. They were written to teach, and specifically, to teach morality. All Americans of the period agreed that a high level of individual morality was indispensable if the promise of the nation’s future was to be fulfilled.”
Sanchez-Eppler writes that, “since the early nineteenth century, adults have increasingly sought in children: a sense of immanence and innocence, more immediate that rational.” The idea of the pure innocence of a child completely naïve and fragile to the world is something that is cherished in both human relationships and literature of the time. This along with the concept of children as individual’s navigating their way through the difficulties of life is expressed clearly by another main point Sanchez-Eppler tries to make, “They are children: individuals inhabiting and negotiating these often conflicting roles as best they can.”
So overall, when it comes to interpreting and understanding children’s literature of the early 19th century it is important to keep in mind the concept of children as the future, the predictable and repetitive style of stories of the time, the narrow focus of the stories and emphasis on morality, the idea of a child as the symbol of innocence and finally, the use of children as vessels to reveal a story wandering their way through conflicting roles.