Series 6 - Books

0.39 m of textual records

Dr. Fowler published seven books during his career relating to his specialty in child development. This series documents six of these books in varying degrees of completeness. For example, there is only one file on his 1978 books, Day Care and its effects on early development: a study of group and home care in multiethnic, working class families and its companion work, Guides to early day care and teaching: supplement to Day Care and its effects on early development. Early reviews of the manuscript in 1976 initially written with Nasim Khan, found it unacceptable for publication in its current form. It was ultimately published by OISE in 1978 and in 1979 an agreement was reached for it to be published in Italian.

The files documenting Infant and child care, published in 1980 along with its companion Curriculum and Assessment Guide contain correspondence with the publisher and reviews during the production of the book in 1979-1980 as well as later correspondence with those requesting permission to reproduce sections from both works. Also included are working drafts and documentation on the infant adaptation scales developed with James Sutherland (1971-1979).

Dr. Fowler’s third major work was the two volume work, Potentials of Childhood, published in 1983 while on the staff at Tufts University. Fowler authored the first volume entirely. In it he provides “a historical survey and critical analysis of perspectives and research on early education and early experience.” Volume 2 “is a series of studies on early developmental learning following a strategy developed over the course of these and other studies.” [1] Fowler wrote the first three chapters of this volume, while other authors, Amy Swenson, Karen Ogston, Gloria Roberts and Douglas A. Steane wrote chapters 4 to 7. His co-authors were his students at OISE. Reviews of Volume 1 show that it was well received; Volume 2 was described by one reviewer as ‘disappointing’ and was especially critical of the chapters written by Fowler’s students, describing them as “detailed presentations of data better suited to professional journals”, and “poorly proofread” with “many missing or incorrect references”. [2] Volume 1 was reprinted in 1984.

Records relating to this book consist of administrative correspondence, financial notes, the contract with Lexington Books, publicity and review files, and drafts and working notes relating to chapters Fowler wrote for both volumes. There is no complete manuscript for either volume.

Early experience and the development of competence was a monograph edited by Fowler for the New Directions for child development series. Fowler’s contribution to this publication, in addition to his role as editor, was Chapter 5 “Early experiences of great men and women mathematicians”. Included in the records for this book are files for each chapter as well as his “Editor’s Notes” at the beginning of the book. Files include correspondence, notes and manuscripts. Finally, there are two files relating to his last (and yet unpublished?) book entitled Teaching your preschool child to read completed in 2000. The manuscript is remains in the hands of his family, and these files contain early drafts and some correspondence ca 1986- 1989.

Also contained in this series are files relating to what is believed to have been a proposed book Pathways to competence in the 1980s. Included are mainly drafts and notes for proposed chapters.
For records relating to his book and video entitled Talking from infancy. How to nurture & cultivate early language development. Cambridge, MA: Center for Early Learning and Child Care, 1990, 1995. (originally published by Brookline Books) see Series 10.

NOTES

1. Fowler, William. Potentials of Childhood, Volume 1:A historical view of early experience. (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books 1983) p. xii
2. B2008-0026/020(11)

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