This extract from an annual report on Native Affairs reflects two realities of the 1870s: the on-going disruption of indigenous communities caused by settler and state demand for land acquisition; and the diversity of Maori experience, even within… [more]

Children's literature in this case study uses Louisa May Alcott's Little Women (1868-69) to explore changing notions about childhood, giving insight into the changing position of girls and women in American society, from the ordinary aspects of children's daily lives in the late 19th century to the ethical and moral assumptions that guided young people at this time in their thinking about class, gender, nationality, friendship, marriage, parenthood, and other issues. echo [more]

A state-funded, secular elementary education system was established in the colony of New Zealand in 1870, but the compulsory attendance provisions for 7 to 13-year-olds were not rigorously enforced, for Maori and Pakeha children alike, until the… [more]

This Dunedin politician's speech could be analyzed for its tone as well as its (edited) content. Notions of morality and responsibility can be identified, along with an attitude that children should be protected from adverse influences. The proposed… [more]

This particular news report is drawn from a collection gathered by a Waikato University undergraduate student, Pauline Hunt, when investigating the hazards of life for colonial children during the 1880s. Her unpublished study concentrated on two… [more]

E. J. Wakefield was 19 years of age when he sailed from England, in 1839, on the New Zealand Company vessel, Tory, as secretary to his uncle, Colonel William Wakefield. Wakefield was to oversee the foundation of a Company settlement in the Cook… [more]

After the Rosas regime ended in 1852, hundreds of families throughout Argentina hoped to make claims on property and wealth that had been taken away from them during the Rosas years. However, many heads of these families were elderly or deceased.… [more]

The story of Camila O'Gorman (1828-1848), the daughter of a prominent merchant in the Buenos Aires community, is one of the most famous cases of a young person challenging both parental and state authority. In 1847, at the height of Rosas's power,… [more]

In 1847, at the height of Rosas's power, 19-year-old Camila O'Gorman, the daughter of a prominent merchant in the Buenos Aires community, and Ladislao Gutiérrez, a young Catholic priest, fell in love. On December 12, 1847, they eloped and fled the… [more]