Why I Taught the Sources

I use images of two Roman marble sarcophagi for topics on children and childhood in undergraduate courses on ancient society, family, gender, representations, and historiography. The sarcophagi can be used to study one period of antiquity or to examine changing notions of childhood over time.

My aim in using the sarcophagi is to increase students' awareness of the rich variety of accessible material sources about Roman society—especially archaeological resources such as art, architecture, inscriptions, and topography—that can supplement traditional literary sources. A careful analysis of images from an unfamiliar society can help students already exposed to visual material in their daily lives become more discriminating in their interpretations.

Students' present-day interest in children and childhood—in daily life and in academic studies—is a good basis on which to build. But there is a danger of applying our own modern, Western attitudes and values to other societies. Studying artifacts and texts from a different society raises questions of cultural differences. One basic question is whether childhood in pre-modern societies was recognized as a separate stage of life and children were valued; this has been debated since Ariès' book of 1962. 1 Roman society of the first two or three centuries (CE) provides material to help students to enter this debate and make their own assessments.

How I Introduce the Sources

After providing a chronological background and introducing issues such as class and status, gender, urban context, and political structure earlier in the semester, I assign: Ariès, Centuries of Childhood, at least the Introduction; and Letter 4.2 of The Letters of Pliny the Younger. My aim is provide students with the evidence to challenge Ariès' claim about the "ignorance of childhood" in pre-modern ages that relied on a small range of literary sources.

In order to do so, I provide an introductory lecture on the history of childhood studies and on available sources (including the nature of the material as well as the hazards of surviving literary, legal, archaeological sources). 2 I also provide images of materials such as epitaphs, sculptures, and wall paintings related to children and Rome to stimulate thinking about the range of representations available. Students then divide into smaller groups of 10 to 15 to examine primary sources.

Reading the Sources

In these smaller groups, we analyze Pliny's apparently unsympathetic comments on the death of Regulus' son in the context of upper-class Roman male expectations of fatherhood, emotions, and Pliny's deep hostility to Regulus. Pliny's letter also shows the independent wealth of a mother and the possibility of a young male coming into independent wealth, either by the death of his father or by the legal technicality of being freed ("sold") from the power (patria potestas) of his father. 3

The comparatively large quantity of funerary commemoration of prematurely-dead children helps put Regulus' grief into perspective. Regulus' son had survived early childhood, so his death, in his early teens, was the more tragic.

I also project images of various funerary items, including the two sarcophagi, on a screen. These raise the question of parental grief and grieving in a society of high mortality, challenging the claim sometimes made of indifference to children's deaths in societies with high rates of infant mortality. Each of the sarcophagi depicts a sequence of life-stages, and each can be dated to the first half of the 2nd century CE. 4

By contrast with simple epitaphs, these are quite expensive artifacts. On the first sarcophagus, the boy's name, M. Cornelius Statius (in the dedicatory form 'M. CORNELIO M. F. PAL. STATIO'), indicates that he is a freeborn Roman citizen.

The epitaph has been dedicated by the boy's parents ('PARENTES'). The family's dress and attributes, and the quality of the artifact, suggest a well-to-do family. The scenes depict the newborn infant, the child at play, and the child with teacher. The mother appears to be breast-feeding which raises the question about whether this was normal (in a society of wet-nurses) or whether the scene was idealized.

The father's role in the nursing scene and in holding the infant often surprises the students. In well-to-do citizen families, with a household of slave retainers, the stereotype is of more distant relationships and limited contact between parents and children in the early rearing years. (Compare, for example, stereotypes of 19th century upper-class English families.)

The scroll in the boy's hand as he recites his lesson to a teacher raises questions about many aspects of education, such as the availability of "books," importance of oral performance and memory, and existence of schools and private tutors. It also sparks discussion of children's modes of play, their engagement with animals (helping put young Regulus' pets in context), and children's place in the family.

The second sarcophagus also depicts an infant (in the arms of one of the parents in the carriage ride on the right-hand side of the stone) and play (as a toddler with a wheeled pusher or scooter, and a little older with a pet goose).

But the last scene is of death, foreshadowed by the torches, often symbols of funerals, at each end of the sarcophagus. The parents again ride in a carriage, with the slightly older child between them, and they are led by a winged Cupid foreshadowing the child's soul ascending to heaven.

