Artifacts of Childhood
NEWBERRY’S CHILDREN’S BOOK EXHIBIT EXPLORES DEFINITION OF CHILDHOOD OVER LAST 700 YEARS
September 27, 2008 to January 17, 2009
In its upcoming fall 2008 exhibit, Artifacts of Childhood: 700 Years of Children’s Books, the Newberry invites visitors to cross time, space and cultures to examine changing attitudes towards children and childhood.
“Artifacts of Childhood shows that childhood itself is not a fixed and immobile state, but instead it is defined culturally,” said Paul F. Gehl, co-curator of the exhibit and Custodian, John M. Wing Foundation on the
History of Printing. “By exploring the similarities and changes in children’s books and games over the last 700 years, visitors can chart the evolution of the child as student, reader and consumer.”
Accompanied by a full public programs series, including lectures, performances, and public discussions on children’s literature, the exhibition will showcase 65 of the Library’s most important and beautiful children’s
books, organized into six broad thematic categories: pedagogy; moral instruction of the young (including books on good manners); fiction written for children; the impact of children on the book trade; the child at play; and
the child as author. This will be the first exhibition in two decades at the Newberry dedicated to the exploration of children’s books.
Jenny Schwartzberg, co-curator and the Newberry’s gift specialist, said, “The exhibit will inspire teachers, writers, illustrators, parents and everyday viewers to think in new ways about children’s books, the history of
childhood and the history of education. For children, the “aha” moment will be when they see that kids born hundreds of years ago were very much like kids today and read the same types of books and played similar games.
Both children and adults will find many fascinating items, and, we hope, be inspired to start book collections of their own.”
Artifacts of Childhood will feature such Newberry treasures as: the first illustrated edition of Aesop’s Fables (1485);
Kinderbüchlein für die Jugend, the only copy in the U.S. of a very popular Protestant religious book for children (1586); a first edition of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865); an educational map game, Wallis’s Tour Through England and Wales, A New Geographic Pastime (1794); and La Fille de L’Exile (ca. 1800), which includes sheets of numbered sections of text and drawings meant to be sold separately in candy boxes, collected and put together into storybooks.
Admission is free.
The Newberry Library’s exhibition rooms are open Monday, Friday, and Saturday from 8:15 am to 5:30 pm and Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 8:15 am to 7:30 pm.
The Newberry Library
60 West Walton Street
(312) 255-3691
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