SHCY

A Token of a Young Imperial Traveler - Digital Childhoods Beginning in 1928, the Society for the Overseas Settlement of British Women (SOSBW), an off-shoot of the Overseas Settlement Committee, launched four educational and international tours for schoolgirl...

Read in this week's Digital Childhoods post by Megan Buiocchi about a pin commemorating a British girl's overseas trip in 1934—and how the tour symbolized British women's new imperial roles: shcydigitalchildhoods.org/dir/token-of...

The call for papers for the @histchild.bsky.social 2026 conference at the University of Sheffield, 1-3 July, is now up on our website! Deadline 14 December www.histchild.org/pages/sheffi... #histchild #skystorians #histyouth

Fun Reading for Refinement: A Preteens’ Guide to Letter Writing - Digital Childhoods Growing up with strict parents who value good manners, I have always had a close affinity with the history of manners in my journey of historical discovery. My attention is thus naturally drawn to var...

Pre-teen writing etiquette goes way back! Check out the wonderful images in this week's post by Danni Cai on Digital Childhoods to learn more about how Chinese youth navigated letter-writing: shcydigitalchildhoods.org/dir/fun-read...

Cover of my book We Have Come To Be Destroyed: Growing Up In Cold War Britain. The cover is an eerie blue-green and the words melt into an image of a group of children confronting the camera at a festival in Coventry in 1980.

Cover reveal for my forthcoming book, WE HAVE COME TO BE DESTROYED: GROWING UP IN COLD WAR BRITAIN which tells the history of Cold War Britain (c.1956-89) through the eyes of children & young people! Out with @yalebooks.bsky.social 28 April 2026 #booksky #skystorians yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300...

Consider Children's Temporality, 'Playes' - Digital Childhoods In 2023, Mahshid Mayar published the insightful article “‘Playes Print the Letter’: American Child(hoods) as Archival Present/ce” in the Journal for the History of Childhood and Youth. In it, she expl...

Archiving childhood is all about time! Read Mahshid Mayar's insightful take on children's temporality in this week's interview on Digital Childhoods: shcydigitalchildhoods.org/dir/consider...

Call for conference papers:

"Child's Play in Popular Culture: History, representations and consumption."

Abstracts are due by 30 November.

The conference will take place online on 30 April - 1 May 2026.

call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/04/...

Care Play: More Ways Young People Played Kindly with Videogames - Digital Childhoods Follow along to read the entire comic strip by Bevs Boredom Comics! Growing up the in the 1990s and 2000s, the first game that I played and completed with my sister by my side was The Legend of Zelda:...

How much did you cherish your tamagotchi? In this week's post on Digital Childhoods, Kacey Doran analyzes care play within video games to question gender dynamics and shooter game discourse. Check out the wonderful illustrations by @bevscomics.bsky.social! shcydigitalchildhoods.org/dir/care-play/

Here’s a short article I did for Digital Childhoods on homemade toys in Ireland, with some fabulous sketches and notes from the Schools’ Folklore Collection

Miscarriage is a Crime Again In 1650, a young, single English servant named Anne Greene miscarried into the privy and did not tell anyone. We know her story because she was arrested for infanticide, convicted despite exonerati…

This week @larafreidenfelds.bsky.social argues that in a post Roe vs Wade world “Women who lose pregnancies, even before viability, are targeted in ways that strongly resemble early modern infanticide investigations.” nursingclio.org/2025/08/20/m...

Homemade Toys in Twentieth-Century Ireland - Digital Childhoods Throughout twentieth-century Ireland, social, political, and commercial concerns shaped public discourses about children’s play. Parents were scrutinised for their ability to provide children with the...

In this week's article on Digital Childhoods—penned by @meganmcauley.bsky.social—read about twentieth-century Irish schoolchildren who took meticulous notes on toys they crafted themselves: shcydigitalchildhoods.org/dir/homemade...

YouTube video by Society for the History of Children and Youth (SHCY) Moira Herbst - SHCY 2025 Conference Keynote

Missed SHCY's 2025 biennial meeting? You can watch Moira Herbst deliver the keynote address here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wD6...

Wooden Bicycles: Children’s Coding in the PC Era - Digital Childhoods Who won the Cold War? At the turn of the millennium, the United States seemed victorious in terms of technological development. As the Chinese magazine The World of Technology and Trade marveled in 19...

Who really won the Cold War? From Soviet “wooden bicycles” to child-led coding, this week's article on Digital Childhoods by Margaret Mih Tillman (@margaretmihtillman.bsky.social) rethinks tech supremacy through the eyes of children's education: shcydigitalchildhoods.org/dir/wooden-b...

YouTube video by Society for the History of Children and Youth (SHCY) Moira Herbst - SHCY 2025 Conference Keynote

Missed SHCY's 2025 biennial meeting? You can watch Moira Herbst deliver the keynote address here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wD6...

