A history of child welfare
By: edited by Eve P. Smith & Lisa A. Merkel-Holguín.
Contributors: Smith, Eve P.; Merkel-Holguín, Lisa A.
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
Published: 1996
Place of publication: New Brunswick, N.J., U.S.A
Language: eng
Number of pages: 313
Subjects: Child welfare -- United States -- History.
Description: A History of Child Welfare offers many examples of practices that have direct import for those who struggle to support children. Who is not bothered by what seems to be increasing acts of violence by children against children? The role of hidden cruelty to children in perpetuating violence is illuminated by studying the past.

Historians and social researchers have gone far in examining the family, and by implication, their revelations greatly increase society's complex responses to children over time, from early assumptions that children were little more than miniature adults to the discovery of childhood as a special developmental period.

At the start of this century, women still did not have universal suffrage and brutal child labor was not unusual. Harsh legal codes separating the races were widespread, and those bent on improving the lot of children knew that reform meant commitment to an uphill struggle. By the end of the century much has changed: child labor, while still present, has been outlawed in most industries, women vote and hold many high offices; and de jure racial segregation is largely a memory.

Yet the state of children remains precarious, with poverty a persistent theme throughout the century.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.
"Original title: Lessons from the past. A history of child welfare (an issue of the journal Child welfare). Original publisher, The Child Welfare League of America, Inc., January/February 1995"--Data sheet.