PRICING THE PRICELESS CHILD PB

In this landmark book, sociologist Viviana Zelizer traces the emergence of the modern child, at once economically useless and emotionally priceless, from the late 1800s to the 1930s. Having established laws removing many children from the marketplace, turn-of-the-century America was discovering new, sentimental criteria to determine a childs monetary worth. The heightened emotional status of children resulted, for example, in the legal justification of childrens life insurance policies and in large damages awarded by courts to their parents in the event of death. A vivid account of changing attitudes toward children, this book dramatically illustrates the limits of economic views of life that ignore the pervasive role of social, cultural, emotional, and moral factors in our marketplace world.