AMERICAN CHILDHOOD | Kirkus Reviews

A photographic celebration of American childhood.

Culled from more than 2,000 images, this book by journalist and historian Brewster brings together more than 200 photographs from museum collections (Library of Congress, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Public Library, New York Historical Society), Getty images, flea markets, antiques stores, eBay, and his own family’s trove to tell a visual history of the life of American children. Spanning 250 years, the photos document children at home and school, sitting primly or playing exuberantly, dressed formally or in costume or play clothes. They range from babies to teenagers, a diverse assortment of youngsters: Black, White, Asian, Native American, urban and rural. There’s a 12-year-old drummer boy who served in the Civil War and a 13-year-old Freedom Rider arrested in 1961. Brewster, who founded the Center for Oral History at West Point, dispenses with chronological or thematic organization in favor of juxtaposing pictures “simply because I liked how they looked or because together they delivered an ironic or telling message.” The result is like paging through an album from a sprawling, blended family. Brewster contextualizes the images in historical essays about childhood as well as about photography. “In the 1910s and 1920s,” he notes, “the camera becomes portable and we start to see the lives of children in their environments, and even in movement—playing, going to school, dancing, competing in sports.” These contrast with the solemn daguerreotypes and staid family portraits of earlier times. It’s amusing to see childhood photos of celebrities: 4-year-old Stephen King, Lucille Ball at 2, Thomas Edison at 5, and the future Lady Gaga at 4. Not surprisingly, there’s a photo of Shirley Temple. There’s also one of Truman Capote, smiling winningly, and another of Ernest Hemingway, at 12, writing during a fishing trip. Brewster argues that Americans invented childhood and, sadly, will oversee its demise due to insidious forces such as social media and school shootings. Childhood, he exults, is “the original adventure.”

Captivating glimpses of children’s lives.