Frankenstein: Texts and Contexts

This pre-print by Jane Humphries later appeared in The Economic History Review 66:2 (May 2013): 395–418.

An overview of working children and the shift from agricultural to industrial labor.

On child sickness and mortality in the early modern era.

A conduct book for educating upper-class females to take their places in society.

This charitable institution opened its doors in 1741 to care for the great numbers of abandoned children of London.

On the London Foundling Hospital and its influence on Charles Dickens.

In this children's book, two sisters who have been fighting over a doll are taken by their father to view a corpse hanging from a gibbet; an object lesson on the story of Cain and Abel.

Chapter 2 of 'My Hideous Progeny' By Katherine C. Hill-Miller.

A conduct book in which Wollstonecraft encourages educating daughters to think analytically, to behave modestly and with kindness, and to develop marketable skills.

This University of Pittsburgh website explores the ways in which childhood has been viewed through the centuries.

Richard Savage was the natural son of a nobleman, Earl Rivers, and a friend of Samuel Johnson.

An overview of Jean Jacques Rousseau's theories on the natural state of humanity and the need for education.