Children's Interests/Mothers' Rights : The Shaping of America's Child Care Policy

by Sonya Michel

• ISBN13: 9780300085518
• ISBN10: 0300085516
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2000-09-10
• Publisher: Yale University Press

Summary

The current child care system in the United States can be described as erratic, inadequate, and stigmatized. In this comprehensive history of American child care policy and practices from the colonial period to the present, Sonya Michel explains why child care has evolved as it has and compares U.S. policy to that of other democratic market societies.

Table of Contents

List of Abbreviations	ix
Prologue	xi
Introduction: Child Care and Social Citizenship for Women	1	(10)
The Multiple Origins of American Child Care	11	(39)
The Road Not Taken: A Turning Point in Policies Toward Wage-Earning Mothers	50	(41)
Studied Neglect: Federal Inaction in the 1920s	91	(27)
Uncle Sam's Cradles: New Deal and Wartime Policies	118	(32)
Should Mothers Work? Prescriptions and Practices in the Postwar Era	150	(42)
Making an Issue of Child Care	192	(44)
A Divided Constituency	236	(45)
Epilogue: American Child Care in Comparative Perspective	281	(18)
Appendixes	299	(10)
Notes	309	(86)
Acknowledgments	395	(4)
Index	399