Philanthropy in Children’s Periodicals, 1840–1930

Uncovers the role of children’s periodicals in the development of charitable ideals for children between 1840–1930

• The first book-length study highlighting the role of children’s periodicals in the development of charitable ideals for children between 1840-1930
• Considers the role of middle- and working-class children as charitable donors and the extent to which children could occupy dual roles as both donors and recipients
• Demonstrates how children’s magazines and children’s columns encouraged children to undertake charitable work by considering their agency, motivations, subjectivity and habits
• Highlights the transnational circulation of charitable ideals for young people

Drawing on a wealth of material from children’s periodicals from the Victorian era to the early twentieth century, Kristine Moruzi examines how the concept of the charitable child has been defined through the press. Charitable ideals became increasingly prevalent at a time of burgeoning social inequities and cultural change, shaping expectations that children were capable of and responsible for charitable giving. While the child as the object of charity has received considerable attention, less focus has been paid to how and why children have been encouraged to help others. Yet the ways in which children were positioned to see themselves as people who could and should help – in whatever forms that assistance might take – are crucial to understanding how children and childhood were conceptualised in the past. This book uses children’s print culture to examine the relationship between children and charitable institutions in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and to foreground children’s active roles.