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A definitive history of child emigration across the British Empire from the 1860s to its decline in the 1960s.
List of contents
Introduction; 1. Poverty and possibility in the era of Greater Britain; 2. Developing empire, building children; 3. Upholding the banner of white Australia; 4. 'Defective' boys and 'problem' girls: selection standards in 1930s Australia and Southern Rhodesia; 5. From Imperial child welfare to national childhoods; 6. Growing up in the twilight of empire; 7. Conclusion: the problem of postimperial belonging; Appendix; Bibliography.
About the author
Ellen Boucher is Assistant Professor of European History at Amherst College, Massachusetts. She received her PhD in Modern European History from Columbia University, New York in 2008, where she specialized in British Imperial History with a focus on oral history. Before joining Amherst, she held a tenure-track position at Furman University, South Carolina and also taught at Fordham University, New York and Columbia University. One of her articles,'The Limits of Potential: Race, Welfare, and the Interwar Extension of Child Emigration to Southern Rhodesia', The Journal of British Studies (October 2009), won the 2010 Neil Sutherland Biennial Article Prize from the Canadian Historical Association for best article on the history of childhood. Her research has also been funded by awards from the Council on Library and Information Resources (Mellon Foundation), and the Doris Quinn Foundation. She is currently beginning a project exploring the connections between imperialism, decolonization, and the growth of international aid directed at African children. The first product of that research is an article titled 'Cultivating Humanitarianism: the Save the Children Fund and the British Appeal for Enemy Children, 1919–23', in Brave New World: Democratic and Imperial Nation-Building in Britain between the Wars, edited by Laura Beers and Geraint Thomas (2012).
Summary
Empire's Children is a pioneering new study of child emigration. Dating back to its origins, Dr Boucher charts how the desire to fulfil the Victorian concept of a global British race influenced the actions of government charities, the evolution of child welfare, and the experiences of child emigrants.
