Janet Golden, PhD, Associate Professor of History

This project is supported with funds the Center received from the Rutgers University SROA program.

Dr. Janet Golden is co-authoring and co-editing the first comprehensive history of the health experiences of children and youth in the United States from the colonial period through the twentieth century. The collaborators on the project are Richard Meckel, Ph.D., Professor of American Studies at Brown University and Heather Munro Prescott, Ph.D., Professor of History at Central Connecticut State University. The book will be published by ABC-Clio and is under contract.

The focus of the book is the historical experiences of sick children. As observed in a recent essay co-authored with pediatrician/historian Russel Viner "historians have not viewed the medical enterprise through the eyes of its child-participants."1 Knowing how children and youth experienced health and disease is critical to understanding the history of these life stages, the history of health care institutions, the history of social welfare, the history of the family and the ways in which families, communities, health professionals and the state have addressed child health problems. The book will address these issues and provide a synthetic interpretation of the child health over the entire course of American history. Unlike many monographic studies, it will discuss of all racial, ethnic, religious and social class backgrounds and from all areas of the nation.

It was not until the late 20th century that medical practitioners began to appreciate the level of pain children endured. Ill children and infants were often given virtually no pain relief, because the caregivers did not believe that children experienced pain to the same extent as adults. Dr. Golden plans to develop a comprehensive, historically-based account of the "sufferer's history" that will examine the ways illness and treatment for illness affected children, how their belief systems influenced their reactions to illness, as well as the impact of regional, ethnic, class and gender factors on the experience and the treatment of sick children.

Sources for Golden's study included diaries, letters from children about their health and developmental needs - even the letters to Charles Atlas from male adolescents about their attempts to grow muscles. Golden discovered further insights into childhood illness and treatment imbedded in accounts and studies of slavery and women's history. Even biographies, like the famous report of Teddy Roosevelt's sickly childhood, will be examined in preparation for Dr. Golden's eagerly awaited publication on "Children and Health."

Medical care in America has generally been recorded, not through the eyes of its sick children, but by the adult caregivers and practitioners. Dr. Janet Golden has plans for a book-length publication to remedy this incomplete perspective. The audience for the book includes high school, college and university students. For this reason, in addition to six substantive essays it will include an extensive bibliography and a collection of primary sources. Thus the book can be used as both a reference volume and as a classroom text.

Publications:

Children and Youth in Sickness and in Health : A Handbook and Guide (co-edited with Richard Meckel and Heather Munro Prescott) Greenwood Press, 2004.

This write-up has been reprinted with permission from Ed Mauger (CCCS Update)

For more information, please contact Janet Golden, Department of History, Rutgers University-Camden.