The material culture of early childhood in the 21st century is characterized by an emphasis on biological age and related levels of cognitive and motor skill development. All types of objects, including diapers, toys, food products, and clothing, are divided into categories based on the age-appropriateness of a particular object. Descriptions of these categories commonly explain how each object functions to enable a child to attain a particular skill or reach a developmental milestone. Appeals to medical and developmental science are common. Clothing is often marketed for its ability to facilitate different types of developmental movements such as crawling, walking, or rolling over. Children's clothing is also noteworthy for its emphasis on marking very young individuals with their gender. Properly color coding children into pink for girls and blue for boys is of paramount concern in the clothing industry. Similarly, patterns reflect particular gender ideals. It is very difficult, for example, to find a girl's outfit that has a plaid pattern or a car on it, even in pink, or a boys outfit that has a floral pattern or an image of a doll. This type of gender coding at a very young age is culturally important when children are introduced socially into the world- it is a major social gaffe to misidentify a child's gender but if it occurs it is usually because the child is dressed in a gender-neutral color such as yellow or green. Children's clothing points to the importance of gender in our culture, and also the ways that gender roles are taught to children from birth.

Theodore de Bry included this colorful engraving in his publication of Hariot's, A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia (1590). It was based on a watercolor by John White (fig. 2) painted five or six years earlier. Despite their differences, in both versions a mother is standing with her 8- to 10-year-old daughter who is wearing a string of beads and a leather string around her waist (tied to another holding moss between her legs). The girl is holding an English "puppet" or "poppet." In 16th century England, wax dolls (of adult women) like this one were mass-produced from molds. According to Hariot, a scientific advisor who sailed to Roanoke in 1585-6 and collaborated with John White while colonizing the mid-Atlantic region, the native people were "greatlye delighted” with the "puppets and babes" "broughte oute of England." The rattle, which did not appear in John White's water color, was a popular toy in early modern Europe.

Representations like these can be useful sources of information about Native-American children. However, those who produced them drew upon artistic traditions and Western cultural values in their often embellished and stylized representations of indigenous children. As a result, these visual sources must be used critically, cautiously, and comparatively. For instance, how does the girl in John White’s watercolor compare with one in the lavish engraving? Also compare the girl in the hand-painted illustration to the boy in the 1705 engraving published in The History and Present State of Virginia, In Four Parts (fig. 3).

What might account for the change in the sex of the child and the toys in their hands? Robert Beverley did write this book just a few years after his 16-year-old wife died while giving birth to their only son. In what ways might the boy also have served as a more suitable representation of emergent Enlightenment notions of childhood innocence and activity at the dawn of the 18th century?

This oil on canvas painting by an unknown American folk artist was painted around 1840. It depicts two siblings at play. While their mother is absent from the picture, she presided over the "private sphere" of the home as prescribed by the ideology of "separate spheres" that defined everyday life in 19th-century America. Charged with raising boys to be citizens (and girls to be wives and mothers of citizens), it was mothers' moral duty to oversee the development of their children's "good character." As a result, sons under the age of 6 inhabited the domestic sphere along with their sisters where they were dressed in the same loose-fitting pantaloons, dresses, and petticoats.

Although both girls and boys both donned silk, satin, and velvet dresses, there were differences in their apparel and activities. Young boys were distinguishable from girls by their hairstyle (boys were more likely to wear side parts) and hats. Boys also engaged in different play activities: it was considered indecent for girls to straddle a rocking horse. Rocking on the "hobby horse" enabled boys like this youngster to practice the balancing ability he would need in order to ride a real horse as he took his place in the "public sphere." Riding the rocking horse and brandishing a whip also provided boys with the opportunity to practice the skills and sensibilities of masculinity—independence, mastery, confidence, control, courage, and dominance. The boy's placement at the center of the painting and protectively above and in front of his older sister, also prescribed his position in the Victorian gender hierarchy where he would perform manliness through initiative, competition, forcefulness, and rationality.

Compare this work with images of children in other folk art paintings. How else are girls and boys represented?

