Due to unforeseen circumstances beyond our control, SHCY's 2025 biennial meeting will be held virtually instead of at the University of Greenwich, as we had previously planned. While many of us have a preference for the collegiality fostered by in-person conferences, we also know that accessibility – especially for graduate students and those who live far from the conference location – can be fostered through virtual meetings. Many of us also remember the excellent conference in 2021 hosted by our colleagues in Galway. Below you will find the conference’s registration information and program. Please reach out to Vice President Kristine Alexander and her program committee at SHCY2025@gmail.com if you have any questions. We extend our sincere thanks to Kristine and other board members who stepped up to meet the challenge of organizing a virtual conference.
We are looking forward to welcoming you to the Society for the History of Children and Youth's biennial conference, which is being held on Zoom from June 26-28 2025. The conference program is below, and registration (cost: $50 US) is required. All conference participants must also be paid-up members of the SHCY.
Registration & Payment
To register, just click this link: https://tinyurl.com/4ypduv4r.
You can either sign in with your existing Zoom account or enter your email address to quickly create a new one. After you submit your registration details, you'll be prompted to pay the $50 conference fee. Once your payment is complete, you'll get a confirmation email with all the details on how to access the event.
What to Expect on the Event Site
When you enter the event site, you'll first see the conference lobby. This is your central hub for everything! Here, you'll find the complete event agenda, easy-to-use links to join sessions, and information on all our speakers.
You'll be able to seamlessly navigate between different presentations and enter virtual rooms for each session. A key part of the experience is the networking opportunities available. This means you can actively participate in real-time discussions by joining the chat during sessions, asking questions, and sharing comments directly with speakers and other attendees.
We're excited for you to join us!
Society for the History of Children and Youth Thirteenth Biennial Conference Program
26-28 June 2025
Eastern Standard Time (on Zoom)
Thursday 26 June 2025
8.30-9 am: Opening Remarks
9-10.30 am: Concurrent Sessions
Histories of Children’s Health, Illness, and Medicine
Chair: Leticia Fernández-Fontecha, Washington and Lee University
Adriana Benzaquén, Mount Saint Vincent University, “Children’s Health, Friendship, and Medical Expertise: John Locke’s Medical Care of the Children of Edward and Mary Clarke”
Young In Jang, Binghamton University, SUNY, “Poverty, Sexuality, and Health of Working-Class Girls in Antebellum Baltimore”
Amanda M. Brian, Coastal California University, “Imagining Pediatrics: Illustrating Child-Doctor Interactions in Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Europe”
Out of Place: Children and Youth in Extremis (Roundtable)
Chair: Catherine A. Jones, University of California Santa Cruz
Pamela Nzabampema, Exeter University
Richard Raber, Exeter University
Kate Moran, Saint Louis University
Laura Nys, Ghent University
Catherine A. Jones, University of California Santa Cruz
Infants, Children, and Institutional Care: Cultural, Legal, and Policy Contexts in Post-War Europe
Chair: Sarah-Anne Buckley, University of Galway
Katharina Rowold, University of Essex, “Infants in Care: Revisiting the Residential Care of Babies and Young Children in Post-War England”
Niamh Cullen, Queen’s University Belfast, “Babies, children and new ideas about residential care in post-1945 Italy: The anti-institutional setting of the ‘Mother and Child Village’”
Agnes Anna Arndt, Hannah Arendt Institute for Totalitarianism Studies at the TU Dresden,
“‘In the best interest of the child? Legal and historical perspectives on institutional child protection in post-war Germany”
