Historians have been guilty of child neglect. Yes, they've studied children, but only to learn about adults. Typically they've chosen adult-centered research topics like child-rearing practices, social attitudes toward children, and the evolution of public institutions like education and juvenile courts.

The thirteen essays in Small Worlds take a different tack. They treat children as active, influential participants in society. Here children and adolescents from the pre-Civil War generation to 1950 are seen as actors in their own right, shapers of their own history who not only...