The billboard shown in the two photographs carries a slogan used widely by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to promote public interest in the plight of abandoned, orphaned and runaway children living on the streets in cities of Africa, Asia, the Americas and elsewhere. The photograph of Ugandan children standing in front of the billboard wall shows two additional messages, "Street children are children. . . [too?]" and a message in the local language. In addition to raising consciousness in the public about their situation, these organizations provide food, shelter and social services such as medical care, drug abuse counseling, HIV/AIDS prevention education, self-help and vocational training, and educational programs, as well as psychological support. Some of are faith-based organizations representing various religions that run ministries to proselytize among the children or offer religious services together with donated services. As British photographer and geography teacher Bob Jones said about East Africa, "Poverty is a major trigger for the creation of street children. Boys are often forced out of homes in rural areas because a lack of employment opportunities as well as the break up of the family unit through the scourge of HIV/AIDS." Other organizations using the slogan operate in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Russia, Tanzania, and South Africa, to name only a few countries.

This watercolor (fig. 1) of a mother carrying her baby was painted c. 1585 by John White who explored the mid-Atlantic region with other Englishmen including Thomas Hariot. Hariot's A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia published in 1590 included an illustration based on White’s watercolor by engraver, Theodore de Bry. (fig. 2)

While John White had painted this Poemiooc mother impossibly carrying her toddler on her back and on her side, De Bry's 1590 engraving included a front and rear view of the same mother. In Beverley's early 18th century version above (fig. 3), there are two different women demonstrating three methods of carrying infants including the cradleboard hanging from a tree between them.

What evidence is there that 16th-century colonizers and 17th-century colonists drew upon artistic traditions and Western cultural values in their depictions of indigenous babies? These visual sources should be used critically, cautiously, comparatively, and corroboratively. What information about Indian children—and those who observed them—can be further gleaned from the 1705 publication that included this description below?

In 17th-century New England, Puritan beliefs about "infant depravity" (born with "original sin") generated anxieties about "eternal damnation" that shaped methods of childrearing and notions of death. Puritan beliefs can be "read" on the gravestones often made out of dark grey slate. The standard three-lobed shape of early Puritan gravestones reflected the belief that to enter eternity the soul passed through arches and portals. The primary motifs included skulls (winged "death's heads"), skeletons, hourglasses, bones, scythes, and coffins. Upper-case lettering lent authority to bold inscriptions. Ligatures (e.g., combining letters into words) saved space. Stone carvers used abbreviations and raised letters especially at the far right margin to make words fit on to a line.

By the early 18th century Enlightenment ideas about children's innocence, natural impulses, and malleability impacted perceptions of children and methods of child rearing. In addition to the changing material culture of children's lives, were varying modes of representing death.

Steadily (albeit unevenly) over the course of the 18th century, there were significant changes in the shape, height, design, inscription, and composition (e.g., sandstone) of tombstones. The hand-carved death's skulls were increasingly replaced by winged faces representing resurrection and ever-lasting life. Smiling angels, sentimentalized urns, winged cherubs, and natural objects (birds, fruit, willows) were carved on the gravestones of children whose lives were cut short. Inscriptions gradually changed from the stark Puritan style, "HERE LYETH YE BODY OF" to "In Memory of." In that semantic shift, "lyeth" became "lyes" and finally, "lies." Ligatures gave way to unabbreviated words, verse, and Biblical quotations inscribed in upper and lower case with a liberal use of the elongated "S."

Compare this gravestone to those from the 17th century as well as later ones using the on-line Farber Gravestone Collection. In what ways does Sarah Sanford's 1722 slate (21 inch) gravestone from Newport, Rhode Island, reflect the transition between Puritan notions and Enlightenment ideals of childhood? How does the line ("mouthmark") above the skull's teeth change the expression of the death's head? In what ways does the placement of the skull's teeth make them look more like a neck decoration?

"Italian Mother and Baby" appeared in Jacob Riis's How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York (1890). This image captures the misery of urban poverty as well as the tenacity of life. It is infused with unmistakable sentimentalism and symbolism. This forlorn mother with her swaddled baby is evocative of Mary and of many paintings of "Madonna and Child." The hat hanging on the wall above her head is also suggestive of the halo that long represented the sacred in ancient art and religious iconography.

Many of Riis's photographs provide insight into the struggles of everyday life for immigrant children. What does this photo reveal about infancy among Italian immigrants? In what ways does the material culture of infancy mingle Old World practices and modern ones? While useful for recording the past, documentary photographs need to be seen through a critical lens. For example, historians have observed that children in Riis's photographs are portrayed as innocents, victims, or criminals. How is the baby in this picture represented?

How did Riis stimulate sympathetic feelings and summon sacred associations in this photo's gritty realism? In order to create this rendition of the Virgin Mary and Child Riis developed the "flash" technique that illuminated the basement of this New York City tenement. The halo-like hat was Riis's own and did not belong to the father who barely supported this family as a rag picker. Why might Riis have staged the scene? As a social reformer, Riis used religious imagery in order to capture the attention of the middle-class and inspire them to act on their beliefs to help the poor.

This photograph, dated 1880, shows Chinese children in a procession in the Tjap Go Meh Festival in Makassar, the largest city on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. Tjap Go Meh is a Chinese festival that takes place 15 days after the Chinese New Year and marks the beginning of spring. It is also known as the Lantern Festival. People celebrate with parades and performances, such as acrobats.

