On Sunlit Fields: The Swabian Children, Legal Personhood, and the Tyrolean Statthalterei's Edict of 1867

Abstract

abstract: In the 1860s, legislators and bureaucrats in the Alps crafted laws to govern the migrations of the so-called Swabian Children, requiring them to meet specific obligations for the right to travel abroad. At the time of passage, these laws had a facilitative purpose. They were intended to funnel children abroad so they could avoid the degrading effects of begging and factory work. Decades later and inspired by growing moral outrage, regional school authorities repurposed these legal norms to inhibit the numbers of children heading abroad. This article analyzes the shifting sensibilities about territorial sovereignty and childhood to show how these norms were transformed via a dialogue between text and application, laws and their enforcement.