Customer Reviews

Pricing the Priceless Child: The Changing Social Value of Children

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In this thoroughly researched and well-written book, Zelizer tackles a formidable and important subject: the shifting economic and social value of American children. Her point of entry into the discussion of the history of childhood rests on a clearly defined thesis: as the economic value of children decreased in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, children's emotional and spiritual value gained ascendancy. Zelizar examines the vital roles of child labor and child work -- two very different, but related, concepts -- in the formation of the modern American child, neatly and compellingly charting the relationship between the nineteenth-century forebear and its twentieth-century counterpart. For example, the early twentieth-century child factory laborer represents the concept of child labor -- children who help to support their family by turning over their wages and working extra hours. The mid-to-late-twentieth-century child indulges in "child work" such as baby sitting or delivering papers, often earning an allowance he or she can keep since the object is to teach a child the values of money and responsibility. Zelizer offers explanations and rationales for such phenomena as the early twentieth-century rise of playgrounds in urban areas, the struggle of child actors to keep their hard-earned fortunes, and the history of the rise of black-market babies in the twentieth century. Zelizer's study is compelling for any reader and a must-read for anyone interested in children's history or children's literature.

When one begins reading about the history of childhood, one book is almost universally cited: this one. And with good reason -- it's a clear compelling study of a surprising change in the way children were viewed. Each chapter picks a particular topic (child labor, child burial, wrongful death) and amasses copious evidence to show a massive change in the way children were viewed, from purely economic actors (who aided with their parent's work) to priceless bundles of joy.

The evidence is artfully collected but hearing the same story again and again gets to be a little old. I wish that instead of simply amassing more evidence, Zelizer stepped back a little and investigated the causes of such a massive change or at least provided us with more details about her theory.