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Focusing on the chess prodigy Samuel Reshevsky (1911–1992), this paper examines the international commercial exploitation of child prodigies and their rise to celebrity. In the early 1920s, this boy wonder toured Europe and the United States, where he defeated some of the best players in simultaneous chess exhibitions, met important personalities and became a subject of global fascination. His ascent into stardom just before Hollywood's child star era reveals the public's eagerness to capitalise on gifted children as yet another commodity of the entertainment industry. Parents played a key role in exploiting child prodigies, despite the success of recent campaigns to secure children's rights such as compulsory education and the regulation of child labour. Meanwhile, philanthropists attempted to aid children like Reshevsky and stop their public exhibition. Moreover, psychologists examined their talent and worried about their futures. Overall, Reshevsky's case reconstructs the network of interests (commercial, humanitarian, scientific) surrounding child prodigies and historicises the child star phenomenon beyond the mainstream child performer. ; This research has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 793654, as well as by the Beatriu de Pinós Fellowship (2019 BP 00034) funded by the Secretary of Universities and Research (Government of Catalonia) and by the Horizon 2020 programme of research and innovation of the European Union under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 801370. ; Peer reviewed

The child prodigy phenomenon expanded during and after the mid-19th century, nurtured by a growing entertainment industry in Europe. Prodigies were particularly popular in two domains —classical music and mental calculation. Many spent their early childhoods on tour and living abroad. This paper analyzes the problem of the general education of the child prodigy, and the parents' and impresarios' role in financially exploiting the child's talent. I focus on virtuosos and arithmetic wonders who performed in France in the 19th century. These children rarely received regular schooling and many only learned to read and write once their years of glory as a prodigy passed, or when their lack of education became problematic. The consequences of neglecting the prodigy's elementary studies were greater than parents and impresarios had anticipated. Illiteracy and a meager knowledge of the wider culture affected talent development. In the end, a lack of general education contributed to the deterioration of the child's giftedness, accelerating the transition from prodigy to ordinary. ; This research has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 793654. ; Peer reviewed

orcid.org/0000-0002-9513-0048, Centre Alexandre Koyré, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. andrea.graus@cnrs.fr ; The child prodigy phenomenon expanded during and after the mid-19th century, nurtured by a growing entertainment industry in Europe. Prodigies were particularly popular in two domains —classical music and mental calculation. Many spent their early childhoods on tour and living abroad. This paper analyzes the problem of the general education of the child prodigy, and the parents' and impresarios' role in financially exploiting the child's talent. I focus on virtuosos and arithmetic wonders who performed in France in the 19th century. These children rarely received regular schooling and many only learned to read and write once their years of glory as a prodigy passed, or when their lack of education became problematic. The consequences of neglecting the prodigy's elementary studies were greater than parents and impresarios had anticipated. Illiteracy and a meager knowledge of the wider culture affected talent development. In the end, a lack of general education contributed to the deterioration of the child's giftedness, accelerating the transition from prodigy to ordinary. ; European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 793654

orcid.org/0000-0002-9513-0048. Centre Alexandre Koyré, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. andrea.graus@cnrs.fr orcid.org/0000-0002-7260-9734. Theory & History of Psychology, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. a.c.mulberger@rug.nl ; This special issue entitled «Managing giftedness in contemporary society» analyzes how the category of giftedness has been mobilized in different areas —education, mental testing, and childrearing— to manage, classify, nurture, and even exploit commercially children in Europe and America in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the first decades of the twentieth century, educators, pedagogical experts, pedologists, and psychologists, together with some physicians, drew attention to the existence of children whose intelligence and talents exceeded the average. ; European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 793654

This special issue entitled «Managing giftedness in contemporary society» analyzes how the category of giftedness has been mobilized in different areas -education, mental testing, and childrearing- to manage, classify, nurture, and even exploit commercially children in Europe and America in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the first decades of the twentieth century, educators, pedagogical experts, pedologists, and psychologists, together with some physicians, drew attention to the existence of children whose intelligence and talents exceeded the average. The agendas that motivated their studies varied, including eugenics, mental hygiene, professional guidance, and an attempt to improve schooling while increasing educational efficiency. Intelligence tests became a widespread tool, but as several articles have demonstrated, they were not the only method to explore children's minds and capacities. In the particular case of child prodigies, psychological examinations were expected to contribute knowledge about mental traits, such as memory, because in these cases such traits appeared magnified. The present volume aims to shed light on the social and scientific agendas supporting the use of categories like «child prodigy» and «gifted child», and to explore the impact they achieved beyond the limits of psychological science. ; This special issue is based on a panel we organized in 2019 for the conference of the European Society for the History of the Human Sciences. This research has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 793654. ; Peer reviewed