Dr. Janet Golden, Professor of History and the second recipient of the Annual Faculty of Arts and Sciences–Camden Faculty Research Fellowship, will present a lecture as she concludes her year-long fellowship. Dr. Golden, specializes in the history of health, women, children, and American social history. The lecture, “Babies Made Us Modern: How Infants Brought Americans into the Twentieth Century,” is based on Dr. Golden’s forthcoming book (Cambridge University Press, 2018).
Babies Made Us Modern explores how infants played a critical role in connecting ordinary Americans to the revolutions of the twentieth century—revolutions in scientific medicine, in consumer culture, in the rise of the welfare state and a strong federal government, and in the cultural flowering of psychology. The concept of adolescence as a life stage that made teenagers into emerging adults developed in the twentieth century. So too did modern babyhood appear as new concept in the twentieth century. It was a social construct that acknowledged infants’ physical helplessness, their value as future citizens, and the need for shared public and private efforts for their protection. This talk examines babies lives using accounts drawn from baby books kept by mothers and from a wide variety of other sources.
The event will take place on Tuesday, October 31st, in the Campus Center’s Multi-Purpose Room. Doors open at 12:15 p.m. and the program will begin at 12:45 p.m. Lunch will be served as well. Registration is required; please submit your RSVP by Wednesday, October 25th.