Böcker av Joy Parr

Labouring Children (1980) is a study of child immigrants apprenticed as agricultural labourers and domestic servants in rural Canada, based on numerous original sources, and presents new views on childhood, social work and Canadian rural communities.

These narratives about state-driven megaprojects and technological and regulatory changes reveal how humans make sense of their world in the face of rapid environmental change.

Out of print for several years, Labouring Children now has a substantial new introduction in which the author examines the historiography of the history of childhood, particularly in the light of recent literature on sexuality and the post-structuralist critique.

Focusing on the records left by consumer groups and manufacturers, and relying on interviews and letters from many Canadian women who had set up household in the decade after the war, Joy Parr reveals exactly how and why Canadian homemakers distinguished themselves from the consumer frenzy of their southern neighbours.