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Age as a Category of Historical Analysis: History, Agency, and Narratives of Childhood

Mary Jo Maynes's work asks us to reconceptualize and broaden our notion of children's agency. Maynes sees this problem as analogous to that of learning to recognize the agency of women which is disguised by the everydayness of their activities and by prevailing views that historical change is a result of the public actions of powerful individuals. She concludes, "The effort to assess the place of girls in history brings us to question the very notion of historical agency itself." She goes on to show how life stories, particularly retrospective accounts of childhood, can offer new insights into both the agency of the young and the historical significance of childhood.-M.S.