A Right to Childhood: The U.S. Children's Bureau and Child Welfare, 1912-46Warring factions in the United States like to use children as weapons for their political agendas as Americans try to determine the role--if any--of the federal government in the lives of children. But what is the history of child welfare policy in the United States? What can we learn from the efforts to found the U.S. Children's bureau in 1903 and its eventual dismemberment in 1946? This is the first history of the Children's Bureau and the first in-depth examination of federal child welfare policy from the perspective of that agency. Its goal was to promote "a right to childhood," and Kriste Lindenmeyer unflinchingly examines the successes--and the failures--of the Bureau. She analyzes infant and maternal mortality, the promotion of child health care, child labor reform, and the protection of children with "special needs" from the Bureau's inception through the Depression, and through all the legislation that impacted on its work for children. The meaningful accomplishments and the demise of the Children's Bureau have much to tell parents, politicians, and policy-makers everywhere. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
The Origins of a Federal Bureau for Children 19001912 | 9 |
The Bureau Goes to Work 191213 | 30 |
Expanding the Bureau through a Blueprint for Maternal and Child Health 191420 | 52 |
Saving Mothers and Babies Designing and Implementing a National Maternity and Infancy Act 191830 | 76 |
The Childrens Bureau and Child Labor Reform 191232 | 108 |
When Families Fail Defining Social Policy for Children with Special Needs 191230 | 139 |
Other editions - View all
A Right to Childhood: The U.S. Children's Bureau and Child Welfare, 1912-46 Kriste Lindenmeyer No preview available - 1997 |
Common terms and phrases
Administration advocates agency agency's aid to dependent American argued bill birth chief Chil Child Health child labor amendment child labor reform child welfare Children's Bureau pub Cong Congress Covotsos Dagenhart dependent children dren dren's Bureau efforts EGAP Eleanor Roosevelt Eliot Elizabeth Lowell Putnam EMIC employment Florence Kelley folder Frances Perkins funds girls Government Printing Office Grace Abbott Hoover ibid Illegitimacy Infancy Act infant mortality infant mortality rate Julia Lathrop juvenile court juvenile delinquency Katharine Lenroot Keating-Owen Act legislation Lenroot Lillian Wald living maternal mortality Maternity and Infancy ment mothers and babies NCLC organizations parents pensions percent president Progressive Era Protection Public Health responsibility right to childhood role Roosevelt rural Senate Service sess Social Security Act social welfare staff Study tion Trattner U.S. Children's Bureau United wartime Washington White House Conference whole child women workers York