Roman marble sarcophagus created to commemorate the death of a child.

Roman sarcophagus depicting a series of points in the life cycle of a child.

. . .[In] X v the United Kingdom (No. 7212/75 referred to above) the Commission found that an objective and reasonable justification existed for the different ages of consent, there being a realistic basis for the Government's opinion that, given the controversial and sensitive nature of the question involved, young men in the 18-21 bracket who were involved in homosexual relationships would be subject to substantial social pressures which could be harmful to their psychological development. . . .

The Commission, however, observes that its Report in X. v. the United Kingdom is now nearly 20 years old. While it is true that the views expressed in that Report have been subsequently repeated, it is also true that major changes have in the meantime occurred in professional opinions - particularly those of the medical profession - on the subject of the need for the protection of young male homosexuals and on the desirability of introducing an equal age of consent. . . . In particular, . . . the Council of the British Medical Association (BMA), which in 1981 gave evidence to the Policy Advisory Committee that boys and girls of the same age did not possess the same degree of emotional and psychological maturity, observed in 1994 that most researchers now believed that sexual orientation was usually established before the age of puberty in both boys and girls and referred to evidence that reducing the age of consent would be unlikely to affect the majority of men engaging in homosexual activity, either in general or within specific age groups. The BMA Council concluded in its Report that the age of consent for homosexual men should be set at 16 since the then existing law might inhibit efforts to improve the sexual health of young homosexual and bisexual men. . . .

Two such principal arguments emerge from the speeches in Parliament and are adopted and repeated in the Government's submissions. In the first place it is argued that certain young men between the ages of 16 and 18 do not have a settled sexual orientation and that the aim of the law is to protect such vulnerable young men from activities which will result in considerable social pressures and isolation which their lack of maturity might cause them later to repent: it is claimed that the possibility of criminal sanctions against persons aged 16 or 17 is likely to have a deterrent effect and give the individual time to make up his mind. Secondly, it is argued that society is entitled to indicate its disapproval of homosexual conduct and its preference that children follow a heterosexual way of life.

The Commission does not consider that either argument offers a reasonable and objective justification for maintaining a different age of consent for homosexual and heterosexual acts or that maintaining such a differential age is proportionate to any legitimate aim served thereby. As to the former argument, as was conceded in the Parliamentary debates, current medical opinion is to the effect that sexual orientation is fixed in both sexes by the age of 16 and that men aged 16-21 are not in need of special protection because of the risk of their being "recruited" into homosexuality. . . .

As to the second ground relied on - society's claimed entitlement to indicate disapproval of homosexual conduct and its preference for a heterosexual lifestyle - the Commission cannot accept that this could in any event constitute an objective or reasonable justification for inequality of treatment under the criminal law. . . .

Consequently, the Commission finds that no objective and reasonable justification exists for the maintenance of a higher minimum age of consent to male homosexual, than to heterosexual, acts. . . .

. . . It is, however, a fact that there is in full operation among us a system of which the violation of virgins is one of the ordinary incidents; that these virgins are mostly of tender age, being too young in fact to understand the nature of the crime of which they are the unwilling victims; that these outrages are constantly perpetrated with almost absolute impunity; and that the arrangements for procuring, certifying, violating, repairing, and disposing of these ruined victims of the lust of London are made with a simplicity and efficiency incredible to all who have not made actual demonstration of the facility with which the crime can be accomplished.

. . . Before beginning this inquiry I had a confidential interview with one of the most experienced officers who for many years was in a position to possess an intimate acquaintance with all phases of London crime. I asked him, "Is it or is it not a fact that, at this moment, if I were to go to the proper houses, well introduced, the keeper would, in return for money down, supply me in due time with a maid—a genuine article, I mean, not a mere prostitute tricked out as a virgin, but a girl who had never been seduced?" "Certainly," he replied without a moment's hesitation. . . ."Are these maids willing or unwilling parties to the transaction—that is, are they really maiden, not merely in being each a virgo intacta in the physical sense, but as being chaste girls who are not consenting parties to their seduction?" He looked surprised at my question, and then replied emphatically: "Of course they are rarely willing, and as a rule they do not know what they are coming for." "But," I said in amazement, "then do you mean to tell me that in very truth actual rapes, in the legal sense of the word, are constantly being perpetrated in London on unwilling virgins, purveyed and procured to rich men at so much a head by keepers of brothels?" "Certainly," said he, "there is not a doubt of it." "Why," I exclaimed, "the very thought is enough to raise hell.". . .

