Growing Up in Nineteenth-Century Ireland

Why do we send children to school? Who should take responsibility for children's health and education? Should girls and boys be educated separately or together? These questions provoke much contemporary debate but also have a longer often-overlooked history. Mary Hatfield explores these questions and more in this comprehensive cultural history of childhood in nineteenth-century Ireland. Many modern ideas about Irish childhood have their roots in the first three-quarters of the nineteenth century when an emerging middle-class took a disproportionate role in shaping the definition of a 'good' childhood with childhood seen as a fluid concept with a variety of meanings and responsibilities dependent on class gender and religious identity. <p/>This study deconstructs several key changes in medical care educational provision and ideals of parental care. It takes an innovative holistic approach to the middle-class child's social world by synthesising a broad base of documentary visual and material sources including clothes books medical treatises religious tracts photographs illustrations and autobiographies. It offers invaluable new insights into Irish boarding schools the material culture of childhood and the experience of boys and girls in education.<br>