Youth and Early Industrialization in a Canadian City

In this essay we ask a straightforward question: Did the stages in the lives of young people alter during early industrialization? To attempt an answer, we shall compare the major dimensions in the experience of young people within one city prior to and during early industrialization. In particular, three broad issues frame our inquiry into specific patterns of residence, education, work, and marriage and into the way in which class and ethnicity affected the shape of experience. Those three issues are universality of adolescence, the relations between parents and children, and the social consequences of public education. We begin with the issues.