The History of childhood in the United States covers the social and cultural history of childhood in the United States from colonial times to the early 21st century. For current conditions see Youth in the United States. Over the centuries, the definition of what a child is—and what they owe to society—has undergone several radical transformations Historians emphasize the shift from "economic utility" to "emotional sacralization."
Ethnicity, race, gender and class factors
Native Americans
Gemini American Indian boarding schools, also known more recently as American Indian residential schools, were established in the United States from the mid-17th to the early 20th centuries with a main primary objective of "civilizing" or assimilating Native American children and youth into Anglo-American culture. In the process, these schools denigrated American Indian culture and made children give up their languages and religion. At the same time the schools provided a basic Western education. These boarding schools were first established by Protestant and Catholic missionaries of various denominations. The missionaries were often approved by the federal government to start both missions and schools on reservations, ref>{{cite web In the late 19th and early 20th centuries especially, the government paid Church denominations to provide basic education to Native American children on reservations, and later established its own schools on reservations. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) also founded additional off-reservation boarding schools. Similarly to schools that taught speakers of immigrant languages, the curriculum was rooted in linguistic imperialism, the English-only movement, and forced assimilation enforced by corporal punishment. These sometimes drew children from a variety of tribes. In addition, religious orders established off-reservation schools. Children were typically immersed in the Anglo-American culture. Schools forced removal of indigenous cultural signifiers: cutting the children's hair, having them wear American-style uniforms, forbidding them from speaking their mother tongues, and replacing their tribal names with English language names for use at the schools, as part of assimilation and to Christianize them. Children sometimes died in the school system due to infectious disease..
Colonial and early national era European Americans
Historians since the 1980s have emphasized geography, especially the differences between the northern, middle and southern colonies. For example, migrants to New England came as families, while individuals migrated to the South. In 1620, the Virginia Company shipped ninety “younge, handsome and honestly educated maydes” to Virginia. The next year it sent fifty-seven marriageable women between the ages of fifteen and twenty-eight. Each was assigned to a would-be husband who paid the Company 120 pounds of tobacco —six times what it charged for a male indentured servant. The colonies were a bit healthier than rural England--and much more so than London. The food supply was much better which helped reduce mortality from Disease in colonial America. Nevertheless death rates were high for infants and small children, especially from diphtheria, smallpox, yellow fever, and malaria. Epidemics were more frequent and more deadly in the warmer, wetter southern colonies. In 17th century Andover, Massachusetts, families averaged 8.3 births; 7.2 survived to age 21. Food supplies were abundant, and the cold weather weakened epidemics. Overall, New England population growth was rapid thanks to early marriages and relatively low rates of infant and maternal mortality. Scattered farms helped keep contagous disease in check. As the colony grew after 1700 there were more and more neighbors and contagion were more and more likely, so mortality rates went up. In an overwhelmingly rural society, farmers used children as young as six or seven to handle many chores. In the cities, at a time when schools were uncommon outside New England, girls had household and child care chores while a boy at about age 12 was apprenticed to a craftsman and lived apart from his parents. Colonial America had a surplus of good farmland and a shortage of workers, so criminals in England kidnapped London youth to spirit them away for resale in Virginia. Parliament made it a priority to catch and prosecute offenders. In many rural towns until the 1830 or so, the apprenticeship system gave way to factory employment for poor children, and school attendance for the middle classes. At the age of 13, orphan children were sent into a trade or domestic work due to laws that sought to prevent idle children from becoming a burden to society. In the apprenticeship system, children whose parents died or are unable to support them were routinely placed outside of their homes under indenture contracts with a master who provided substance in exchange for the child’s labor. Many states during this period followed Pennsylvania's lead in enacting laws that prohibited matching children with masters who were of a different faith from the apprentice because of an expectation that masters should improve not only apprentices’ trade skills, but also their moral and religious upbringing. In the 1840s, labor started to shift away from families, to hiring older individuals, especially new immigrants from Ireland and Canada.
African American slave children
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