Cradle of Liberty: Race, the Child, and National Belonging from Thomas Jefferson to W. E. B. Du Bois

Caroline Levander

Published by Duke University Press 2006

Cradle of Liberty

Race, the Child, and National Belonging from Thomas Jefferson to W. E. B. Du Bois

Caroline Levander
Edited by: Donald E. Pease

In the series New Americanists

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822388357

Overview
Contents

About this book

Argues that from the late eighteeneth century through the early twentieth, American literary and political texts used the figure of the child to represent U.S. national belonging.

Author / Editor information

Caroline F. Levander is Professor of English and Director of the Humanities Research Center at Rice University. She is the author of Voices of the Nation: Women and Public Speech in Nineteenth-Century American Literature and Culture and a coeditor, with Carol J. Singley, of The American Child: A Cultural Studies Reader.

Reviews

“Imaginatively combining history, literature, politics, visual culture, and transnational American studies, Cradle of Liberty’s interdisciplinary exploration of the role of the child in the American imaginary offers some intriguing insights into the intersections of race, nation, and ideas of ‘belonging.’”—Shelley Fisher Fishkin, Stanford University

“In this rich combination of cultural history, literary criticism, and social critique, Caroline F. Levander argues that the idea of childhood has figured centrally in American liberalism’s entanglement with racial inequality. Levander reveals that from the late eighteenth century to the present, the belief in a natural path of human development from childish dependency to adult autonomy has both derived from and contributed to racial and gender hierarchies that have been constitutive of U. S. national identity. Cradle of Liberty takes on an impressive array of writers, including novelists, social theorists, and philosophers, in telling the story not only of those whose engagement with the concept of the child contributed to the nation’s limited conception of liberalism, but also of those whose critiques of prevailing assumptions may provide us with strategies to increase liberalism’s capacity to deliver social justice in our own time.”—Kenneth Warren, University of Chicago

“Cradle of Liberty presents an impressive archive of material, and its strong argument will certainly inspire others to rethink liberal accounts of the relationship between the concept of the child and racial, national, and individual identity.”

-- Arthur Riss Journal of American History

“Throughout Cradle of Liberty, Caroline Levander resourcefully and deftly demonstrates the ways that the child has been used to focus debates about race and the function of a liberal democracy, from the early national period through the early twentieth century. . . . One is struck by the creativity of this study, which should be welcome to anyone interested in a sustained investigation of the child and the politically inflected uses with which this figure has been aligned.”

-- Melanie Dawson Studies in American Fiction

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction. Natal Nationalism: The Place Of The Child In American Cultural Studies Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
One. The Child And The Racial Politics Of Nation Making In The Slavery Era Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	29
Two. Southern Fictions And The ‘‘Race’’ Of Nations Along The Mexican Border Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	52
Three. Consenting Fictions, Fictions Of Consent: The Child And The Nineteenth-Century Sentimental Novel Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	78
Four. Transnational Twain Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	111
Five. Henry James, Pauline Hopkins, And Psychologies Of Race Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	133
Six. Raceless States: W. E. B. Du Bois And Cuba Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	157
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	179
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	211
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	239

Language: English
Publisher: Duke University Press
Pages
- Main content: 264
Illustrations
- Other: 11 illustrations

eBook

Published: October 25, 2006
ISBN: 9780822388357