Images of Youth: Age, Class, and the Male Youth Problem, 1880-1920

by Harry Hendrick

Overview

Images of Youth demonstrates the significance, long underestimated, of the male adolescent in British society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The male working-class youth was regarded as posing a serious problem—not only economically, but morally and socially as well. Investigating the causes of this, Hendrick examines the attitudes towards youth and its behavior, contemporary perceptions of "boy labour," and the "discovery" of the working-class adolescent. He goes on to consider the various attempts to solve the problem: philanthropy (the youth movement); collectivism (a juvenile labor exchange and vocational guidance system); and further education (part-time continuation schools).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198217824
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	08/23/1990
Pages:	310
Product dimensions:	9.12(w) x 6.50(h) x 0.98(d)

About the Author

Oxford Polytechnic

Table of Contents

	List Of Tables	xi
	Abbreviations	xii
	Introduction	1
Part I.	The Broad Context	13
1.	Efficiency, Labour, and Politics	15
2.	Aspects of the Juvenile Labour Market, 1900-1914	33
Part II.	Defining The Problem: Work, Adolescence, And Personality	49
3.	The Boy Labour Problem: The Economic Critique	51
4.	Social Science and Working-Class 'Adolescence': From 'Idea to Social Fact'	83
5.	The Boy Labour Problem: The Social Critique	119
Part III.	Solving The Problem: Philanthropy, Collectivism, And Class	155
6.	Youth Organizations: Organizing Boys and 'Making Men'	157
7.	Rites of Passage: Origins of the Youth Employment Service	181
8.	Day Continuation Schools: Creating the Adaptable and Efficient Citizen	213
	Conclusion	250
Appendix	Tables for Chapter 2	260
	Select Bibliography	270
	Index	291

Editorial Reviews

"Succeeds admirably in tracing the inter-connections between urban working-class youth and contemporary debates on poverty, unemployment, and casual labor. It presents the fullest and subtlest investigation of the boy labor problem, and it convincingly amends the existing account of the discovery of adolescence. These are considerable achievements."—American Historical Review

"Images of Youth is a welcome contribution to the historical literature, leaving its readers with much to ponder."—Albion

"Excellent."—CHOICE

From the Publisher