“Super Surfer”: The Joyriding Device and Childish Menace - Digital Childhoods At the dawn of the 1960s, skateboarding burst onto the scene so quickly that parents and community leaders were unsure how to deal with the “craze.” While it began as a form of leisure for surfers whe...

Did you know skateboards go back to the early 60s? In this week's blog post on Digital Childhoods, James Howard discusses the 'super surfer' that made parents and journalists clutch their pearls in horror: shcydigitalchildhoods.org/dir/super-su...

Between Childhood and Conflict: The Vietnamese Refugee Child Experience in Arkansas - Digital Childhoods The black and white photograph is jarring in its contradictions: a small Vietnamese boy, likely no more than ten years old, holding what appears to be a military rifle. His expression is neither frigh...

New on Digital Childhoods, read about the overlooked experience of Vietnamese refugee children in rural America. Thank you to Noah Adebanjo for sharing this piece with us! shcydigitalchildhoods.org/dir/between-...

Graphic announcing the award of the 2025 Fass-Sandin Article Prize in English to Juandrea Bates, including a photo of Bates, the cover of the book Family & Justice in the Archives, and a statement from the jury of the Society for the History of Children and Youth.

We are very pleased to announce that Juandrea Bates has been awarded the @shcy.bsky.social's 2025 Fass-Sandin Article Prize in English for her chapter in 𝘍𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘑𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘳𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘴 (2024), ed. @petergossage.bsky.social & Lisa Moore!
www.shcy.org/awards/shcy-...

Starting today!

Carrying the Randsel - Digital Childhoods For years after the introduction of mandatory elementary education for boys and girls in 1872, some of Japan’s pupils commuted in horse carriages. Servants who carried their belongings accompanied the...

This week on the blog Sabine Fruhstuck shares a quintessential Japanese childish thing: the randsel. Read more about this iconic backpack here: shcydigitalchildhoods.org/dir/carrying...

The Currency of Wartime Childhood - Digital Childhoods During the Second World War, the material worlds and realities of children were transformed entirely, from the everyday spaces they occupied to the objects they encountered on their way to school. Alt...

In this week's blog post, Berry Pillot de Chenecey takes us to children in London during World War II who used shrapnel pieces for their play and imagination: shcydigitalchildhoods.org/dir/the-curr...

We are looking forward to welcoming you to the Society for the History of Children and Youth's biennial conference, which is being held on Zoom from June 26-28 2025. To register, click here: tinyurl.com/4ypduv4r

All conference participants must also be paid-up members of the SHCY; you may join the SHCY here: shcy.press.jhu.edu/membership/j...

The program and additional registration information are available on SHCY's website: www.shcy.org/events1/regi...

We are looking forward to welcoming you to the Society for the History of Children and Youth's biennial conference, which is being held on Zoom from June 26-28 2025. To register, click here: tinyurl.com/4ypduv4r

The Rise and Fall of the Gifted Child - Digital Childhoods This spring, Jennifer Crane published her new book ‘Gifted Children’ in Britain and the World: Elitism and Equality since 1945 with Oxford University Press (open access). It expands upon the article “...

This week on the blog, check out this fun interview with Jennifer Crane (@jennycrane.bsky.social) all about her fascinating new book on the rise, fall, and legacy of gifted children in the UK and the world: shcydigitalchildhoods.org/dir/the-rise...

The Rise and Fall of the Gifted Child - Digital Childhoods This spring, Jennifer Crane published her new book ‘Gifted Children’ in Britain and the World: Elitism and Equality since 1945 with Oxford University Press (open access). It expands upon the article “...

This week on the blog, check out this fun interview with Jennifer Crane (@jennycrane.bsky.social) all about her fascinating new book on the rise, fall, and legacy of gifted children in the UK and the world: shcydigitalchildhoods.org/dir/the-rise...

Registration and program information for the 2025 SHCY Conference will be available soon! The cost to attend will be $50.

A few eprints still available. Read how Boston "drawing book wars" linked to Ontario and how Froebelian idealism was foundation of proposed curriculum reform. Studies of children's drawing in US were basis of child studies and science of ed. Result? fable of progressivism/limits of empiricism.

The Rise and Fall of the Gifted Child - Digital Childhoods This spring, Jennifer Crane published her new book ‘Gifted Children’ in Britain and the World: Elitism and Equality since 1945 with Oxford University Press (open access). It expands upon the article “...

shcydigitalchildhoods.org/dir/the-rise... Interview about my new book - with thanks for great questions from Hannah Stamler and Layla Koch 📕🙏
@shcy.bsky.social

PhD Candidate in History (279729) | NTNU - Norwegian University of Science and Technology Job title: PhD Candidate in History (279729), Employer: NTNU - Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Deadline: Sunday, June 1, 2025

Looking for a PhD candidate to study how first names convey information about parental values and beliefs in historical Europe (circa 1750-1950). Please share the info with potential candidates:
www.jobbnorge.no/en/available...
(deadline for applying: June 1st)