| This dissertation analyzes the relationship of the home to child rearing and family life between 1900 and 1950. This study explores the ways in which parents used their homes to nurture their children, and the reasons why different options were available and attractive. Specifically, this project tours the middle class family house and investigates the construction and use of the many spaces of childhood: the small child's bedroom; the household spaces, inside and out, where the child played; and the places utilized for education and discipline. The sources include design treatises, medical literature, advice manuals, government publications, trade literature, poetry and fiction, works of art, photographs, autobiographies, and personal writings in letters and baby books. Through this research, it becomes clear that evolving theories of child rearing, the realities of parenting, and the activities of children shaped the ideology, function, and material culture of middle-class homes. Focusing on the material culture of childhood reveals much about middle-class Americans' views of the past, their hopes for the future, and the ways in which people used objects as a response to cultural transformations and dislocations. Additionally, by analyzing the family home and the young child's place and spaces therein, this project produces a nuanced portrait of "modern" America. It points to the importance of young families as contributors to critical trends in twentieth century history, as they drove suburbanization, consumer culture, professionalization, medical advances, a national media, and a nuanced middle-class identity. This dissertation contributes to historiographical discussions about the nature of childhood and child rearing in history, agency and causality in design and suburbanization, consumerization, nature, memory and modernization, and the role of material culture in creating and contesting identity. Finally, this dissertation illuminates the interplay among experts and parents, and highlights the power of both parents and children in the negotiation of the home and the greater culture. |
