Raising AmericaRaising America
Experts, Parents, and a Century of Advice About Children
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Book, 2003
Current format, Book, 2003, 1st ed, No Longer Available.Book, 2003
Current format, Book, 2003, 1st ed, No Longer Available. Offered in 0 more formatsA provocative examination of twentieth-century child rearing practices considers the personal ambitions and scientific claims of popular advisors, contending that the theories of top authorities reflect popular trends, but fail to ease modern child-rearing anxieties. 25,000 first printing.
Examines twentieth-century child rearing practices, contending that the theories of top authorities reflect popular trends, but fail to ease modern child-rearing anxieties.
In this inquiry into America's preoccupation with raising children, Ann Hulbert blends biography and critical analysis to probe the personal dramas, the scientific claims, and the social visions of a succession of experts who during the twentieth century aimed to make a science of child rearing. She describes how these pediatricians and psychologists came to be popular advisers, and explores the origins and outcome of their ambitious quest to predict and perfect children's futures, and to solve the dilemmas of modern mothers and of families in flux.
Raising America is an account of how a hundred years of expert advice clearly failed to ease modern child-raising anxieties. It makes clear that the advisers, with their shifting formulas and dogmas, in fact proved to be unnerving. Yet as their stories reveal, they have also been enlightening, holding up an intimate mirror to the rising social and psychological expectations and tensions of an unsettled century.
Hulbert uses biography and critical analysis to examine the personal dramas, scientific theories, and social visions of 20th-century child- rearing experts including L. Emmett Holt, G. Stanley Hall, and Benjamin Spock. Hulbert explores the political and social forces that influenced child-care experts, describes the shifting (and often confusing) formulas and dogmas of their ambitious quest to predict and perfect children's futures, and concludes that a hundred years of expert advice have failed to ease modern child-rearing anxieties. Hulbert is the author of The Interior Castle: The Art and Life of Jean Stafford. Annotation (c) Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Examines twentieth-century child rearing practices, contending that the theories of top authorities reflect popular trends, but fail to ease modern child-rearing anxieties.
In this inquiry into America's preoccupation with raising children, Ann Hulbert blends biography and critical analysis to probe the personal dramas, the scientific claims, and the social visions of a succession of experts who during the twentieth century aimed to make a science of child rearing. She describes how these pediatricians and psychologists came to be popular advisers, and explores the origins and outcome of their ambitious quest to predict and perfect children's futures, and to solve the dilemmas of modern mothers and of families in flux.
Raising America is an account of how a hundred years of expert advice clearly failed to ease modern child-raising anxieties. It makes clear that the advisers, with their shifting formulas and dogmas, in fact proved to be unnerving. Yet as their stories reveal, they have also been enlightening, holding up an intimate mirror to the rising social and psychological expectations and tensions of an unsettled century.
Hulbert uses biography and critical analysis to examine the personal dramas, scientific theories, and social visions of 20th-century child- rearing experts including L. Emmett Holt, G. Stanley Hall, and Benjamin Spock. Hulbert explores the political and social forces that influenced child-care experts, describes the shifting (and often confusing) formulas and dogmas of their ambitious quest to predict and perfect children's futures, and concludes that a hundred years of expert advice have failed to ease modern child-rearing anxieties. Hulbert is the author of The Interior Castle: The Art and Life of Jean Stafford. Annotation (c) Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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- New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2003.
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