Victorian Global Childhoods: Adoption and Displacement
Josephine McDonagh: Lost Children: Displaced Children in early nineteenth-century print culture.
This paper identifies a feature of annuals - the illustrated literary anthologies that saturated the Christmas market from the 1820s: a persistent focus on displaced children. Usually represented alone, these children had often crossed an ocean, were separated from family and friends, and were sometimes (but not always) Black or Asian. Their histories of abandonment punctuate the pages of this notoriously lightweight and sentimental print form. I examine some versions of their stories and trace their trajectories in subsequent literature and history. What might be their significance in emerging histories of childhood and humanitarianism?
Holly Furneaux: Little Friends of All the World? Victorian International Adoption Stories
This talk considers Rudyard Kipling’s novel Kim (1901) as a parable of international adoption, looking at the boy protagonist’s powerful appeal to a range of father figures across nationalities and races. I will trace the stories of interracial care that inspired Kipling, including the genre of ‘Mutiny’ siege baby stories set in the Indian Rebellion. I consider how these plots might palliate imperial violence with fantasies of benevolence, paternalism and the making of extraordinary individuals, and also yearn for more caring modes of interdependency.
This page was last updated on 4 April 2025
