Newly Formed History of Childhood Journal Nominated for Major Award

Camden scholar, author serves as an editor

CAMDEN – Still in its infancy, the Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth is already receiving accolades. The publication devoted to the historical experiences of children and young people throughout the ages and from all over the world benefits from the knowledge of a scholar at Rutgers–Camden, the home of the nation’s first PhD program in the emerging discipline.

Susan Miller, an assistant professor of childhood studies in Camden, serves as book review editor for the journal founded by the Society for the History of Children and Youth in 2008. Nominated for Best New Journal by Johns Hopkins University Press in the 2010 Council of Editors of Learned Journals award competition for scholarly achievement, the journal publishes original research, essays on the historical context of contemporary issues, book reviews, and special features on material culture three times a year.

“Johns Hopkins is a prestigious and prolific publisher of scholarly journals. It is an honor that they’ve nominated us,” Miller says. The society and the journal have also united scholars researching childhood from myriad academic disciplines as well as physical locations. “Our intellectual worlds are quite spread out. This organization and publication help us keep in contact with our colleagues and their research in meaningful and engaging ways.”

The journal boasts editors from University of Massachusetts-Amherst; Amherst College; Smith College; and of course Rutgers–Camden, the only U.S. institution offering a doctoral degree in childhood studies.

As book review editor, Miller has access to the latest works in the emerging discipline, which also enhances her graduate students’ experience.  Her office is filled with books that span time periods and topics all connected to children, from life in Byzantium, to international adoption, to the history of family vacations.

“The books that publishers send to me really run the gamut. It’s indicative of the breadth and scope of the field. It is an exciting time to be a childhood studies scholar. Students are not just indoctrinated into a tradition, they get to create tradition,” says Miller, who teaches both graduate and undergraduate courses addressing the history of children and youth from colonial times to the 20th century.

The author of Growing Girls: The Natural Origins of Girls’ Organizations in America (Rutgers, 2007), Miller earned her undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. She earned a master’s in women’s studies from the University of York in England. Her current research focuses on children and the construction of a national, patriotic identity in the United States from the 1890s to World War II. She joined the Rutgers–Camden faculty in 2009.

Media Contact: Cathy K. Donovan
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E-mail: catkarm@camden.rutgers.edu