Huck's Raft: a History of American Childhood

HUCK'S RAFT: A History of American Childhood

BY STEVEN MINTZ HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2004 445 PAGES, $29.95

George Washington never was a teenager--not because the father of our country was born at 50--but because the concept did not exist; the word did not appear in print until 1941. A 13-year-old has more in common with a 12-year-old than a 19-year-old, but because the suffix "teen" occurs in both numbers, our Anglophonic society consigns 13 and 19 to the same category. Treated like "teenagers," people 13-19 act the part, confirming the dominion of culture over physiology.

"Childhood" is the most widely distributed of American inventions, and its models differ dramatically from era to era. To the Puritans, children were miniature and deficient adults who had to be restrained from wasting time on sinful play. The American Revolution was, according to University of Houston historian Steven Mintz, a children's revolt, in which juvenile soldiers played a decisive part and national independence meant a conscious rejection of the mother country and its paternalistic monarchy.

The 19th century, claims Mintz, offered two versions: useful childhood, in which young people were, from an early age, expected to be productive members of their household; and protected childhood, in which they were regarded as innocent, malleable, and fragile. Protected childhood, a chronological sanctuary whose temporary occupants were free to devote themselves exclusively to education and play, became the middle-class norm.

By the early 20th century, it was universalized through child-labor laws and compulsory schooling. An elaborate infrastructure of playgrounds, nurseries, juvenile courts, orphanages, pediatricians, toy manufacturers, clothing designers, book publishers, and censors served to construct childhood as an isolated, sheltered oasis, insulated from death, profanity, and sex. During the past 50 years, that shelter has been breached in what Mintz calls "postmodern childhood."

Young people now are more likely to hold a paying job, undergo family breakup, and experience sexual relations. Yet, in contrast to the premodern model, they function as independent consumers and members of a semi-autonomous youth culture, one that often provokes fear and revulsion in their elders.

For the title of Huck's Raft, his richly detailed study of how childhood in the U.S. has changed over time, Mintz appropriates the most famous child in American literature, a spunky youth abused by his drunken Pap. He presents Huckleberry Finn's journey along the Mississippi River as a metaphor for childhood itself, combining freedom, discovery, and danger. Mintz notes that, in contrast to contemporary childhood, where interaction with adults usually is limited to parents, teachers, and other service providers, Huck finds crucial companionship in the fugitive slave Jim.

Mintz uses history to debunk several myths--that childhood once was carefree, families were stable, and American childhood is the story of either steady progress or decline. The welfare of children has served as convenient justification for a variety of political agendas, and Mintz sees contemporary disputes over sex education, gay adoption, corporal punishment, school vouchers, and censorship as displaced battles concerning adult issues. His historical research leads him to conclude that the interests of children are better served by preparing rather than sheltering them. "In a risk-filled world, naivete is vulnerability."

Huck's raft no longer is a vessel of freedom but just another power-sawed log clogging the river on its way to the mill. Mintz suggests that the U.S., in which the adult take on childhood often is tinged by envy and resentment, is a society of juvenophobes. "I never met a kid I liked," declared W.C. Fields. Huck's Raft might have encouraged Fields to widen his circle of acquaintances.

STEVEN G. KELLMAN

Literary Scene Editor

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