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Racial Innocence: Performing American Childhood from Slavery to Civil Rights (America and the Long 19th Century) Hardcover – December 1, 2011

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Robin Bernstein (Author)
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5 out of 5 stars 2 customer reviews
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Product Details

  • Series: America and the Long 19th Century
  • Hardcover: 318 pages
  • Publisher: NYU Press (December 1, 2011)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 081478707X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0814787076
  • Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.9 x 9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,578,421 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5.0 out of 5 starsExcellent book on childhood and race
By Kristin McGlothlin on July 22, 2013
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
I highly recommend this book for scholarly research on children's literature and antebellum era in America. The illustrations are effective too.
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5.0 out of 5 starsEye-opening analysis of girls, doll play and racial dichotomies
By ModernWizard on September 2, 2014
Format: Paperback
One of those books that really changes one's perceptions, Racial Innocence contains incisive analyses and provocative interpretations aplenty. Bernstein argues that children's play -- with, for example, Uncle Tom's Cabin memorabilia or topsy-turvy dolls -- helped to create a dichotomous view of childhood in which white kids were innocent, pure and sensitive and black kids were sly, tough and impure. This concept -- in which white children were the only "real," acceptable type of children and black children were seen as subhuman and bestial -- developed strongly in the Reconstruction and continues to subserve media depictions of kids of color today.

Bernstein is especially good when speculating on the significance encoded in soft, cuddly, topsy-turvy dolls. These were dolls with one head at either end, usually a white plantation mistress paired with a woman of color [a Mammy-like figure]. The long skirt, shared between both characters, could be flipped down to show one character and obscure the other. Changing characters was as easy as upending the doll and drawing down the skirt to display its other face. Bernstein notes that enslaved women of color made topsy-turvies for plantation daughters to play with and encoded subversive messages in them. For example, play with a topsy-turvy compelled a confrontation with the uneasy, shifting distinction between races [two races on the same doll suggest an equivalence] and even with the sexual exploitation of enslaved women themselves [skirt flipping being suggestive of sexual violation].

For similar consideration of related subjects, including virtuoso chapters on the Clarks' doll experiments ["Show me the doll who looks nicest"] and the racialized features encoded into Raggedy Ann, pick up this book and prepare to have your mind opened.
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