10.30-10.45 am: Break
10.45am-12.15 pm: Concurrent Sessions
Transnational Adoption in the Twentieth Century
Chair: Silke Hackenesch, University of Cologne
Dror Sharon, Tel Aviv University, “Imagination, Nation Building and the Family in the
1938 Palestine Adoption Plan”
Azziza B. Malanda, Independent Historian, “Transnational Adoptions of Black German
Children to Denmark in the 1950s and 1960s”
Bettina Hitzer, Otto-von-Guericke University, Magdeburg, “Making (no) difference:
Transnationally Adopted Children in West Germany, 1960s to 1980s”
Agents of Change: Hebrew Education and Children’s Culture in East European Jewish Society
Chair: Yael Darr, Tel Aviv University
Meirav Reuveny, Tel Aviv University, “Independent Agents: Jewish Private Teachers in the Russian Empire and the Development of Modern Hebrew Culture”
Ekaterina Oleshkevich, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, “From Tradition to Transformation: Heder and Hebrew Education in Late Imperial Russia”
Agnieszka Jagodzińska, University of Wroclaw, “Candies, Pennies, and Zion: The Early Hebrew Press for Children and the Question of Children’s Agency”
Children, Youth, and Suffrage Movements
Chair: Jennifer Frost, University of Auckland
Wendy Rouse, San Jose State University, “Envisioning an Alternate Future: Young Queer Suffragists and the Campaign for Women’s Right to Vote”
Rebecca de Schweinitz, Brigham Young University, “From “Aids to Voters” to “Active Citizens”: Girls in American Electoral Politics, 1920-1960”
Kelly Marino, Sacred Heart University, “Woman Suffrage and the College Girl: First-Wave Feminists and Campus Campaigns for the Vote, 1900-1920”
McKenzi Christensen, Rutgers University, “‘Baby Suffragettes’: Girls in the Edwardian British Women’s Suffrage Movement”
12.15 pm-12:30 pm: Break
12:30 pm-1.45 pm: Keynote by Moira Herbst, Editor-in-Chief, UNICEF's State of the World's Children
1.45 pm-2.00 pm: Break
2.00 pm-3:30 pm: Concurrent Sessions
Sibling Relationships in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century British and Australian Institutions (Roundtable)
Chair: Jessamy Carlson, University of Dundee
Tahaney Alghrani, Hugh Baird University Centre
Delyth Edwards, University of Leeds
Claire Phillips, Aberystwyth University
Johanne Taylor, Flinders University
Creative Agents: Uncovering Children’s Cultural Contributions
Chair: Elizabeth Dillenburg, The Ohio State University at Newark
Ashley Remer, Massey University & Girl Museum, “Still/Moving: Girls’ Bodies and Nineteenth-Century French Cultural Production”
Alessia Trivigno, University of Milano-Biocca, “Children’s Drawings as Cultural Heritage: Insights from Fondazione PInAC’s International Archive”
Sarah Anne Carter, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Rebekah Jacobs, University of Wisconsin-Madison, “Young Makers: Untangling Children’s Creative Work in the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection”
Friday 27 June 2025
9-10.30 am: Concurrent Sessions
Queer Oral Histories of Childhood
Chair: Kristine Alexander, University of Lethbridge
Jacob Evoy, University of Western Ontario, “Queer Awakenings and World-Making through Oral Histories with LGBTQ+ Children of Holocaust Survivors”
Sarah Pike, University of Münster, “An ‘Archive of Me’: Queer Oral Histories of Childhood Reading”
Erin Gallagher-Cohoon, Brock University, “Queerspawn: An Oral History of Childhood”
Children and Young People’s Politics and Activism in Twentieth-Century Britain and Finland
Chair: Jack Hodgson, University of Roehampton
Susannah Wright, Oxford Brookes University, “Young Pacifists in 1930s Britain”
Heidi Kurvinen, University of Turku, “Children’s acts on animal welfare in Finland at the turn of the 1970s and 1980s”
Helen Sunderland, University of Oxford, “Getting out the youth vote: BBC Newsround’s school mock elections in the 1980s and 1990s”
Political History of Youth Movements and Culture in the Twentieth Century
Chair: Ayşenur Kılıç, Georgetown University & Social Sciences University of Ankara
