How did Early Republican laws protect some children but left others vulnerable? What children get to be innocent? In her new book, Constructing American Childhood: Age-Based Laws and the Illusion of Protection in the Early United States, published with University of Virginia Press just last month, Holly N. S. White illuminates how age-based laws have codified social hierarchies until today. Read in this week’s interview her insights on her book and research.
Dear Holly, to start off, what is the most central message you would like readers to take away from your book?
I think I have two messages I’d like readers to take away from my book Constructing American Childhood. The first is that children and youth have always been important historical actors. Historians can (and need to) do more to surface evidence of the experiences and voices of children when examining the past. The other message is that today in America we are still using the same age-based laws that were first used when the nation was founded in 1776. I want readers to think about why we still use those ages today and I’d invite them to investigate the age-based laws the exist where they live—they aren’t always what we expect them to be.
In your experience, how does the category of “innocence” both limit and expand the legal history of childhood?
As I mention in the book, I examine the concept of “innocence” as a legal definition and as a social and cultural concept in late 18th and early 19th century America. Legally, children could (and can still) be found innocent of a crime they did commit because of their perceived intellectual immaturity or lack of reason. Children can be found not culpable for a crime even as they’re still guilty of it. Also happening at this time in American history was a growing cultural belief that some (typically white and middle to upper class) children were inherently innocent beings—they were seen as naïve, pure, and in need of protection. These dual definitions of innocence overlapped and informed one another as early American courts worked out at what age a child should be held accountable for their criminal actions.
I think when looking at legal cases involving children, we must take the time to separate out what were legal arguments about innocence and what were popular cultural arguments about innocence. When we do that, it does expand our understanding of the legal history of childhood because we remember that the law is not an un-biased, cut and dry thing—it’s a living, breathing set of boundaries that moves alongside evolving cultural expectations. One of those crucial moment that legal understandings of children’s innocence evolved was in the period my book covers.
In addition to the rise of chronological age, what other forms of age and aging emerged in your research?
Chronological age—or the numerical age a person is—seems like such a stable, unbiased concept. What I argue throughout Constructing American Childhood is that the idea of age and what significance it holds in any given situation is incredibly dependent upon those in power. Perceived functional age often mattered more in early America, especially in the criminal justice system. When a child’s chronological age was lower than the legal age of reason or consent (which was typically 14), the court could use a child’s perceived intellectual and physical “ages” to justify acting outside the chronological age boundary. As you can imagine, race, class, and gender often intersected with chronological age to “age up” or “age down” certain groups of children.
What is one child’s legal case that has stuck with you particularly?
Constructing American Childhood examines dozens of trial records that revolved around children—that included murder cases, rape cases, guardian-ward disputes, and loss of service suits. Consequently, each case stuck with me for different reasons but some of the more memorable ones were those where it’s evident the child was thinking strategically through their legal situation; they were aware of how the age-based law shaped their opportunity for leniency or protection and so they leaned into their identity as a child in hopes of swaying their case. Mary Doherty’s case (which appears in Chapter 1) is a great example of that.
Does the concept of “negotiation” serve as a more helpful concept of agency within legal history?
While it may seem that way because lawyers are thought to “negotiate”, most humans negotiate every aspect of their life, every day. At its most basic, “to negotiate” just means to come to a mutually agreed upon outcome with another person. The “mutually agreed upon” part doesn’t always feel that way but to have agency is to negotiate. That being said, I also think people don’t realize just how negotiable the law was/is. For example, as I discuss in chapter 4 which is about marriage age laws, for an underage person who attempted to marry in the 18th century, they often negotiated with those who were tasked with enforcing marriage age laws. Was that officiant going to enforce the law rigidly or were they going to look the other way?
These kinds of smaller negotiations surrounding legal definitions of childhood were (and continue to) constantly happen—sometimes the small negotiations happened so often that they resulted in a big legal change but often they didn’t. This meant that whether those who enforced age-based laws were going to count someone as a child or an adult was continually up for negotiation.
In your book, you use a rich variety of sources from legal documents to personal papers, newspapers, and church records. What advice do you have for other scholars with a similarly broad corpus?
When I started my project (in 2009), there was a lot less digitized archival material than there is today and so I really had to find and use any source possible that revealed something to me about children and/or age within my field of study. While this approach started out of desperation, it ultimately became a central part of my argument: that these ideas and discussions about who was a child and what childhood meant in early America were occurring everywhere in every context all at once.
While I personally like this style of research—casting a wide net and sorting through it all to find big picture connections—I recognize that that is not the best approach for every study. My advice would be to be open to all types of sources when starting a project but also being mindful that research must turn into writing at some point. I’d recommend finding parameters with which to limit yourself. For me it was a range of years.
Where do you hope the next historian continues the research of your book?
I’m not sure I have a specific thought in mind other than that I hope more people will be inspired to search for evidence of children’s direct experiences and voices in all archival material. And to check the ages of those they study!
To end on a personal note, we’d like to ask you about a few of your favorite things…
a. Favorite way of managing notes and/or citations?
I thoroughly cite everything while writing. It probably takes me a lot longer to write but I’d rather have at least the general information cited as I go than have to go back and remember what to add. Probably not a crowd-pleasing response.
b. Favorite childhood book?
I read anything and everything as a child, so I honestly don’t have one. I remember really enjoying the Sweet Valley High books, though. I also loved those historical-fiction royal diary books.
c. Best piece of advice you remember receiving as a child?
I’m going to go the opposite here and say the worse advice I ever received which came from my 8th grade English teacher who said that I wasn’t a good enough writer to be in 9th grade Honors English. It’s clearly my writer origin story.
Dr. Holly N.S. White is an expert on the history of age and childhood in early America and teaches in the history department at William & Mary. She currently serves as the co-editor of the Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth. Follow her Instagram: @thechildishprofessor