The third they were charged with, was Stephen Arrowsmith for the Rape committed on Elizabeth Hopkins. . . .

The Girl that was ravished, being between 8 and 9, testified that he had had to do with her for half a year together every Sunday, that she was hindred from crying the first time, by his stopping her mouth, and that he gave her money afterwards; and she never discovered it, still some of her friends observing her to go as if she were very sore, examined her, and by telling her she would be in danger of hanging in Hell, got her to confess, that the Prisoner was her fathers Prentice. . . .

The Prisoner with a great many tears denied the Fact, and desired some Witnesses might be called. Among whom there was a maid that lived at the Doctors where the Girl was for Cure, who testified that the Girl upon Taxing her, why she did conceal it, said, she took Pleasure in it, and that upon Examination there were no Symptomes on the Prisoner, as the Doctor said, of any such disease as the Girl had, which was indeed the Pox; which was also attested by one Mrs. Rawlins: and the Prisoner protesting his Innocence, alledged that they offered a Composition. 1

All which notwithstanding, the Court with great detestation and abhorrence of so Horrid and Vile an Offence, told him the Matter was so plain against him, that he must have as great impudence to deny it, as he had wickedness to Commit it; that her consent would not save him, for the Statute provides, that a Child under 10 years of age, should not be abused with, or without her Consent. That the First Violence whereby he stop'd her Crying, made the Rape, had it been a Woman above 10; that if the Parents were so wicked, as to offer a Composition, yet that made not him innocent. . . .

[The jury returned a verdict of not guilty] which Verdict Mr. Recorder, not conceiving it to be according to their Evidence, would not take from them without further deliberation, and labour'd to satisfie them of the Manifestness of the Proof. One of the Jury being an Apothecary, said it was his opinion, that a Child of those years could not be Ravished. Which the Court told him was to Elude the Statute, that having provided a Punishment, had done it in vain, if there were no offence, and so he did tax the Wisdom of a whole Parliament; Which ought not to be Others of the Jury, because the Girls were not sworn, doubted of the sufficiency of their Testimony, and they had nothing but hearsay from the other Witnesses. But the Court told them, in regard such Offenders never call others to be by while they commit such actions, they could expect no other Testimony than from the Party injured, which they had, and with it of an eye Witness, both whom they forbore to Swear, because of the tenderness of their Age; but if they insisted upon it, they should be Sworn.

[The jury deliberated again and found Arrowsmith guilty]

The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas: A Visual Record amasses over 1,200 images documenting the history of the Atlantic slave trade and the lives of slaves and former slaves in the Americas. The images document the history of enslavement in West and West Central Africa, the English and French Caribbean, Brazil, and the United States. Most of the images are watercolors, sketches, and prints from 18th and 19th century European and American texts, although a few pieces predate this era, or are digitalized versions of previously unpublished archival material. Finally, the site also contains a few newspaper advertisements for runaway slaves, such as this 1763 "Fugitive Slave Advertisement" publicizing the escape of four slaves, including one 15-year-old boy.

Viewers can search for images of children within this site by browsing the 18 broad subject categories by which the database is organized. Two categories that include many images of children are Pre-Colonial Africa: Society, Polity, Culture and Family Life, Child Care, Schools. Larger numbers of images involving children can be located by doing a keyword search from the general database for children (97 images), girl (26 images) and boy (33 images).

While the types of sources contained in this site pose some challenges to effective classroom use, instructors who think carefully about how to have students use these images will be rewarded with rich results. Both full bibliographic references and a clear indication of the geographic and temporal setting depicted are provided for each image. Also included are any relevant textual passages that might have accompanied an image in its original publication. However, as the site makes clear, its authors have made little effort to interpret the images or establish the historical authenticity or accuracy of what they depict, so much is required in this area by viewers.

There are several ways to approach this material. Instructors might point out to students that the images do not necessarily document slavery's history in a straight-forward and unmediated fashion, and in this case, they might design exercises for students that called for them to consider how the context and objective of an image's creator shaped the content of the image generated. This approach could be done by either restricting students to the use of material contained at the site, or by requiring them to do further research on the images’ creators.

