Structuring Childhood and Building Americans: Socialization, Assimilation, and Resistance at American Children’s Institutions

Synthesizing existing academic research with information from archival sources, this study explored the role that adult-designed places played in the socialization and assimilation of children into American society between 1865 and 1935. Using a sample of 16 white American children’s homes and Native American boarding school campuses, it documented changes through time and differences based on race against American societal expectations for wards of the state to see how the construction of space encouraged, discouraged, or lacked relationship with the expectations of American identity. The results of this study provided evidence for an enduring and standardized approach to American children’s institutional practice that applied to all wards, regardless of background or period. In addition, points of departure illustrated how administrators embedded institutional desires for assimilation and socialization into their campus environments in ways that aligned with the contemporaneous expectations American society had for childhood and race. These outcomes underscored ways that children’s institutions structured childhood and built Americans during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.