Foreword / Paul S. Boyer -- Introduction / James Marten -- No greater distinction: American children and the Revolution -- Boy soldiers of the American Revolution: the effects of war on society / Caroline Cox -- Martha Jefferson and the American Revolution in Virginia / Cynthia A. Kierner -- In Franklin's footsteps: news carriers and postboys in the Revolution and early republic / Vincent DiGirolamo -- Finding a place to belong: raising ideal children -- French and American childhoods: St. Louis in the early republic / Martha Saxton -- Growing up on the middle ground: bicultural Creeks on the early American frontier / Andrew K. Frank -- A child shall lead them: children and new religious groups in the early republic / Todd M. Brenneman -- Taking a flying leap: educating young republicans -- "A few thoughts in vindication of female eloquence": the case for the education of republican women / A. Kristen Foster -- "Pictures of the Vicious ultimately overcome by misery and shame": the cultural work of early national schoolbooks / Gretchen A. Adams -- A hard world: child welfare and health reform -- Children of the public: poor and orphaned minors in the Southwest borderlands / Nancy Zey -- Schooling and child health in the antebellum New England / Rebecca R. Noel -- Documents -- A teenager goes visiting: the diaries of Louisa Jane Trumbull (1835, 1837) / Holly V. Izard and Caroline Fuller Sloat -- "Though the means were scanty": excerpts from Joseph T. Buckingham's Personal memoirs and recollections of editorial life (1852) / Vincent DiGirolamo -- A stolen life: excerpts from the Narrative of William W. Brown, a fugitive slave, written by himself (1847) / James Marten -- Questions for consideration -- Suggested readings -- Contributors -- Index.