Images of Youth: Age, Class, and the Male Youth Problem, 1880-1920

Images of Youth demonstrates the significance, long underestimated, of the male adolescent in British society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The male working-class youth was regarded as posing a serious problem—not only economically, but morally and socially as well. Investigating the causes of this, Hendrick examines the attitudes towards youth and its behavior, contemporary perceptions of "boy labour," and the "discovery" of the working-class adolescent. He goes on to consider the various attempts to solve the problem: philanthropy (the youth movement); collectivism (a juvenile labor exchange and vocational guidance system); and further education (part-time continuation schools).