The failed century of the child : governing America's young in the twentieth century /
Judith Sealander.
- Cambridge UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2003.
- x, 374 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
PART I. Children's Welfare: 1. Juvenile justice: from 'child saving' to 'public accountability' -- 2. 'The Pontius Pilate' routine: government responses to child abuse -- 3. 'Illusory promises': state aid to poor children. PART II. Children's Work: 4. 'Inducting into adulthood': state reactions to the labor of children and adolescents. PART III. Children's Education: 5. 'Laying down principles in the dark': the consequences of compulsory secondary education -- 6. The return of the infant school: twentieth century preschool education -- 7. Public education of disabled children: 'rewriting one of the saddest chapters'. PART IV. Children's Health: 8. 'Shaped up' by the state: government attempts to improve children's diets, exercise regimes, and physical fitness -- 9. Mandatory medicine: twentieth century childhood immunization.
Publisher description: Between 1900 and 2000 an unprecedented effort to use state regulation to guarantee health, opportunity, and security to America's children failed to reach its goals. This account of the period reveals that the achievements envisioned were extremely ambitious and reflected entrenched, but self-contradictory, values as well as Americans' inconsistent expectations of government. Based on extensive research, the volume analyzes the period's public policies that affected children's welfare, work, education, and health.