In this image, a child dressed in festive costume sits under an umbrella while riding a fantasy animal with long ears mounted on a cart. Other children wearing costumes with conical hats and false beards pull the cart with ropes. The decorations appear to be made of paper maché, straw, and fabric. Tjap Go Meh was widely celebrated among the many Chinese immigrants in Indonesia, and the festival became popular with the local Buddhist and Muslim population as well. The festival was banned for many years, but has made a comeback in cities such as Jakarta as an expression of ethnic and religious diversity. The photograph is the product of a professional studio in Batavia (Jakarta) founded by Britons Walter Bentley Woodbury (1834-1885) and James Page, expatriates from Australia who emigrated to the Dutch East Indies in 1857. The Woodbury & Page studio made portraits of wealthy Europeans and local elites, but also traveled in the countryside to create ethnographic images and photograph the variety of life in the Dutch East Indies.

The photograph shows boys in Diepsloot Township, Johannesburg, South Africa, and one of the rolling toy creations with which the photo shows them playing. These elaborately designed constructions are made from discarded aluminum or steel, soft drink cans, plastic processed food tubs, and water bottles. The material that holds them together is ordinary wire such as coat-hangers. The fanciful constructions do not merely piece together ready-made components. They are often cut with scissors so as to transform found materials into more fanciful, decorative and dynamic parts. Paint or some type of pigment seems to have been added to the bottle that forms the body of the vehicle, which is embellished with fringe-cut cans in the manner of a chimney or headlamp, and the margarine-tub trailer has a similar fringed can on the rear. The makers have given attention to color, form, movement and functionality in these toys. The children themselves collaborate or even compete in the construction of these toys. The photograph is from C is for Candy, the design blog by Candy Chang, photographer, designer, artist, and urban planner in Helsinki, Finland, who travels widely to collect innovative ideas about design and urban spaces, and is a 2009 TED Global Fellow.

These two terracotta heads of smiling children stem from excavations at Bulandi Bagh in Patna, India. The molded figures, about 10 cm. (4 in.) high, are rare and significant, both because of their naturalistic facial expressions and technical artistry. Among the figurines and other sculptures from the site are several smiling boy and girl statues with elaborate headdresses, identified by art historians as such because they clearly show the physiognomy of children. Other statues include dancing figurines with elaborate headdresses, animal figurines, and other artistically excellent pieces. The heads were produced from molds, a technique that reflects Hellenistic influence stemming from the invasion of Alexander the Great. Art historians question whether the molds were imported or whether the artisans were exposed to prototypes, to what extent Indian court artisans who produced these pieces fused foreign influences with unique Indian elements. They have been dated to the 3rd century B.C.E., during the Mauryan Period. The location is part of the modern city of Patna, containing the site of the ancient city of Pataliputra.

The monkey figurine shown in two views is mounted on a wooden platform for display, but it was apparently designed with the ability to slide down a string or thin rod so as to appear to climb or jump. The figurine is hand-modeled from terracotta and features a fully rounded body in a complicated, lifelike pose with a realistic facial expression, ears, and incised lines representing its fur. The monkey was excavated from the Indus Valley archaeological site called Mohenjo-Daro, dated to ca. 2500 B.C.E. Excavations from sites in the Indus Valley included many figurines made from terracotta, some of which were clearly for entertainment, including whistles shaped like birds, small animals including bulls with moveable heads and horns, and toy carts. Archaeologists classified the monkey figurine as a toy. The figurine is 5.5 centimeters (2.1 inches) high.

This hollow cast iron container is a baking mold used for shaping bread or cake for children, according to archaeologists. It was excavated with a similar elephant mold. The mold is from the excavation of Hallado en al-Fudyan in Jordan, dated to the 8th century CE, during the Umayyad Islamic period. The mold is 17 cm high, 16.5 cm wide, and 6 cm deep (6.7 x 6.5 x 2.4 inches). The two hinges enable the mold to be opened and filled with dough. The ram is significant in Muslim society, especially during Islamic festival of Eid al-Adha, the Feast of the Sacrifice, which commemorates Abraham’s sacrifice of a ram in place of his son. On Eid al-Adha, households sacrifice an animal such as a sheep or a lamb, sharing the meat with neighbors and the poor. Children share in the festivities and entertainments, receiving gifts, sweets, and money.

Barbie—who is today the most famous doll in the world—was based on Lilli, a sexy and sassy German doll first produced in 1955. Co-founder of Mattel Inc., Ruth Hander transformed the Teutonic doll from floozy to fashion queen for American girls like her daughter, Barbara, after whom the doll was named. In all other ways, Barbie’s shapely body was nearly indistinguishable from Lilli’s pleasing figure. A decade after Barbie’s debut in 1959, however, Mattel altered her features (e.g., eliminating the arched eyebrows, scarlet cosmetics, sideways glancing eyes) in order to make the teenage fashion model look more youthful and wholesome.

The photographs in "Barbie Turns 21" published in LIFE magazine make it possible to examine Barbie across two transformative decades in the history of American girls and gender. Along with other primary sources, Barbie dolls (including her outfits and accessories) can be "read" or interpreted for what they reveal about the influence of feminism on changing constructions of girlhood between 1959 and 1979.

What meanings can be expressed in a material object? Conduct an analysis of the chronologically arranged Barbies seen here by examining each doll and outfit. What values are embodied in Barbie and encoded in her wardrobe? Are there any cultural contradictions—such as independence v. dependence—embedded in the material culture evidence? In what ways do these ambiguities point to broader ambivalences about changes for girls in postwar America? How does the article’s text support or complicate your understandings?

See also: "What Barbie Dolls Have to Say about Postwar American Culture," http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/idealabs/ap/essays/barbie.htm.