Historical Archaeology of Childhood and Parenting: Materialized Experiences, Discourses, Identities, Places, and Meanings

The study of childhood in historical archaeology enriches interpretations of the past, but also has the potential for contributing to the understanding of methodological and theoretical issues in archaeology. Archaeologically, children are understudied relative to both their demographic and social importance, partly because children are viewed as difficult to discern in the archaeological record. Historical archaeology, with its access to historical documents to supplement and illuminate archaeological evidence, provides an opportunity to gain a greater understanding of the ways children’s daily lives in the past were expressed in historically changing types and patterns of material culture. Recent research presented in this volume contributes valuable perspectives for conceptualizing the historically changing social nature of childhood and methods for illuminating the roles of children. Case studies are designed to illustrate methodological and theoretical advances in the historical archaeology of materialized experiences, discourses, identities, places and their meanings associated with parenting and childhood.

The volume is organized into three sections devoted to case studies about 1) how childhood and parenting have been socially constructed cross culturally and temporally, 2) social ideologies of childhood in contested spaces, and 3) the relationship between children’s experiences and adult expectations of childhood. Each chapter demonstrates advances in current methods or theories used in the archaeology of childhood. A final discussant, drawn from the broader field of research on the archaeology of childhood, provides a commentary on the ways the perspectives provided in the volume can be employed by researchers outside the sub-discipline of historical archaeology.

April Kamp-Whittaker is a Professor of Anthropology at California State University, Chico and Co-Director of the University of Denver Amache Project. Her research has focused on the archaeology of community and the development of social networks and neighborhoods and the archaeology of childhood. She has worked on historical and prehistoric projects across the U.S. and tries to find new ways to connect audiences to archaeology through public presentations, exhibits, and curriculum.

Jamie Devine is an independent scholar and business professional. She graduated with her MA in Archaeology at the University of Denver and holds a BA in Business from Adams State University. Her archaeological research interests have mainly focused on the archaeology of childhood and women in military forts during the 19th and 20th centuries. She was an integral part of a ten year excavation project of the first military fort in Colorado, Fort Massachusetts (1852-1858). In 2013 she was the project director for the survey completed at the Ludlow Massacre site. Her publications include Bringing Joy and Laughter to Camp: A Study of Children Living in Military Forts, The San Luis Valley Historian (2013) and Soldiers and Porcelain Dolls- The Children of Fort Garland, Colorado, Central Magazine (2012). She also created a website traveling-anthropologist.com highlighting her experiences traveling the globe. Jamie has spent over 20 years working in small business and large corporations. Currently you will find her in software engineering and painting colorful artwork using the pseudonym La Gringa Loca. She and her husband live in Houston with their children.

Suzanne Spencer-Wood is a Professor Anthropoloy at Oakland University and was Associate of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University 1992-2019. She organized the first two conference symposia on gender research in historical archaeology in 1989 at the Joint Archaeological Congress and the Chacmool Conference, and has several publications on feminist theory and gender research in historical archaeology that address mothering in homes and institutions for children, and children’s social agency, including her 1991 chapter in The Archaeology of Inequality, her 1994 chapter in Those of Little Note: Gender, Race and Class in Historical Archaeology, her 1994 article on playgrounds in The Landscape Journal, her 1996 chapter in The Study of American Culture, her 2003 chapter on playgrounds and children’s gardens in Shared Spaced and Divided Places, her 2017 co-authored article on the American playground movement in the International Journal of Historical Archaeology, and her 2019 chapter on the global Sloyd educational movement in Materiality in the Making.