These photographs are among a series of fifteen taken in 1945 by U.S. soldier Glenn S. Hensley. Hensley was a professional photographer participating in aerial surveillance of Burma for the U.S. Army. The images illustrate an encounter between Hensley and four fellow U.S. airmen with the residents of the village of Kharagpur, West Bengal. Some of the photographs have significant annotations that reveal how they and the people they encountered felt about their interactions. The airmen had access to darkroom facilities, so they were able to show the results of the encounter to Mukta and her father, whom they report as being very proud. The response of the other villagers is shown in their gathering at the scene. The collection of nearly 600 photographs and notes were prepared by Hensley for his wife to use in teaching world history courses in Missouri during World War II.

The finely detailed miniature painting in an album created for the Emperor Jahangir (reigned 1605–1627) of the Mughal Empire in India shows a ceremony initiated by Jahangir's father, Akbar the Great (reigned 1556-1605), Jahangir's father. Twice each year on the first day of the solar and lunar years, at an hour calculated by the court astrologers, the emperor himself or one of his sons would be weighed in a great balance against gold, silver, or other metals to be given away to the poor as charity. In addition to the precious metal, trays of textiles were laid out on a cloth to be given as gifts. The ceremony was witnessed by attendants of the court and other dignitaries, while religious officials held the ropes of the scale and recited blessings and prayers for the son.

The boy on the scale in this painting is Khurram, who became Shah Jahan (reigned 1628-57), builder of the Taj Mahal. The emperor may have chosen to weigh Khurram to commemorate a milestone in his life, important in a time of high infant mortality, or it might have indicated his status as heir apparent. The ceremony took place in a pavilion, or gardened canopied space. The wealth of the Mughals was displayed in the form of precious items from China and rich Persian carpets, couches, and clothing. This may have been a part of the ceremony or an artifice of the painter. The association of charitable giving with children and birth is a custom that goes back to the sunnah, or practice of Prophet Muhammad, when charity was given at the aqiqa, or feast in celebration of childbirth. The child's hair was cut and an equivalent in charity was given away. The practice of bestowing textiles, or robes of honor, was also one associated with Islam for centuries, in which it was customary for heads of households or officials to present those under their authority with suits of clothing at holidays.

Italian noblewomen presented soft, absorbent, linen towels with indigo woven borders to birthing mothers during the 14th century and later. The cultural context of the towels is illustrated in Italian paintings of the period depicting childbirth customs such as presentation and use of the towels. For example, this fresco by Paolo di Giovanni Fei, Birth of the Virgin Mary (1380) displays several uses for the towels. Women used these soft, fringed cloths as head coverings, tablecloths, and for wrapping household items. The towels were originally imported from Egypt, a center for linen and indigo dye production and weaving. Weavers finished the white body of the towels with fringe and woven border designs featuring Arabic inscriptions called tiraz. Tiraz bands alternated with geometric, plant, or animal designs. Like other luxury textiles from the East, imported Egyptian towels were copied by Italian weavers, eventually becoming a specialty of Perugia and other weaving centers. In place of the tiraz, pseudo-Arabic and then Latin lettering with Christian motifs appeared in the European border designs.

These two infant tunics, found south of Cairo by archaeologists, date to the period after the Arab conquest of Egypt. The first tunic, measuring 45 centimeters long and 47 cm wide (17.7 x 18.5 inches), was made of a single length of hand-woven brown wool folded in half at the shoulders and sewn on the sides, leaving openings for the arms and vents at the hand-stitched hem for mobility. A stripe of orange was woven across the shoulders and an applied band was sewn onto the neck opening. The tunic features rows of cream and red woolen pile loops for warmth. The tunic was buried with the loops facing out, but the pile was likely worn on the inside during life. The second tunic, 46 cm (18.1 inches) by 48 cm (18.9 inches), was also made from a single length of cloth folded in two. A neck finishing was cut from the same cloth and sewn onto the tunic with white linen thread, along with a band of red wool with geometric patterning. This tunic may have been recycled from an adult garment, or heavily repaired. Approximately 11 different shades of wool thread were darned into the base fabric in rectangular patterns, restoring a worn object or making a plain one colorful. Magnified detail available online for tunic 1 and tunic 2.