"Conference 2003: A Report"
Sean Martin
Having just returned from the SHCY conference in Baltimore, I am still under the impression of the many fine papers I heard and the people I met from all over the world. The conference was an excellent opportunity to get to know scholars from history and other disciplines whose work relates to children and youth.
It’s no secret that SHCY and the activity on H-Childhood reflect primarily the work of historians working on the history of the United States. Papers at the conference, too, leaned heavily toward the study of American children. But those with interests outside the United States were certainly not entirely neglected. The range of papers in European history was impressive, even if one wished for more. Historians working on children and youth in Canada, Spain, France, Britain, Germany, the Soviet Union, late Ottoman Palestine, New Zealand and Argentina presented their work to audiences eager to hear about children in other contexts.
The attendance and participation of scholars from outside the United States also greatly enriched the conference. Scholars came from Canada, Mexico, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Israel, Botswana, and the Netherlands. Some of these scholars also work on the history of American children. A visiting contingent of scholars from Sweden also enlivened the conference.
Conferences are meant to be a survey of new work in the field, and the SHCY conference did not disappoint. While I would have liked to see more presentations on children outside of the United States, and others expressed a desire for greater participation by scholars working outside of the modern period, the range of topics presented was wide enough that most scholars could probably find something that related to their own work in some way. Indeed, the advantage of a conference such as this one is that it takes one beyond one’s usual national, geographic, and chronological boundaries. A historian of twentieth century East European and Jewish history, I nonetheless found the panels on children in the United States especially valuable. The presentations on dependent children were especially relevant to my work and have helped me to rethink my project on institutions for Jewish orphans in interwar Poland.
The discussion arising from the panels led me to consider again important issues in the history of children and youth, including the definitions of “childhood” and “youth” and the distinction between writing about children and writing about adults. No one panel addressed these issues directly, but the topics came up naturally in the course of discussion. As historians have the tendency to segregate themselves according to their subfields, these more general discussions can often open up topics that have yet to be explored or suggest ways in which one can reevaluate a work currently in progress.
Besides the schedule of panels, special presentations on the life and work of Robert Bremner and on child protection by Michael Grossberg and a roundtable on collaborations between historians and developmental psychologists completed the program. The roundtable was thought-provoking, even if, as several participants expressed, collaborations between the two fields were less successful than was originally hoped. The SHCY conference seems an ideal opportunity for discussions across disciplines, and I hope such efforts to bring those discussions to the conference will continue.
The increasing use of technology was a theme of the conference, as several scholars used PowerPoint in the panels I attended, usually to very good effect. Like Michael Grossberg during his presentation, they often described themselves as novices. As effective as Professor Grossberg’s visuals were, his joking when the computer batteries ran out and the screen went blank was even better. With the announcement that the documentary history of American children and youth by Robert Bremner will soon be available online, historians of children and youth continue to make real progress toward using technology in their work.
The conference ran smoothly, and the excellent facilities of UMBC were ideally suited for the meeting. Saturday evening in Baltimore allowed everyone a respite from the panels and the chance to see at least part of the city. The restaurant recommendations directed us to the best crab in the city, but some of us found our way to other fare, whether East European or Egyptian. Thanks are due to Kriste Lindenmeyer and the staff of UMBC for hosting an excellent conference.
