Article Title
The Moral Project of Childhood: Motherhood, Material Life, and Early Children’s Consumer Culture
ISBN
9781479810260
Publication Date
2020
Price
30.00
Publisher
New York University Press
Abstract
"Perhaps Cook’s most important accomplishment in this book is discarding the perception of a “pre-capitalist” childhood overtaken by rampant commercialism during the nineteenth century. As he notes, the idea of commerce and consumerism acting as a toxic force in childhood is far more common in the literature of the 1980s than it ever was in writings of the 1800s. Such a dichotomy made little sense to nineteenth-century White and prosperous mothers who were focused on teaching their offspring how to engage with goods and money in a manner that would reflect a genteel level of “taste.” Thus, he argues that instead of thinking of children as “born into a consumer culture,” we should think of modern childhood as continuing to be “born of it” (9)."
DOI
10.31390/cwbr.23.4.04
Recommended Citation
Ringel, Paul B.
(2021)
"The Moral Project of Childhood: Motherhood, Material Life, and Early Children’s Consumer Culture,"
Civil War Book Review: Vol. 23
:
Iss.
4
.
DOI: 10.31390/cwbr.23.4.04
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/cwbr/vol23/iss4/4
