The University of Virginia Library presents the 2026 McGregor Lecture delivered by Dr. Holly N.S. White, specialist in the history of childhood and early America.

To tell an accurate history of colonial North America, children must be included. But most children (like most people) in early America lacked the literacy, resources, or desire to leave behind records of their lives. It may seem like searching for children in the archive would be equivalent to searching for a needle in a haystack, but when historians deliberately look for children, they are relatively easy to find. Historian and author of Constructing American Childhood, Dr. Holly N.S. White, will share the creative ways that historians of childhood mine the archives to uncover children’s voices and experiences in the past.

This presentation will also reveal that whether Indigenous, African, European, or Creole, the children of early America were significant members of their communities. They were cultural go-betweens, conduits of tradition and culture, and they were critical to state-building and the success of empires. As this presentation will demonstrate, only by incorporating children’s presence, participation, and agency do we gain a more complete and multifaceted understanding of American history.

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