The Age of the Child: Children in America, 1890-1920

At the dawn of the twentieth century, progressive reformers optimistically heralded the coming age as "the century of the child." They proclaimed that every young person should have a sheltered and dependent childhood in which they were nurtured by a loving mother and supported by a hard-working father. Yet across much of the United States rival modes of childhood prevailed. Farm children and working-class urban youths shared the cramped housing and restricted incomes of their elders, often serving as vital contributors to the family economy. To the dismay of reformers, city children often lagged behind in school and yet displayed precocious independence on the streets. The Age of the Child vividly reinterprets much of progressive reform as a tug-of-war against rival forms of childhood.