History of Childhood in America, from the Colonial Era to the Twenty-First Century (Teacher Seminar Online)

This seminar places contemporary educational, legal, policy, and psychological thinking about childhood and current concerns about children’s well-being into a sweeping historical perspective. It examines childhood both as lived experience—shaped by such factors as class, ethnicity, gender, geographical region, and historical era—and as a cultural category that adults impose upon children. The seminar will place a special emphasis on public policy, including such topics as adoption, child abuse and neglect, children’s rights, disability, juvenile delinquency, schooling, and social welfare.

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Steven Mintz, Lead Scholar

Steven Mintz is a professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin. A pioneer in the application of new technologies to teaching and research and an award-winning teacher and author, Mintz is a leading authority on families, children, youth, and the life course. He is the author of fifteen books, including The Prime of Life: A History of Modern Adulthood, a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice, and Huck’s Raft: A History of American Childhood, which received major prizes from the Association of American Publishers, the Organization of American Historians, and the Texas Institute of Letters. His latest book, The Learning-Centered University: Making College a More Developmental, Transformational, and Equitable Experience, was published by Johns Hopkins University Press in January 2024.

For five years, he served as the founding director of The University of Texas System’s Institute for Transformational Learning, which was responsible for designing and testing new educational models and technologies that can make a quality education more accessible, affordable, and successful. He also served as senior advisor to the president of Hunter College for student success and director of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Arts & Sciences Teaching Center.

Anthony di Battista, Master Teacher

Anthony di Battista has taught medieval and Renaissance history at Rutgers University since 1995, and has been the director of the Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis’s Teachers Institute since 2014. He was also the project director for a US Department of Education Teaching American History grant and a part of the New Jersey State Standards in History committee. Anthony has served as the president of the New Jersey Council for History Education and on the executive board of the National Council for History Education. He currently chairs the New Jersey History Teacher of the Year selection committee.

American Jewish Historical Society

This seminar is held in partnership with the American Jewish Historical Society (AJHS), the oldest ethnic, cultural archive in the United States. AJHS provides access to more than 30 million documents and 50,000 books, photographs, art, and artifacts that reflect the history of the Jewish presence in the United States from 1654 to the present.

Established in 1892, the mission of AJHS is to foster awareness and appreciation of American Jewish heritage and to serve as a national scholarly resource for research through the collection, preservation, and dissemination of materials relating to American Jewish history. At our home on West 16th Street in downtown Manhattan, AJHS illuminates American Jewish history through our many archival treasures, scholarship, exhibitions, and public programs. Among the treasures of this heritage are the handwritten original of Emma Lazarus’ “The New Colossus,” which graces the Statue of Liberty; records of the nation’s leading Jewish communal organizations; and important collections in the fields of education, philanthropy, science, sports, business, and the arts.

For more information on our collaboration with AJHS, please read this Q&A on our News page from February 2023 with AJHS Executive Director Gemma Birnbaum.