Beyond the Boundaries of Childhood is a history focused on the ways antebellum daily lives and culture of childhood in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York are shaped by race. Crystal Lynn Webster builds her narrative with limited sources that expose a “new form of unfreedom” for both free and freed African American children in the early emancipated North. Webster shows how African American children's labor power and their ill-treatment became central themes of early social activism led by “reformers, abolitionists, educational activists, and African American parents” (2). In addition, she argues that the activities of playing, working, and schooling were politicized and racialized, unfolding overwhelming “abuse, discrimination, and neglect” that was continuously overlooked in post-emancipation northern societies. The invisibilizing of their African American childhood eventually led to the actions of these youth that challenged this status (3).
Chapters 1 and 2 provided a comparative overview of the racialized cultures of...