Language: eng

Subject: Marie Curie

Item Type: Still Image

Original Format: Image From Children's Book

Physical Dimensions:

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Language: eng

Description: Albert is described as cruel, and angry, he throws tantrums the text tells young readers that “His temper so terrifies a tutor hired to help young Albert prepare for school that she runs away, never to be seen again.” In the picture Albert and his anger are foregrounded as the tutor runs away in terror, apparently never to be seen again. You will be hard pressed to find historical precedent for this story: By all accounts Albert was a much more timid boy, but it is easy to see here how masculinity and power are imbued on this child.

Brown, Don. Odd Boy Out: Young Albert Einstein . Houghton Mifflin, 2004.

Source: Odd Boy Out: Young Albert Einstein

Subject: Albert Einstein

Creator: Don Brown

Date: 2004-00-00

Item Type: Still Image

Original Format: Children's book image

Physical Dimensions: 1'2'

Publisher: Value Communications

Language: eng

Description: One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn’t belong. This picture from the 1976 children’s book The Value of Learning: The Story of Marie Curie depicts the resolute young Curie standing her ground against a visiting Russian school inspector. (I have posted about this confrontation before) It is a ‘Value Tale‘ publication. If you aren’t particularly familiar with Curie’s life take into consideration the following. Curie, born in 1867 would have fifty by the October revolution of 1917, needless to say the Soviet Uniform worn by her harsh Russian instructor is a bit out of place. This could point to a interesting argument for why there are so many Curie children’s books, stories about harsh Russians past and present make for good stories during the Cold War.

But back to the title of the post. While The Value of Learning does not come highly recommended it is still one of the most avaliable to children around the world. I have to believe that if historians were involved in the review process for these books these kinds of kinks could be better ironed out.

Source: The Value of Learning: The Story of Marie Curie

Subject: Marie Curie

Creator: Ann Donegan Johnson

Date: 1978-00-00

Citation: Ann Donegan Johnson, The Value of Learning: The Story of Marie Curie (La Jolla, Calif: Value Communications, 1978).

Item Type: Still Image

Original Format: Picture from children's book

Physical Dimensions: 2'4'

Publisher: Children's book publisher

Language: eng

Description: In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century Nature Study was the cutting edge approach in American science education. Educational scholars claimed students should “study nature, not books” and education took on a much more practical bent. Some scholars have noted that this approach to science education was much more gender inclusive, that nature study invited more women and girls into the sphere of science. The following images from Science Stories, a 1934 American science textbook, would seem to support the argument that nature study was more inviting to girls. In the past fifty years various science textbooks have come under scrutiny for including only pictures of boys and men in the book’s illustrations. Take a look at the following set of pictures from the book, these representative selections show boys and girls working together, something later books have largely failed to do. If this book is at all indicative of other texts and approaches from the time it would seem to be incontrovertible that Nature Study brought about a much more gender neutral approach for presenting science to children.

Source: book

Subject: Nature Study

Creator: Children's book publisher

Item Type: Still Image

Original Format: Children's Book

Physical Dimensions: 2' by 4'

Language: eng

Description: This is a few pictures of Trevor Owens

Source: ichat

Subject: Trevor Owens

Creator: Trevor Owens

Item Type: Still Image

Original Format:

Physical Dimensions: