Skip to main content

Childhood in America & the 19th Century Camp-meeting Movement

 

One of the social impacts of the early nineteenth century revival camp-meeting movement was to change the way Americans thought about childhood. Prior to 1800, according to Karen Calvert, “Childhood had no positive attributes of its own worthy of expression. A child was merely an adult in the making, and childhood, as a period of physical and spiritual vulnerability was a deficiency  to be overcome.”[1] By 1800, more than half (55.2%) of the people living on the Kentucky frontier were children under the age of 16. This compares to 49% for the rest of the new United States, according to Ted A. Smith.[2] So, many younger people would have been present at the camp meetings. When children began to respond spiritually, this was unprecedented and unusual. Children as young as five were recorded to have addressed adults at these camp meetings, standing on benches, tree branches and from the shoulders of adults. Their religious exhortations were taken seriously both by other children and adults. They also provoked a scandal. In fact, the opposition to the participation of children at the earliest camp meetings resulted in rules that made it much less likely for children to freely share their exhortations at later camp-meeting revivals. This led to a “new model of childhood” where “as the nineteenth century unfolded, children in Kentucky lived lives increasingly distinct from those of adults around them. They moved in separate spaces and engaged in separate practices. Ending a practice in which children mingled freely with adults and spoke in the manner of adults fit closely with this larger trend” [3]. 

When your class visits the Kentucky Faith & Public History Education Project’s outdoor living history classroom, this topic will be introduced via a holographic video display. The interpretive staff will be encouraged to use the hologram to engage child visitors with their adult companions in discussions about how the roles of children in America have changed since 1800; what children can contribute to important conversations; and whether they feel that their perspectives and ideas are welcome.

 

©2021 By Lesley Barker PhD

 


[1] Karen Calvert. “Children in American Family Portraiture 1670-1810”. William & Mary Quarterly. January 1982.

[2] Ted A. Smith. The New Measures. Cambridge University Press. 2009

[3] Ibid.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

First lessons about world religion for primary classes

Religion is lumped in with history, literature, languages and art as one of the humanities but we tend not to feel as comfortable teaching about religion as the other subjects. Teaching about religion does not promote any one particular faith. It introduces the fact that there are differences between people and their ideas and practices about God. Primary students can easily be introduced to the idea that there are different religions during social studies units about the community and its people. Different religions use different types of  buildings. Different religions can be identified by the way some adherents dress. When you are teaching about communities, say that people worship in different types of buildings. People who are Christians worship in churches or cathedrals. People who are Jewish worship in synagogues. People who are Muslim worship in mosques, and people who are Hindu or Buddhist worship in temples. Take pictures of any of these buildings in your school community...
Post a Comment
Read more

Happy Birthday to the Trees!

Yesterday, February 6, 2023, was the Jewish festival Tu B'Shvat . It is the birthday of the trees. The date this festival is celebrated shifts from year to year. All Jewish feasts do because the Jewish calendar is lunar. The birthday of the trees it will always be in January or February, however. Why do the trees need a birthday? Because the ancient Jewish law forbade a person from eating from a fruit tree until it was five years old. So, all the trees have their birthdays on the same day.  What does that have to do with us at the Kentucky Faith & Public History Education Project in Paris, Kentucky? Our mission is to provide education around the Christian religion and its history, particularly in Kentucky. As one of the signs on our half-mile Walking Trail says, the first people who believed the Christian message were Jewish people living in Jerusalem in the first century of the Christian era. So, by honoring this Jewish festival, we recall the roots of the Christian faith. Bes...
Post a Comment
Read more

Merry Christmas and Thank You: An Open Letter to Kentucky's K-12 Teachers

 Dear Teacher, It's nearly winter break. We here at the Kentucky Faith & Public History Education Project wish every Kentucky teacher a blessed holiday season. We want you to know that we value what you do and that we understand that your job is not about the paycheck. It's truly about the students. It takes commitment and sacrifice. We want to take this opportunity to thank you.  You more than deserve the recognition and the honor. Many of you keep a warm coat in the trunk of your car for when you have bus duty at the end of the day and the temperature has dropped 20 degrees since you left your house before it was light. You probably have spent several recent evenings preparing to delight your students with a holiday surprise before winter break. You routinely spend your own money to make sure your classroom has enough paper, pencils, crayons and other essential supplies so that every student can learn. Many have made it a personal mission to provide a safe environment fo...
Post a Comment
Read more