“Children are still in the flowering of life, they still have an imagination, a passion for life that is lost on adults [who are] jaded by life’s experience.”
“Projet pour l’établissement d’école des enfants,” 1698 (Archives Nationales, K 1374)
Interior of the Wetter Brothers calico factory in Orange, France, c. 1764
In the background, children and teenagers (likely apprentices) can be seen embroidering, pressing, and dying textiles. This is one of the best images available of early modern children at work.
RESEARCH
Dr. Gossard is a social historian who examines the history childhood and youth using quantitative and qualitative research methods. Her first book, Young Subjects: Children, State-Reform, and Social Building in the Eighteenth-Century French World (McGill-Queens’ University Press, 2021), argues that children were agents of historical change in eighteenth century France.
While her research has been squarely rooted in the history of early modern and eighteenth-century France, Dr. Gossard’s most recent works and those currently in-progress engage in a much wider regional and temporal focus with a core interest in that of children and youth. Additionally, Dr. Gossard expanded her scholarly research to include explorations of higher education pedagogy, especially history and general education teaching.
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- Click Publications for my published articles.
- Click In Progress for a list of my current projects.
Julia M Gossard 