Changing Childhoods In The Cape Colony: Dutch Reformed Church Evangelicalism And Colonial Childhood, 1860-1895 (palgrave Studies In The History Of Childhood)

This book opens up histories of childhood and youth in South African historiography. It looks at how childhoods changed during South Africa's industrialisation, and traces the ways in which institutions, first the Dutch Reformed Church and then the Cape government, attempted to shape white childhood to the future benefit of the colony. This is the first book to trace the history of childhood and youth in nineteenth-century South Africa. This book examines how childhoods changed during South Africa's industrialisation in the late nineteenth century. Specifically, it considers how the Dutch Reformed Church - the only organisation to evince any sustained interest in colonial childhood - attempted to mould, particularly, white childhoods. The book then traces the colonial state's increasing interest in the education and welfare of white children from the 1870s onwards, positioning this concern within a wider context of debates over poor whiteism and an emergent Afrikaner nationalism. Concluding with a discussion of the 1895 Destitute Children Relief Act, the book suggests that this legislation was the first attempt in the Cape to define precisely who a white child was, and what should constitute a white childhood. Changing Childhoods in the Cape Colony opens up the history of childhood and youth in South African historiography, and contributes new ways of understanding not only the region's industrialisation, but also histories of ideas around race, poor whiteism, and domesticity "This is the first book to trace the history of childhood and youth in nineteenth-century South Africa. This book examines how childhoods changed during South Africa's industrialisation in the late nineteenth century. Specifically, it considers how the Dutch Reformed Church--the only organisation to evince any sustained interest in colonial childhood--attempted to mould, particularly, white childhoods. The book then traces the colonial state's increasing interest in the education and welfare of white children from the 1870s onwards, positioning this concern within a wider context of debates over poor whiteism and an emergent Afrikaner nationalism. Concluding with a discussion of the 1895 Destitute Children Relief Act, the book suggests that this legislation was the first attempt in the Cape to define precisely who a white child was, and what should constitute a white childhood. Changing Childhoods in the Cape Colony opens up the history of childhood and youth in South African historiography, and contributes new ways of understanding not only the region's industrialisation, but also histories of ideas around race, poor whiteism, and domesticity"-- Provided by publisher Front Matter....Pages i-xi Introduction....Pages 1-21 A Changing Church: Childhood, Youth, and Dutch Reformed Revivalism....Pages 22-43 Changing Childhoods: Making Middle-Class Childhood and Youth in the Nineteenth-Century Cape....Pages 44-64 Raising Children for Christ: Child-Rearing Manuals, Sunday Schools, and Leisure Time....Pages 65-87 The Crying Need: Dutch Reformed Responses to the Education Crisis of the 1870s....Pages 88-111 Saving the Child to Save the Nation: Poverty, Whiteness, and the Destitute Children Relief Act....Pages 112-137 Conclusion....Pages 138-144 Back Matter....Pages 145-206