playhouses and privilege: the architecture of elite childhood

＂Exploring children’s playhouses built on British and American estates between the 1850s and the mid-1930s, Playhouses and Privilege shows how these buildings were more than extravagant spaces to cultivate children’s imaginations. Abigail A. Van Slyck traces the evolution of elite childhood, reviewing a rich archive to demonstrate that these structures were tools of social reproduction shaped by elite parents’ attitudes toward child-rearing, education, and class privilege＂--

Abigail A. Van Slyck is the Dayton Professor Emeritus of Art History at Connecticut College and author of A Manufactured Wilderness: Summer Camps and the Shaping of American Youth, 1890-1960 (Minnesota, 2010) and Free to All: Carnegie Libraries and American Culture, 1890-1920.