Marquis Taylor, Northwestern University, “Struggles for Brotherhood and Sisterhood: Black Fraternities and Sororities at Southern Black Colleges, 1907-1936”
Ayşenur Kılıç, Georgetown University & Social Sciences University of Ankara, “A ‘Deputy Army’ or a Youth Movement? Debates in the Prolonged Formation of the Turkish Scouting Organization”
Catherine Ellis, Toronto Metropolitan University, “Anti-apartheid activism in Britain’s Young Liberal organization”
10.30-10.45 am: Break
10.45am-12.15 pm: Concurrent Sessions
Intergenerational Power Relations and the Myths of Childhood ‘Innocence’ and ‘Protection’ in North America
Chair: Patrick J. Ryan, King’s University College at Western University
Stacey Patton, Howard University, “From the Gallows to the Noose: How the ‘Adultification’ Thesis Distorts the History of Child Executions and Lynchings in America”
Toby Rollo, Lakehead University, “The Myth of Rugged Individualism: Child Labor and Turner’s Frontier Thesis”
Patrick J. Ryan, King’s University College at Western University, “R. v. Kaija [2007] ONCA: sex crime, children’s evidence, and the duty to report harm in L20C/E21C Canada”
Youthful Expressions: Art, Performance, and Power in Global Contexts
Chair: Ashley Remer, Massey University & Girl Museum
Fiona Maxwell, University of Chicago, “‘When These Interesting Little Artists Come Before the Footlights’: Children’s Theatre and Political Imagination at Chicago Settlement Houses, 1890-1920”
Susan Miller, Rutgers University, “The Embodiment of Trauma: Psychology and Children’s Art in a Time of War”
Elizabeth Dillenburg, The Ohio State University at Newark, “Framing Empire: Girls, Photography, and Scrapbooks in the British Colonial World”
American Girls on the Move: Travel, Gender and Identity
Chair: Hoda Mahmoudi, University of Maryland
Sharon Halevy, University of Haifa, “American Girls, Travel, and National Identity in the Early Republic”
Melissa Klapper, “‘The Pictures Were Too Impressionistic for Me’: American Jewish Girls on Family Trips Abroad at the Turn of the Twentieth Century”
Miya C. Carey-Agyemang, Loyola University Maryland, “‘Where Are You Going This Summer?’: Travel, Coming of Age, and Locating Pleasure in Black Girls’ Lives”
12.15-12:30 pm: Break
12:30 pm-1:30 pm: Roundtable in Honour of Laura Lovett
Susan Miller, Rutgers University
Lori Rotskoff, Independent Scholar
Corinne Field, University of Virginia
Rachel Conrad, Hampshire College
1:30-2:00pm: Break
2.00 pm-3:30 pm: Concurrent Sessions
Across Far Nations and Juvenile Minds: Missionaries and Childhood
Chair: Layla Koch, University of Heidelberg
Hugh Morrison, University of Otago, “Making connections: Protestant missionary children and children’s religious history”
Mary Clare Martin, University of Greenwich, “Transnational education? Missionaries’ children in global context, 1790-1870”
Layla Koch, University of Heidelberg, “‘From three lads for heathen children, $0.53’: A Foray into the Child Sponsorship Program at the Ceylon U.S. Mission, 1818-1854”
Child Workers and Their Agencies in the Global South and Beyond
Chair: Nina Schneider, European University Institute (Florence)
Marcela Vigoli, Universidad de Tucumán, “‘Children of workshops and furrows’: child labour as a government officials’ concern. The case of sugar industry in Tucumán (Argentina), in the transition from the 19th to the 20th centuries”
Nina Schneider, European University Institute (Florence), “Child workers' agency in the Americas and globally, 19th-21st centuries”
Antje Ruhmann, “Children’s Views on Children’s Work – Insights from the Dialogue
Works Project”
Studying the History of Latter-Day Saint Young Women: Takeaways for Scholarship on Youth and Religion (Roundtable)
Chair: Rebecca de Schweinitz, Brigham Young University
Lisa Olson Tait, History Department, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Amber Taylor, History Department, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
