The case study essay outlines a student project using orphanage records from early modern France in a manner that helps students to frame historical questions and make preliminary conclusions about how these silent masses of children lived at the margins of society during the period. echo [more]
Much of early modern Europe saw increasing numbers of abandoned children, and new institutions designed to care for them. Published notarial documents, such as the two excerpted here, allow a glimpse into the fortunes of individual orphaned children… [more]
This excerpt comes from a chapter of Okina mondô, or Dialog with an Old Man, by Nakae Tôju (1606–1648), a Neo-Confucian philosopher. The Dialog teaches practical ethics through a series of questions and answers between a young disciple, Taijû,… [more]
An image of Tokugawa-period (1600–1868) Japan, a detail from an ink painting by Hanabusa Itchô (1562–1724), shows children watching a puppet show and helps illuminate issues of social class and facilitates discussion on how attitudes towards children and their education changed with Japan's modernization. echo [more]
The case study uses information on orphans living under colonial regimes to shed light on issues in early modern history, including maritime expansion, gender norms, and changing patterns of poverty, providing insight into attitudes toward one particular group of children in an era of competition for wealth and dominance among European powers. echo [more]
This is an ink painting on a scroll by Hanabusa Itchô (born Taga Shinkô), a Japanese artist of the early Tokugawa period (1600–1868). Tokugawa artists typically used pen names and Itchô used several names at different times as an artist and… [more]
Suggestion for handling orphans, devised in 1655 by Manoel Severim de Faria, an official for the bishop of Evora in Portugal. Here Severim de Faria speaks about the role orphaned children could and should play in the Portuguese empire. Students need… [more]
The Proceedings of the Old Bailey includes accounts of trials at London's most important court. These were published at the end of each session in an inexpensive form for a popular, rather than a legal, audience. They provide a reliable, although… [more]
