American Antiquarian Society
185 Salisbury Street
Worcester, MA 01609
United States
This two-day hybrid symposium will convene fifteen emerging and established scholars whose work amplifies the voices of some nineteenth-century American children or explores the archival silences of underrepresented children. Recent scholarship in the fields of history, literary studies, and childhood studies shows that unearthing and understanding these voices brings forward nuanced and unique perspectives around the social and political concerns of the time.
The symposium corresponds with the launch of the Society’s new Historic Children’s Voices web resource. Digital versions of child-authored materials preserved at AAS will be made freely accessible and the site will feature more than 15,000 pages of content. Diaries and hand-written newspapers where children record the details of their daily lives, imaginative stories, and poems will be featured along with a selection of small-format, printed books made and published by children on home parlor presses. The contents of these materials and the panelists’ related research invite deep thinking about the value of children’s perspectives and the empowerment of children’s voices both in the past and today.
Registration is required. In-person registration includes Friday lunch and Friday evening reception.
Thursday, May 2
- 7:00 to 8:00 PM
Welcome and Introductory Remarks: Scott Casper, President of AAS 7:10 to 8:00 PM
Keynote Address: Karen J. Sanchez-Eppler, Stanton Williams 1941 Professor of American Studies and English, Amherst College
“How to Put Away Childish Things: Children’s Cultural Production and the Hermeneutics of Care”Karen Sánchez-Eppler is L. Stanton Williams 1941 Professor of American Studies and English at Amherst College, and was the 2020 Distinguished Scholar in Residence at the American Antiquarian Society. She was elected to AAS membership in 2005. Dr. Sanchez-Eppler is the author of Touching Liberty: Abolition, Feminism, and the Politics of the Body (1993) and Dependent States: The Child’s Part in Nineteenth-Century American Culture (2005). She is co-editor with Cristanne Miller of The Oxford Handbook of Emily Dickinson (2022). She is one of the founding coeditors of the Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth and past president of C19: The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists. She is president of the board of the Porter-Phelps Huntington Museum in Hadley, Massachusetts.
Friday, May 3
- 8:30 to 9:15 AM
Coffee and pastry for in-person participants (Goddard-Daniels House 190 Salisbury Street) - 9:20 AM
Welcome: Nan Wolverton, Vice President for Academic and Public Programs 9:30 to 11:00 AM
Panel 1: Valuing Children’s Voices
Panel Chair: Karen Sanchez-Eppler, Amherst CollegePanelists:
- Emily Bruce, Associate Professor of History, University of Minnesota Morris
“The Boundaries of Children’s Writing and Reading” - Emily Gowen, Lecturer on History and Literature, Harvard University
"Children as Bookmakers" - Mark Mattes, Assistant Professor of English, University of Louisville
“The History of Writing in Children’s Handwritten Newspapers” - Elissa Myers, Librarian, Sam Houston University
“Consuelo’s Corner”: The Space-Making of Young Black Women Amateur Journalists”
- Emily Bruce, Associate Professor of History, University of Minnesota Morris
11:15 to 12:45 PM
Panel 2: Archival Silences
Panel Chair: Koritha Mitchell, Professor of English, Ohio State University and Visiting Professor of English at Boston UniversityPanelists:
- Kabria Baumgartner, Dean’s Associate Professor of History and Africana Studies, Northeastern University
"Skipping Along the River Bank: Finding Children at Black Coronation Festivals in New England" - Jacqueline Emery, Chair and Associate Professor of English, SUNY Old Westbury
"Native American Schoolgirl Editors and the Hallaquah" - Wendy Raphael Roberts, Associate Professor of English, University at Albany, SUNY
“If Silence Reigns, Let Harpocrates Live”: A New Manuscript Version of Phillis Wheatley (Peters’s) “On Virtue” - Nazera Sadiq Wright, Associate Professor of English, University of Kentucky
“Phillis Wheatley and Early Black Penmanship”
- Kabria Baumgartner, Dean’s Associate Professor of History and Africana Studies, Northeastern University
- 12:45 to 2:00 PM
Lunch for all in-person participants, Goddard-Daniels House, 190 Salisbury Street, Worcester, MA - 2:15 to 2:45 PM
Discussion of the Historic Children’s Voices project and new website resources with AAS curators Lauren B. Hewes, Laura E. Wasowicz, and Ashley Cataldo 2:45 to 4:00 PM
Panel 3: Visual Culture of Children’s Production
Panel Chair: Andrea Immel, Curator of the Cotsen Children’s Library, Princeton University LibraryPanelists:
- Sara R. Danger, Professor of English, Valparaiso University
“Children Composing Themselves: Genre, Gender, and Invention” - Charline Jao, PhD candidate in Literatures in English, Cornell University
“Mother’s Joys: Portraits of Childhood in Friendship Albums” - Shawna McDermott, Lecturer in American Literature, St. Andrews University
"Learning to Picture Race: Children's Photography and Illustrations in St. Nicholas (1873-1939)"
- Sara R. Danger, Professor of English, Valparaiso University
4:15 to 5:45 PM
Panel 4: Hearing the Child’s Voice
Panel Chair: Laura Wasowicz, AAS Curator of Children's LiteraturePanelists:
- Maureen Egan, Freelance Writer and Mary Eileen Fouratt, Consultant and Independent Scholar
“Ruthy Henshaw: Words & Whimsy, 1789-1793” - Elise Leal Henreckson, Assistant Professor of History, Whitworth University
“Finding Faith in Antebellum Children's Diaries” - Katharine Kittredge, Professor of English, Ithaca College
“’their particular property’: Thomas G. Condie Jr.’s Magazine for Children by Children” - Karah M. Mitchell, PhD candidate in English, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
“Animals, Children, and Animating the Archive”
- Maureen Egan, Freelance Writer and Mary Eileen Fouratt, Consultant and Independent Scholar
6:00 to 7:00 PM
Reception for in-person participants
Goddard-Daniels House, 190 Salisbury Street, Worcester, MA
Keynote Speaker
Karen Sánchez-Eppler is L. Stanton Williams 1941 Professor of American Studies and English at Amherst College, and was the 2020 Distinguished Scholar in Residence at the American Antiquarian Society. She was elected to AAS membership in 2005. Dr. Sanchez-Eppler is the author of Touching Liberty: Abolition, Feminism, and the Politics of the Body (1993) and Dependent States: The Child’s Part in Nineteenth-Century American Culture (2005). She is co-editor with Cristanne Miller of The Oxford Handbook of Emily Dickinson (2022). She is one of the founding coeditors of the Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth and past president of C19: The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists. She is president of the board of the Porter-Phelps Huntington Museum in Hadley, Massachusetts.
