Babies Made Us Modern: How Infants Brought America into the Twentieth Century
Cambridge University Press, 4/19/2018
EAN 9781108415002, ISBN10: 1108415008
Hardcover, 268 pages, 23.6 x 15.8 x 2 cm
Language: English
Placing babies' lives at the center of her narrative, historian Janet Golden analyzes the dramatic transformations in the lives of American babies during the twentieth century. She examines how babies shaped American society and culture and led their families into the modern world to become more accepting of scientific medicine, active consumers, open to new theories of human psychological development, and welcoming of government advice and programs. Importantly Golden also connects the reduction in infant mortality to the increasing privatization of American lives. She also examines the influence of cultural traditions and religious practices upon the diversity of infant lives, exploring the ways class, race, region, gender, and community shaped life in the nursery and household.
1. Infant lives and deaths
incubators, demographics, photographs
2. Valuing babies
economics, social welfare, progressives
3. Helping citizen baby
the US Children's Bureau, good advice, better babies
4. Bringing up babies I
giving, spending, saving, praying
5. Bringing up babies II
health and illness, food and drink
6. Helping baby citizens
traditional healers, patent medicines, local cultures
7. The inner lives of babies
infant psychology
8. Babies' changing times
depression, war, peace
9. Baby boom babies
Coda. Kissing and dismissing babies
American exceptionalism.