Images of Youth Age, Class, and the Male Youth Problem, 1880-1920 [Hardcover]

Images of Youthdemonstrates the significance, long underestimated, of the male adolescent in British society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The male working-class youth was regarded as posing a serious problem--not only economically, but morally and socially as well. Investigating the causes of this, Hendrick examines the attitudes towards youth and its behavior, contemporary perceptions of boy labour, and the discovery of the working-class adolescent. He goes on to consider the various attempts to solve the problem: philanthropy (the youth movement); collectivism (a juvenile labor exchange and vocational guidance system); and further education (part-time continuation schools).

Succeeds admirably in tracing the inter-connections between urban working-class youth and contemporary debates on poverty, unemployment, and casual labor. It presents the fullest and subtlest investigation of the boy labor problem, and it convincingly amends the existing account of the discovery of adolescence. These are considerable achievements. --American Historical Review

Images of Youthis a welcome contribution to the historical literature, leaving its readers with much to ponder. --Albion

Excellent. --CHOICE