Parental Guidance Necessary – Children Experience the Civil War
May 3, 2018 @ 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm
| Pay-what-you-pleaseEvent Navigation
Discover the Civil War as seen through the eyes of the children who experienced it firsthand.
On May 3, 2018 at the Missing Soldiers Office, historian Kristen Hunter will illuminate some of the ways children in both the North and South experienced the Civil War. The presentation will begin at 6 PM. Admission is “pay-what-you-please.”
Encouraged by their parents and swept up by wartime rhetoric, children romanticized the war and were awe-inspired by their courageous soldiers in blue or gray. With their soldier costumes and toys, young boys adopted soldier personas and acted out battles with their siblings. Some young girls, inspired by the patriotic efforts of their mothers, saved their pennies and knitted socks to send to soldiers in need.
From parading around in soldier costumes and staging mock battles in the yard, to forming gangs and engaging in real battles with rocks, the war greatly impacted the everyday lives of boys and girls in rural areas, cities, and even in the White House.
Kristen Hunter is a recent graduate of George Mason University’s History of Decorative Arts MA program. Her Master’s thesis, “By Her Needle and Thread,” explored how women used material objects of their production to influence how their family experienced the Civil War.
