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The experience of growing up in the U.S. is shaped by myriad forces. Relationships with parents and teachers are deeply personal and definitive. Social and economic contexts are broader and harder to quantify. Key individuals in public life have also had a marked impact on American childhood. This collection of new essays examines the influence of pivotal figures in the culture of 20th and 21st century childhood and child-rearing, from Benjamin Spock and Walt Disney to Ruth Handler, inventor of Barbie, and Ernest Thompson Seton, founder of the Boy Scouts.