Childhood in the Promised Land

Downs Laura Lee Downs

Description

Childhood in the Promised Land is the first history of France's colonies de vacances, a vast network of summer camps created for working-class children. The colonies originated as a late-nineteenth-century charitable institution, providing rural retreats intended to restore the fragile health of poor urban children. Participation grew steadily throughout the first half of the twentieth century, "trickling up" by the late 1940s to embrace middle-class youth as well.At the heart of the study lie the municipal colonies de vacances, organized by the working-class cities of the Paris red belt. Located in remote villages or along the more inexpensive stretches of the Atlantic coast, the municipal colonies gathered their young clientele into variously structured "child villages," within which they were to live out particular, ideal visions of the collective life of children throughout the long summer holiday. Focusing on the creation of and participation in these summer camps, Laura Lee Downs presents surprising insights into the location and significance of childhood in French working-class cities and, ultimately, within the development of modern France.Drawing on a rich array of historical sources, including dossiers and records of municipal colonies discovered in remote town halls of the Paris suburbs, newspaper accounts, and interviews with adults who participated in the colonies as children, Downs reveals how diverse groups-including local Socialist and Communist leaders and Catholic seminarians-seized the opportunity to shape the minds and bodies of working-class youth. Childhood in the Promised Land shows how, in creating the summer camps, these various groups combined pedagogical theories, religious convictions, political ideologies, and theories about the relationship between the countryside and children's physical and cognitive development. At the same time, the book sheds light on classic questions of social control, highlighting the active role of the children in shaping their experiences.

Sujets

• Child protection
• 20th century
• Education

Informations

• Publié par: Duke University Press
• Date de parution: 29 novembre 2002
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780822383963
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

    

  

Childhood in the Promised Land

- 

    

 , –

  

Durham and London



©  Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper  Designed by C. H. Westmoreland Typeset in Granjon by Tseng Information Systems, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in- Publication Data appear on the last printed page of this book.

Chapter  uses material from a previously published article, ‘‘Municipal Communism and the Politics of Childhood: Ivry-sur-Seine –,’’ Past and Present (Feb. ): –, and is reprinted with kind permission. World copyright, The Past and Present Society,  Banbury Road, Oxford, England.

We are grateful to the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation for support of this project.

for Alain



List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Preface

xiii

Introduction



ix

xi

 Repairing the Body, Restoring the Soul: The Origins of the Colonies de Vacances in France, –

 Toward a Pedagogy of Child Leisure: The Politics of Catholic Defense, –



 Family Placement in a Socialist Mode: The Foundation of the Colonie Municipale of Suresnes

 Inside the Nièvre Colonie, –





 Les Lendemains Qui Chantent: Social Movements and Pedagogical Innovation in the Colonies de Vacances during the Popular Front 

 Municipal Communism and the Politics of Childhood: Ivry-sur-Seine, – 

Epilogue

Notes





Select Bibliography

Index









             ( following page ) Departure, Gare de Lyon, ca.  Children from the Chaussée de Mainecoloniein a Loiret farmyard, ca.  Very young Parisians confronting their dinner at a peasant table Colonsfeeding ducks near the village of Choux, in the Loiret, ca. 

       ( following page ) Suresnes: the rue du Pont in  Suresnes: the rue de Puits d’Amour,  The ‘‘sand beach’’ at the Wilsonécole maternelle,mid-s The annual school physical exam, mid-s The children of Boulogne-Billancourt depart for the Nièvrecolonie, summer  The children of Suresnes and Puteaux gather before the Gare de Lyon, summer  The children of thebanlieue ouestproceed into the station, summer  On the platform at the Gare de Lyon, summer  Boarding the train for Nevers, early s Nourricesandcolonsmeet in Nevers, mid-s Colonsbeing met by a pony cart at Nevers, mid-s The annual tour of inspection, mid-s

  ( following page ) Along the docks of the Seine in fin-de-siècle Ivry Ivry: the industrial city at the turn of the twentieth century Ivryens assembled for departure in front of themairie,summer  Departure for thecolonieat Les Mathes, summer  Beginning the five-kilometer hike to Les Mathes Thecolonieat Les Mathes, principal building, mid-s Thecolonieat Les Mathes, refectory, mid-s Thecolonieat Les Mathes, dormitory, mid-s Thecolonieat Les Mathes, pine forest surrounding thecolonie, summer  The great sand beach of the Coubre,  or 