Images from the child's world. The child and childhood as shown on iconographic materials in publications addressed to children from the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries - selected issues

Abstract

A growing interest in the issues of the child and childhood in the past has been observed in Polish historiography in the recent decades. Researchers are increasingly more often and more willingly undertaking research on the child and the child's world inscribed in the so-called social history of education and the history of private and everyday life.  

The subject matter of these findings is the child and childhood as shown on iconographic materials. The time dividing lines cover the second half of the 19^th and the beginning of the 20^th centuries, because it was during that period that a significant increase in the types and number of publications illustrated with numerous graphics and, with the passing time, photographs, can be observed. These include women's, family, children's, political-social-literary magazines, tales for younger and older children, primers, and illustrative materials for learning about things. Daguerrotypy - photography is becoming widespread, postcards are published. Those of them that were addressed to children will be used as the source basis of this text, with a view to present the child's world. Due to the extent of the source material, only selected issues and aspects of childhood in the Polish territories in the studied period will be shown. Individual types of iconographic sources, on which the researcher can find the title "images from the child's world", will be presented. In addition to discussing their specificity, examples  illustrating the ordinariness and extraordinariness of the child’s everyday life will be provided.

Modernisation of the journal's operations and translation into the English language of articles published in Ars Educandi in 2012-2017 were financed with funds from the Ministry of Science and Higher Education as a part of the task Science Promotion Activity (pl. DUN).

The task ‘The implementation of the editorial module on the platform of Uniwersyteckie Czasopisma Naukowe – a system facilitating the editing and management of the academic journal Ars Educandi‘ was financed as a part of contract 661/P-DUN/2018 of 12.06.2018 from funds of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education designated for the promotion of science.

The task ‘The creation of a modern online version of the academic journal Ars Educandi through the implementation of the publication module on the platform of Uniwersyteckie Czasopisma Naukowe and the handling of international indexing databases’ was financed as a part of contract 661/P-DUN/2018 of 12.06.2018 from funds of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education designated for the promotion of science.