Vicious infants dangerous childhoods in antebellum U.S. literature Soderberg, Laura creator author. text bibliography Criticism, interpretation, etc. mau 2021 monographic eng print x, 200 pages ; 23 cm. "Childhood as scholars often recognize it-innocent, vulnerable, and above all, precious-is anchored in the cultural imagination of the early nineteenth-century United States, when an attitude of child worship drove sentimental politics and literature. But, not all childhoods were defined by love, education, and nurture. Singled out by nineteenth-century legal and medical establishments, children already marginalized by slavery, ethnicity, and poverty were increasingly branded as "incorrigible," delinquent, and antisocial. Vicious Infants offers a counterhistory of literary childhood as both perceived social threat and site of resistance, revealing that many children were not only cut off from family and society, they were also preemptively excluded from the rewards of citizenship and adulthood. Turning to prison documents, medical journals, overlooked periodical fiction, and literary works from William Apess, Harriet Wilson, Herman Melville, Susan Paul, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, Laura Soderberg recovers alternate narratives of childhood and provides an important window into the cultural links between race, reproduction, and childhood in the antebellum period"-- Bound Children: Sidestepping the Social Contract in Apprenticeship Literature -- The Incorrigible Child: Juvenile Delinquency and the Fearful Rise of the Child Self -- Prodigious Births: Black Infancy, Antebellum Medicine, and the Racialization of Heredity -- Too Many Children: U.S. Malthusianism, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Novel-Ending Births -- Conclusion. Laura Soderberg. Based on the author's dissertation (doctoral)--Univeristy of Pennsylvania, 2016. Includes bibliographical references and index. American literature 19th century History and criticism Children in literature Social problems in literature Child labor in literature Juvenile delinquency in literature African American children in literature African American children in literature American literature Child labor in literature Children in literature Juvenile delinquency in literature Social problems in literature 1800-1899 fast PS374.C45 S63 2021 810.9/3523 Vicious infants Soderberg, Laura, Amherst : University of Massachusetts Press, 2021. (DLC) 2020053357 Childhoods: interdisciplinary perspectives on children and youth 9781625345899 9781625345882 1625345887 1625345895 9781613768440 9781613768457 2020053356 pda,print DLC 201130 20250318214250.7 in00004432513 eng