Another option would be to explore the ways in which children are ubiquitous in images on this site, for example, as infants, strapped to the backs of women – presumably their mothers. Yet this depiction seems at odds with what we know to have been the extremely high rates of infant and childhood mortality that children experienced across the Americas under slavery. Young children in these images are also most often shown playing near, or sitting on the laps of their mothers, yet again, we know that it was common for slave children to be sold to others separately from their mothers. Instructors might therefore ask their students: Have these artists exaggerated the predominance of children's proximity to their mothers in these images? If so, why?

Instructors might start by encouraging students to formulate interpretations involving childhood and children in slavery from the images, and then moving to secondary source material to learn more. Or an assignment could begin with historical context and then look for patterns mentioned in the literature or for images that counter a historical narrative. A few secondary sources that would work well with this collection of images include: Digital History's entry on African American Voices and Annie L. Burton's 19th century slave chronicle, Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days.

One fascinating theme to explore would be inter-racial relations that childcare arrangements between slave and slave-owning families entailed. See, for example, Enslaved House Servants and White Children, South Carolina, 1863 and Black Nursemaid, New Orleans, 1873-74. Instructors might have students study these and other such images to consider how the relations they depict suggest ties of emotional intimacy and social proximity that contradict the more brutal relations between slaves and slave owners portrayed in so many other images at the site.

Instructors could also use images in this collection to examine the issue of gender, encouraging students to consider, for example, how the slave experience differently affected boys and girls. Students could analyze such images as George Cruikshank's pro-abolitionist drawing, "Punishment Aboard a Slave Ship, 1792" which depicts a 15-year-old girl who was tortured to death for her "virgin modesty" (she had refused to dance naked on the deck of a British slaving ship) or the similar scene illustrated in "Whipping a Slave in Surinam, 1770s". Such illustrations allow students to examine how slave owners and captors projected notions of heightened sexuality, or presumptions of sexual availability on female slaves, and contrast these with the experience of males.

Why I Taught the Source

Undergraduates enrolled in the 100-level course I teach on the Holocaust find the topic both compelling and overwhelming especially given the array of topics that cover the background to and mechanisms of destruction. In order to enable students to go beyond the countless facts and deeply disturbing details, I utilize survivors' narratives that provide a fuller understanding of the complexity of war and genocide. In my experience I have found that children's testimonies—diaries, memoirs, and documentaries—provide an unusual angle of vision into childhood, the family, everyday life, and survival. Using the oral histories of children provides a child-centered view of the Holocaust in which young people were not only victims and witnesses, but also historical agents.

Originally published in Polish by the Jewish Historical Commission in Cracow in 1946 and republished in English in 1996 by the British publisher Vallentine Mitchell, The Children Accuse is required reading about the early postwar testimonies of Jewish children in Poland. 1 The book consists of 55 children's testimonies and 15 adult testimonies. The latter testimonies focus on children's experiences in various ghettos in Nazi-occupied Poland, whereas the children's testimonies are divided into six thematic sections: the ghettos, the camps, on the Aryan side, in hiding, the resistance and prison. The children's testimonies can be characterized as 'unliterary,' simple descriptive reports, close in time to the events they describe. They convey diversity of individual experiences, but, at the same time, they revolve around common themes and shared wartime experiences. They all are based on oral interviews with child survivors that were conducted according to the official guidelines on how to research Jewish children's wartime experiences that were issued in 1945 by the Historical Commission of the Central Committee of Polish Jews. These interviews were carried out in Jewish children's orphanages, dormitories, and places of daily care that were established in various Polish cities and towns immediately after the end of war.

How I Introduce the Source

I introduce students to the testimonies by discussing the historical background and by posing a question about what we can learn from the close reading of children's testimonies. My main objectives are to teach students that children's testimonies are a rich documentary source useful for the reconstruction of the history of Jewish children and Jewish family in Poland during the Second World War, and for the reconstruction of the multi-dimensional histories of Polish-Jewish and also Ukrainian-Jewish relations of the period. My specific aims are to demonstrate the ways in which testimonies: (1) shed light on the patterns of Jewish family life (e.g., the reversal of the roles between children and their parents) and in the ghettos; (2) map out social relations between the children and other individuals in the ghettos and camps (e.g., between children and individuals on the Aryan side in wartime and early post-war Poland as well as with their Christian Polish rescuers); (3) inform us about children's particular methods of survival and their role in the process of their own survival; and (4) reveal the emotional, intellectual, and physical state of young people emerging from the conditions of war, genocide, and a deep-seated fear of being exposed as Jewish.

