Full text versions of some publications are available on the University of Minnesota Morris Digital Well, alongside other work by colleagues and students.
Recent Publications
“Encountering Emotions in the Archive of Childhood and Youth,” in Children and Youth as Subjects, Objects, Agents: Innovative Approaches to Research across Space and Time, ed. Deborah Levinson, Mary Jo Maynes, and Frances Vavrus (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021).
“Playing on the Map: An Educational Game from the Age of Revolutions,” Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 13, no. 1 (Winter 2020): 9–17. [written with then UMN Morris undergraduate Elise Klarenbeek]
“The Education of European and Chinese Girls at Home in the Nineteenth Century,” in A History of the Girl, ed. Mary O’Dowd and June Purvis (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). [with Qin Fang]
“‘Our Girls Have Grown Up in the Family’: Educating European and Chinese Girls in the Nineteenth Century,” Journal of Modern Chinese History 10, no. 1 (2016): 1–18. [with Qin Fang]
“Reading German Girlhood: Louise Tilly and the Agency of Girls in European History,” Social Science History 38, no. 1 (2014).
“‘Each word shows how you love me’: The social literacy practice of children’s letter writing (1780-1860),” Paedagogica Historica 50, no. 3 (2013).
My research is motivated by the conviction that childhood is neither a static nor uniform category, but rather has a history itself bound up in all aspects of social life. I am intrigued by what we can learn about European social and cultural history through uncovering the everyday experiences and perspectives of children.
My current book project, Revolutions at Home: The Origin of Modern Childhood and the German Middle Class, demonstrates how active reading and writing became a defining feature of childhood during the age of revolutions. Beginning in educated middle-class families at the end of the Enlightenment and disseminating across European society by the end of the nineteenth century, a series of radical transformations occurred in the ideologies and practices of childhood: as a life stage, it was increasingly positioned as critical to self-formation; adults began to worry about entertaining children in active ways; sentimental attitudes influenced children’s learning; and at the same time, pedagogues and parents emphasized the cultivation of self-discipline. Pedagogical innovations, the development of new book genres and markets, and an increased emphasis on bourgeois domesticity joined to make German-speaking Central Europe a vital site for reimagining childhood.
The development of modern childhood has traditionally been understood as a process enacted on youth by adults, but in practice children’s socialization was mediated by young people’s own choices. To better understand the roles children played in transformations of modern life, there is now a need for studies which combine the history of changing sentiments with the history of children’s lived experience. In addition to the ideas and practices of pedagogues and family educators, we also must consider the part children played. Rather than dismissing the disciplinary aspects of pedagogy or overlooking the power of children to influence adults, my approach emphasizes the mutual constitution of agency and discipline in determining how children influenced European modernity.
Revolutions at Home furthermore shows how children participated in inventing the modern self. I argue that the emergence of the active child reader and writer was not simply a consequence of expanding literacy, but, in fact, a key constituent of modern life. The dissertation is organized as a series of case studies in literacy practices—youth periodicals, fairy tales, geographic schoolbooks, children’s letters, and youth diaries—which each demonstrate the complex and socially embedded ways in which children form opinions, exercise power, and make history.
My research has been generously supported by:

- The University of Minnesota: Imagine Fund, 2018 and Faculty Research Enhancement Funds, 2015–present
- The National Academy of Education / The Spencer Foundation: Dissertation Fellowship, 2012-2013
- Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (German Academic Exchange Service): Research Grant, 2011-2012
- The Conference Group for Central European History
- The University of Minnesota Graduate School (2007-2008, 2010-2011), College of Liberal Arts, History Department, and Center for German & European Studies (Hella Mears Graduate Fellowship in European Studies, 2012)
- The Friends of the Princeton University Library: Research Grant, 2011
A number of excellent resources related to the history of childhood, personal narratives, and the history of the book may be found on the web. Here are some links to sites which may be of interest:
- Children & Youth in History, from the Roy Rozenzweig Center for History and New Media
- Center for the Study of Egodocuments and History, the Dutch inventory of memoirs, diaries, and other autobiographical writings
- The German Archives for Diaries (Deutsches Tagebucharchiv) in Emmendingen
- SHARP: Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing
- Interacting with Print research group
- SurLaLune Fairy Tales
My book is based partly on documents from state and city archives across Germany. It also draws on the holdings of libraries with extensive collections of books published for children and youth. Here are links to some of those institutions:
Historical Collections of Children’s Books
- Kinder- und Jugendbuchabteilung, Staatsbibliothek Berlin (Children’s and Young People’s Literature Department, State Library Berlin)
- Cotsen Children’s Library: Princeton, NJ
- Bibliothèque l’Heure joyeuse (Library of the Joyful Hour): Paris, France
- Georg-Eckert Institut für Internationale Schulbuchforschung (Georg-Eckert Institute for International Schoolbook Research): Braunschweig, Germany
- Bibliothek für Bildungsgeschichtliche Forschung (Research Library for the History of Education): Berlin, Germany
- Institut für Jugendbuchforschung (Institute for Youth Literature Research): Frankfurt, Germany
- ALEKI – Arbeitsstelle für Kinder- und Jugendmedienforschung (Center for Children’s and Young Adult Media Research): Cologne, Germany