Children's Mite: Juvenile Philanthropy in America, 1815-1865
Open Access
- Author:
- Greenspoon, David Michael
- Graduate Program:
- History
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- May 10, 2012
- Committee Members:
- Lori D Ginzberg, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Anthony Edward Kaye, Committee Member
Gary Scott Cross, Committee Member
Hester Maureen Blum, Committee Member - Keywords:
- antebellum
benevolence
charity
childhood
children
Civil War
consumerism
missionaries
Sunday schools
temperance - Abstract:
- My research examines juvenile benevolence in early nineteenth-century America to better explain how the northern middle class – especially Christian activists among them – culturally negotiated the developing capitalist economy, and the place of children within it. “Children’s Mite” considers children’s books, records left by juvenile benevolent societies, parenting guides, and the writing of children themselves. I argue that as reformers who espoused middle-class values, as well as members of the middle class, taught children virtuous ways to use their money, they immersed girls and boys in the world of finance, and thus legitimized juvenile participation in a capitalist economy. Therefore, I contend that the then newly-popularized middle-class ideal of a sheltered, innocent childhood removed from the marketplace, represented, at least in part, an ideological construct. My findings help explain the rise of juvenile consumerism in the nineteenth century, a significant field of study given the importance of conspicuous consumption to current-day childhood, as well as the role of children’s merchandise in the modern-day economy. Furthermore, my dissertation sheds light on the complex relationships among nineteenth-century philanthropy, religion, and a burgeoning consumer economy. “Children’s Mite” suggests that consumerist and philanthropic impulses are not mutually exclusive. This project also considers how antebellum reform organizations, Sunday schools, and parents trained a rising generation to be entrepreneurs and consumers. “Children’s Mite” argues that antebellum juvenile philanthropic associations, commonly organized out of Sunday schools, acted as spaces where children learned to reproduce their parents’ spending habits: an important indicator of class. In perhaps no arena were anxieties regarding the relationship between children and the economy so explicitly negotiated than reform and benevolent organizations. Reformers mobilized youngsters to participate in these causes as donors, producers of merchandise for fundraising, and members of juvenile societies. In most reform and benevolent causes in antebellum America, reformers recruited children to assume an active and distinct function. However, academics looking closely at the relationship between reform and the economy, including a developing consumer culture, have not extensively considered the role children played. This project examines three popular nineteenth-century causes into which girls and boys were recruited: Christian missions, temperance, and aid for Union soldiers during the American Civil War. These endeavors together highlight the diverse ways children were taught to engage in philanthropic campaigns. Indeed, some juvenile reform societies stressed self-sacrifice, while others emphasized a material culture, by which members could identify each other. Moreover, an examination of these three causes offers a valuable perspective by which to see how the relationship between children and philanthropy developed and expanded.