Endangered children
Subtitle: dependency, neglect, and abuse in American history
By: LeRoy Ashby.
Series: Twayne's history of American childhood series
Publisher: Twayne Pub.
Published: 1997
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 258
Subjects: Abandoned children -- United States -- History; Orphans -- United States -- History; Abused children -- United States -- History; Child welfare -- United States -- History; Children -- Institutional care -- United States -- History
Description: Endangered Children traces the history of dependent, neglected, and abused children from the colonial era to the present. LeRoy Ashby poses the question "Who speaks for the children?" He finds that the adults who spoke for children throughout American history did so with specific agendas in mind. The welfare of endangered children has become a salient issue during periods of social crisis.

Economic anxiety, concerns about the family, and racial and religious tensions have been played out in the debate about dependent, neglected, and abused children. Ashby explores the issues of adoption, foster care, orphanages, family privacy versus state intervention, discrimination, and federal benefits to the poor through careful social and historical analysis and the presentation of compelling case studies.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 228-241) and index.
Table of contents: title: Old solutions, new circumstances, 1607-1800 -- the rise of antebellum congregate institutions -- “Placing out”: orphan trains, foster homes, and adoption -- Discovering cruelty and building more asylums in the late nineteenth century -- Innovation, tradition, and progressive-era “child saving” -- The issues fade, 1920-1960 -- children’s issues as battleground, 1960-1980 -- Continuing battles, tragedies, crisis : the 1980s and 1990s -- Epilogue -- Chronology.