Students also learn about the differences between children's testimonies and other primary sources—the official documents—which they also read and discuss in the classroom prior to our discussion on Jewish children's wartime experiences. This is achieved through a two-page take-home assignment in which they answer the following key questions: How and in what ways do the testimonies differ from official documents? Describe the similarities and differences. What are, in your opinion, the shortcomings of the children's testimonies and what are their strengths as a historical evidence?

The subject is discussed in two 75-minute course periods during a week. In preparation, I show students a 15-minute clip from the film Undzere Children (Our Children). Afterwards, I ask them questions about the images of Jewish childhood during the war presented in the film and about representations of Jewish children during the Holocaust in Nazi anti-Jewish propaganda material discussed the previous week in the context of the Warsaw ghetto. This is conducted in the form of a "15-minute buzz discussion," aimed at the overview and categorization of acquired historical knowledge.

Reading the Source

Next, I provide a 10-minute general historical background (e.g., information and explanations about the various localities) and short definitions of unusual terms and vocabulary encountered in the testimonies. Students then form working groups—numbering between 5 and 6 individuals—that are assigned one or two children's testimonies from The Children Accuse. The final part of the first session is dedicated to going over the first homework assignment. Students read the testimony and answer the following questions: Does the child—she/he—remember his/her prewar childhood? What kind of social background does she/he have? Does the child remember his parents? What does she/he remember? What kind of wartime experience did the child undergo? What are the main recollected individuals, events and developments? What image of the life in a ghetto emerges from the testimony? How did the child survive? Was he/she assisted/helped by a rescuer and, if so, by whom? Who are the rescuers and how did they behave towards the child? What do we learn about the life of the child after the end of the war? How does she/he view their present situation? What feelings and reflections does she/he express? Are these feelings and reflections typical of a childhood age? What information appears to be absent from the child's testimony?

These questions are written on the weekly outline posted on blackboard and circulated in class at the beginning of the first session. I ask the students to provide written answers in the form of notes. At the beginning of the second class session, students in each group are asked to compare their written notes, discuss their individual answers, and prepare the comprehensive group answer to the abovementioned questions. I ask each of the groups to select the most striking passages from testimonies to exemplify their answers. This takes place during the first 15-20 minutes and is followed by each groups' 10-minute oral presentation about its child's/children's testimony. This is followed by a general class-wide discussion that builds on issues raised in each of the presented cases. This discussion aims at a differentiation of the children's wartime experiences and at making analogies between "ordinary" childhood and childhood under the conditions of war and genocide. These discussions are usually animated.

The second homework assignment—the above mentioned two-page essay—asks the students to discuss and reflect on the value of a child's testimony in Holocaust history. This assignment offers students the chance to wrestle with salient questions about a variety of primary sources in an historical investigation.

The two sessions are essential preparation for working on their final group assignment, a poster about Jewish children's life during the war. (The poster represents 15% of the final grade.) Through the final assignment, the students expand their knowledge about and understanding of the subject by building on their previous work and by further investigating the subject outside the classroom. Students usually are quite enthusiastic about the poster project. It allows them to demonstrate not only historical knowledge but also their creativity with written and visual images, as well as artistic and aesthetic talents.

Reflections

Having used children's testimonies in a range of courses, I have learned to adapt them according to the course level and subject matter. In all classes, I have founded that students' responses to this material is very positive.

The testimonies, together with diaries, memoirs and documentary films such as Undzere Children (Our Children, Poland, 1948, Yiddish with English translation) allow students insight into the everyday life of the historical actors: the Jewish child survivors, family members, their Christian rescuers and other individuals whom children encountered in a ghetto and on the Aryan side. These primary sources allow students to follow in the footsteps of young Jewish children and see them as human beings who went through various wartime experiences and who harbor particular child-focused memories of the war. Students confront, in these testimonies, the uncontrived story of personal experience. From the testimonies, students gain not only an understanding of the variety of wartime experiences and survival, but also an understanding of the particular pain and perplexity of the children, who lost their families, were forced to assume Christian identities, and to fend for themselves though children.

