The Nature Of Childhood: An Environmental History Of Growing Up In America Since 1865
by Pamela Riney-Kehrberg /
2014 / English / PDF
39.9 MB Download
When did the kid who strolled the wooded path, trolled the stream,
played pick-up ball in the back forty turn into the child confined
to the mall and the computer screen? How did “Go out and play!” go
from parental shooing to prescription? When did parents become
afraid to send their children outdoors? Surveying the landscape of
childhood from the Civil War to our own day, this environmental
history of growing up in America asks why and how the nation’s
children have moved indoors, often losing touch with nature in the
process.
When did the kid who strolled the wooded path, trolled the stream,
played pick-up ball in the back forty turn into the child confined
to the mall and the computer screen? How did “Go out and play!” go
from parental shooing to prescription? When did parents become
afraid to send their children outdoors? Surveying the landscape of
childhood from the Civil War to our own day, this environmental
history of growing up in America asks why and how the nation’s
children have moved indoors, often losing touch with nature in the
process.
In the time the book covers, the nation that once lived in the
country has migrated to the city, a move whose implications and
ramifications for youth Pamela Riney-Kehrberg explores in chapters
concerning children’s adaptation to an increasingly urban and
sometimes perilous environment. Her focus is largely on the Midwest
and Great Plains, where the response of families to profound
economic and social changes can be traced through its urban,
suburban, and rural permutations—as summer camps, scouting, and
nature education take the place of children’s unmediated experience
of the natural world. As the story moves into the mid-twentieth
century, and technology in the form of radio and television begins
to exert its allure, Riney-Kehrberg brings her own experience to
bear as she documents the emerging tug-of-war between indoors and
outdoors—and between the preferences of children and parents. It is
a battle that children, at home with their electronic amenities,
seem to have won—an outcome whose meaning and likely consequences
this timely book helps us to understand.
In the time the book covers, the nation that once lived in the
country has migrated to the city, a move whose implications and
ramifications for youth Pamela Riney-Kehrberg explores in chapters
concerning children’s adaptation to an increasingly urban and
sometimes perilous environment. Her focus is largely on the Midwest
and Great Plains, where the response of families to profound
economic and social changes can be traced through its urban,
suburban, and rural permutations—as summer camps, scouting, and
nature education take the place of children’s unmediated experience
of the natural world. As the story moves into the mid-twentieth
century, and technology in the form of radio and television begins
to exert its allure, Riney-Kehrberg brings her own experience to
bear as she documents the emerging tug-of-war between indoors and
outdoors—and between the preferences of children and parents. It is
a battle that children, at home with their electronic amenities,
seem to have won—an outcome whose meaning and likely consequences
this timely book helps us to understand.
