erior life.

By the 19th century, painters concerned themselves more with representing emotion and changing people’s perceptions of reality—depictions of the poor young victims of the Industrial Revolution were controversial at the time, but their humanism coaxed growing interest in children’s rights. On their heels were the Impressionists—instrumental in depicting the intimacies of daily life. [ANNE HIGONNET QUOTE(S) HERE]

Literature, too, began changing the landscape of perceptions on childhood. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the religious view of saving children’s souls gave way to a mindset based less on the perils of youth and more on the innocence, creativity, emotion, and pliability of childhood. Philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s 1762 work Émile, or On Education argues children’s inherent innocence, underscoring natural development in order to maintain the most desirable attributes of childhood and evolve into well-adjusted adults. Romantic poets wove ideals of childhood as a force for good, furthering the shift into a cult of childhood that would envelop the modern Western world.

Writers and readers became fascinated by the idea of perpetual childhood—J.M. Barrie’s 1904 play (later a beloved novel) Peter Pan being a prime example. Both Peter Pan and Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) were inspired by the authors’ close relationships with children—another window into increasing adult interest in the interior worlds of the young. [GRENBY QUOTE(S) HERE] Alongside the philosophical work, writers like Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo were bringing light to the deplorable conditions plaguing children of the industrialized West at the time—leading the way for social reform and