"By examining the clothing, furniture, and other objects used for childrearing over the course of three hundred years, Karin Calvert maps changes in the material culture of parenting to uncover the history of childhood in America. Calvert's analysis of the artifacts of childhood, from the swaddling band and standing stool of the seventeenth century to the swing and perambulator of the nineteenth century, identifies three eras with distinct visions of rearing children: 1600-1750, the time when children were seen as 'inchoate adults'; 1750-1830, when they were viewed as 'natural' creatures; and 1830-1900, when they were perceived as 'innocent' nestlings." -- Back cover.