About This Site

Introduction

The Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (CHNM) at George Mason University and the University of Missouri–Kansas City received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities to create Children and Youth in History. The project was completed in 2010.

Children and Youth in History was designed to help teachers and students learn about the important roles of young people throughout history by providing access to information about the lived experiences of children and youth from multiple perspectives as well as changing notions about childhood and adolescence in past cultures and civilizations. The materials on this website address such questions as: What was it like to be a child or adolescent throughout history? How is childhood defined? How has it changed and how has it remained the same? What factors have shaped childhood and how did children shape history, society, and culture?

Children and Youth in History is a free website with four key features:

  • a Primary Source Database with 350 resources along with guidance on how to use those sources critically and tools for annotating and organizing the sources;
  • 60 Website Reviews that focus on valuable online resources for studying and teaching the history of childhood and youth in world history;
  • 11 Teaching Modules that provide historical context, teaching tools, and strategies for teaching with sets of primary sources drawn from the Primary Source Database; and
  • 25 Teaching Case Studies by experienced scholars and teachers that model strategies for using primary sources to teach the history of childhood and youth.

Project Team

  • Kelly Schrum (Project Co-Director)
  • Miriam Forman-Brunell (Project Co-Director)
  • Peter Stearns
  • Mary A. McMurray (Project Manager)
  • Susan Douglass (Research Associate)
  • Jeremy Boggs (Web Developer)
  • Chris Raymond (Designer)

Advisory Board

  • Sharon Cohen
  • Ryba Epstein
  • Paula Fass
  • Colin Heywood
  • Steven Mintz
  • Claudia Mitchell
  • Paula Petrik
  • Heidi Roupp
  • Peter Stearns
  • Merry Wiesner Hanks

Evaluator

  • James Marten

Web Review Authors

  • Sue Fernsebner
  • Colin Heywood
  • Jessica Hodgson
  • Nora E. Jaffary
  • Ilana Nash
  • Nancy Stockdale

Teaching Case Study Authors

  • Joe Austin
  • Jane Eva Baxter
  • David Bill
  • Christopher Corley
  • Sue Fernsebner
  • Rebecca Friedman
  • James Gillham
  • Donald Haase
  • Kriste Lindenmeyer
  • Dana Leibsohn
  • Joanna Michlic
  • Julia Mickenberg
  • Steven Mintz
  • Paula Petrik
  • Lizbeth Halliday Piel
  • Beryl Rawson
  • Kerry Roeder
  • Tom Rushford
  • Phil Safford
  • Elizabeth Ten Dyke
  • Richard Waller
  • Merry Wiesner Hanks

Teaching Module Authors

  • Tom Ewing
  • Sue Fernsebner
  • Jeanine Graham
  • Jesse Hingson
  • Anne Kinney
  • Heidi Morrison
  • Tim Parsons
  • Lynda Payne, Ph.D., RN
  • Brian Platt
  • Stephen Robertson
  • Nancy Stockdale
  • Colleen Vasconcellos
  • Shona Kelly Wray

Teaching Module Lesson Plan Authors

  • Sharon Cohen
  • Janelle Collett
  • Susan Douglass
  • Ryba Epstein
  • Jessica Hodgson
  • Heidi Morrison
  • Tom Rushford
  • Cynthia Szwajkowski
  • Elizabeth Ten Dyke