Stolen Childhood: Slave Youth in Nineteenth-Century America [Hardcover]

Wilma King (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1995

The author argues that childhood was stolen from these children when they were forced into the workplace at an early age. This book follows the slave child''s experi ence through work, play and leisure, education, socializatio n and resistance to slavery. '

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

King, a historian at Michigan State University, has researched the lives of children growing up in slavery during the last century. Her sources include personal papers and U.S. government interviews with former slaves, all compiled in the 1930s. Children saw the carefree joys of their younger days fade as the grim boundaries of their lives became apparent. The humiliation and punishment of slaves was often inflicted publicly--a father whipped in front of his son as a salutary lesson to both the boy and the man. Parents could be sold off, losing all contact with their children. King relates how the songs and games of the children came to incorporate this harsh reality.

From Publishers Weekly

Marking the milestones and millstones of the youthful years of enslaved blacks' lives on U.S. plantations in the 1800s, King (history, Michigan State Univ.) traces how those born into slavery grew old almost instantly, before their time, suffering atrocities akin to those of war-ravaged populations. She examines family, work, play, religion, punishment, and escape in a pioneering survey to assess our understanding of slavery from the experiences and perspectives of those under 21 years of age. As Deborah Gray White did in Ar'n't I a Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South (LJ 11/15/85), King has here remapped old and familiar terrain to lay out promising directions for fresh inquiry. Highly recommended for collections on 19th-century U.S. history, children, slavery, and blacks.?Thomas J. Davis, SUNY at Buffalo
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 253 pages
• Publisher: Indiana University Press (December 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0253329043
• ISBN-13: 978-0253329042
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,244,248 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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