Age Limit in Age of Consent Laws in Selected Countries

Why I Taught the Source

National and state level world history curricula include study of 20th-century political and economic regimes, namely communism and capitalism. As students learn about these political ideologies and economic systems, they often embrace black and white thinking. They are easily persuaded that communist societies were (are) totalitarian and unjust while capitalist societies were (are) democratic and just. This thinking may be supported by learning about the activities of state security agencies, secret police, and other arms of the state that sustained communist regimes through intimidation and terror.

Under these circumstances, though, how can students explain the trauma and confusion many people of central and eastern Europe experienced after the collapse of communism in 1989? How can they make sense of the continuing appeal of communist parties and ideals in many central and eastern European societies? By examining a source that focuses on youth organizations in East Germany, students can develop a more nuanced view of communist society. It helps students see that communist organizations offered positive experiences that supported values they share. This helps students develop empathy for individuals who lived under communism, and paves the way for understanding the enthusiasm with which some individuals lived in communism, and the ambivalence many experienced at its end.

How I Introduce the Source

To introduce this topic, I ask students to identify the youth groups that exist in our democratic society (Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, 4-H, community-based organizations, etc.). We talk about why young people participate in the organizations (have fun, be with friends). We talk about the symbols and rituals of the organizations (uniforms, pledges, moving up ceremonies, bronze/silver/gold awards in Girl Scouts, Eagle Scout award in Boy Scouts) and their social meanings. We also talk about the kinds of activities young people participate in through the groups.

I explain that communist societies had similar organizations in addition to the official organizations of the communist party with which students are already somewhat familiar. I explain that in the German Democratic Republic, elementary and middle school students (using American terminology) belonged to a group called the Ernst Thälmann Pioneers, while students in high school and older (again, using American terminology) belonged to a group called the Young Pioneers. Children generally joined the organizations through school. They received uniforms, met regularly, and participated in activities including recreation, community service, day trips, camping and other excursions.

Reading the Source

The source is set up almost like a catechism, in a "call and response" format. I have one or more students take turns reading the statements in bold type, while the other students in the class respond out loud with the statements in regular type. After reading the source out loud, the students work in groups to summarize its main ideas and to discuss questions such as: What are the values conveyed by the source (pride, respect, discipline, cleanliness)? Who or what should Thälmann Pioneers love, respect, or honor (their parents, the Soviet Union, their bodies, health)? What is the main symbol of the Thälmann Pioneers, and what does it stand for (the red scarf, the working class). What other themes or main ideas can the students find here (opposing imperialists, loving peace, study and learning, etc). I have students chart or list their observations, then comment on them. What, if anything, do they agree with? What, if anything, do they disagree with?

Reflections

To reflect, I ask students to return to the conversation we had prior to our study of the source, and think again about youth groups in the United States. I ask, rhetorically, who wouldn't want to be a part of an organization that all your friends were a part of, that conveyed such positive values, and offered fun activities and service? Students overwhelmingly embrace the idea of the Thälman Pioneers. Then we discuss some of the differences between American youth groups and comparable organizations in communist societies.

The first divergence is the intense social and political pressure to join, as well as disadvantages experienced by those who did not participate (being left out, ostracism, pressures felt by parents at work, limits placed on educational and professional opportunities later in life). Second, youth groups in communist societies had a strong political dimension (refer to the students' analysis for examples). Third, for these reasons, communist youth groups served to coordinate and indoctrinate youth in values and ideals that supported the state regime.

Students begin to see that the picture is no longer black and white—even among East German youth. The youth groups offered fun, social experiences for young people—yet participation was almost compulsory. In addition, it was very hard for many people to experience the problems of daily life in communist society and at the same time embrace the positive beliefs included in propaganda such as this. Many young people participated in communist youth groups with a high degree of cynicism, which, in the long run, served to undermine the state.

I find students are very responsive to the source and the conversations we have about it. They appreciate the insight into the daily life of young people in a communist society. Many become curious about this and other youth organizations. They may make comparisons to youth groups under National Socialism, if they learned about them previously. This is a rich, interesting activity for high school students that sharpens critical thinking by drawing upon an already familiar aspect of youth culture.