James Goldberg, History Department, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Brittany Chapman Nash, History Department, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Saturday 28 June 2025
9-10.30 am: Concurrent Sessions
The Political Economy of Children’s Media: Sources, Analytical Scales, and Methodologies (Roundtable)
Chair: Kristine Alexander, University of Lethbridge
Meredith Bak, Rutgers University
Sophie Heywood, University of Reading
Helle Strandgaard Jensen, Aarhus University
Transforming Childhood: Visual, Spatial, and Labour Histories from the Ottoman Empire to Republican Turkiye
Chair: Sara Honarmand Ebrahimi, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main
Atacan Atakan, University of Arizona, “Depicting Childhood: Visual Representations in Late Ottoman Children’s Magazines”
Cansu Değirmencioğlu, University of Munich, “Children’s Health, Hygiene, and the Emotional Making of Educational Spaces in Early Republican Turkey (1869-1918)”
Didem Yavuz Velipaşaoğlu, Izmir University of Economics, “Shifting Landscape of Child Labor: Children at the Hereke Factory from Empire to Republic (1842-1960)”
Melis Süloş, CUNY Graduate Center, “Locating Puericulture: Spatializing Child Welfare in the National Capital of Turkey”
10.30-10.45 am: Break
10.45am-12.15 pm: Concurrent Sessions
Matthew Lipman and the Educational Role of Philosophy
Chair: Walter Omar Kohan, State University of Rio de Janeiro
Megan Jane Laverty, University of New South Wales, and Maughn Rollins Gregory, Montclair State University, “Matthew Lipman’s Life and Legacy: Philosophy as Education”
Mark Weinstein, Montclair State University, “Matthew Lipman on Teaching Children Logic and Critical Thinking”
Alina Reznitskaya, Montclair State University and Nadia Stoyanova Kennedy, New York College of Technology, City University of New York, “Lipman’s ‘Great Experiment’: From Early Theoretical Influences to Contemporary Educational Research and Practice”
Stefano Oliverio, University of Naples Federico II, “Dramatizing the School through Philosophy: Matthew Lipman as an Educational Reformer”
Gilbert Burgh, University of Queensland and Simone Thornton, University of Wollongong, “Reconstructing Philosophy for Children as Social Justice Education”
At Home and Abroad: Child Mobility as a Catalyst for Senses of Self and Community
Chair: Annemarie Steidl, University of Vienna
Megan McAuley, Maynooth University, “Children’s Seasonal Migration, Gender and Identity in Rural Ireland, c. 1870-1970”
Hugh Morrison, University of Otago, “‘Here we have no abiding city’: serial movement and identity for late British empire children”
Andie Speed, Western Colorado University, “(In)tolerable Hardships: the Swabian Children, Gendered Potentiality, and Child Abuse in Late Imperial Austria”
12.15 pm-12:30 pm: Break
12:30 pm-1:30 pm: Annual General Meeting & Award Ceremony
All are welcome
Nick Syrett, SHCY President, presiding
1:30pm – 2:00pm: Break
2:00 pm-3.30 pm: Concurrent Sessions
New Directions in the Study of Children and Youth in the Era of the Two World Wars
Chair: Yukako Otori, Keio University
Doina Anca Cretu, University of Warwick, “Childhood and Memories of Refugee Encampment in the Era of the Great War: The Case of Italian-Speaking Refugees in Austria-Hungary”
Yukako Otori, Keio University, “Heard through the Paper Walls: Children and the Making of the U.S. Visa System during and after World War I”
Masako Hattori, National University of Singapore, “Youth Conscription and Democracy in World War II United States”
Contested Care: Children, Youth, and the Politics of Health
Chair: Adriana S. Benzaquén, Mount Saint Vincent University
Victoria Cain, Northeastern University, “Assault, Anonymity or Autonomy?: The Politics of Parental Consent in the 1970s”
Leticia Fernández-Fontecha, Washington and Lee University, “Little Patients: Love, Diagnosis, and the Doctor-Patient Relationship in Early Paediatrics”
Paul Renfro, Florida State University, “AIDS, Age, and Ability: Ryan White and the Politics of Childhood and Disability in the 1980s HIV/AIDS Crisis”