Custom essays on Child-saving movement in the United States

One of the key issues in the work of child savers remained the child labor. At the beginning of the twentieth century, most of the social workers agreed, that children under sixteen should not be allowed to work on the same bases as adult people. “From 1908 to 1916, at the behest of the National Child Laborommittee, Lewis Hine photographed children working in textile mills, coal mines, and canneries throughout the South, providing powerful visual support for child savers who sought to end child labor in these industries.” (Goodwin 1997). The federal statutes, related to the regulation of the child labor, appeared only in 1910, however long before, already starting from 1880a lot of state laws, controlling child labor were accepted. One of the steps in this direction was making school education compulsory for all children of certain age. The final decrease in application of children labor in production was also supported by automation of numerous operations along with constant flow of immigrant workers.
The problem of compulsory school education was not completely unregulated before 1890 in America. Unfortunately, the laws, written before this year, were not clear and not strong enough to seize the full control over the situation. Compulsory schools, as well as publicly funded kindergartens were the serious aims of child savers in the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century. Further education reforms were also needed according to the child-savers, who saw the necessity in changing the situation with overcrowded schools and thorough choice of teaching methods. There were even separate educational programs worked out for the children from working class families, which were supposed to help them to gain at least the initial basic skills for becoming industrial workers.
Life of children could not consist purely of education and work, thus leisure time also played a vitally important role in formation of the new generations. “In 1906, Henry S. Curtis and Luther Gulick founded the Playground Association of America, which gained municipal support and focused on providing outdoor play spaces and play leaders for children.” (Michel 1999). This was already the time, when child-savers supported the idea, that play was vitally important for versatile and profound development of personality, starting from the early childhood. Moreover, child savers underlined, that not only the leisure of children from high and middle class families should have the well – organized and thoroughly planned structure, also children from working class families should have the possibility to attend sports and other developing activities. Between the years 1886 and 1896 Gulick founded an evangelical Christian organization, which provided organized sports activities to its younger members.
Irrespective of the degree, how well the life of youth is organized socially and legally, there are always teens and young people, who break the laws due to various reasons, either this happened accidentally or not. Child savers were to pay enough attention to the criminal justice system for children and young people. Soon they came to the conclusion, that it was necessary to establish a separate juridical system for juveniles in America. Thus, already in 1899 the first juvenile court was founded in Chicago. Ben Lindsey – was the name, which was usually associated with this court, as one of the most outstanding speakers, working there. Besides, Lindsey supported the idea, that such court should always take into consideration first of all the interests of the children and be flexible enough towards young criminals. Sixteen years have passed before each state had separate juvenile court. Several years later juvenile courts received psychologists at their disposal along with psychiatry guidance clinics for young people.
Overall, in this paper we have studied the historical development of the child saving movement in the United States during the years 1880s – 1920s. We traced the major strategies, child savers applied in their investigation and work; the key directions they chose to go in order to guarantee all-sided and well-organized support for children and young people of their country, including educational and juridical systems, children labor laws and leisure possibilities. Nowadays, we are used to absolutely different approach to children and teenagers, as most of the people understand, that children are the future of the country and of the whole world, however, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the work of child savers seemed really revolutionary and exceeding the bounds of usual children treatment.
Reference list:

Goodwin, J. L. 1997. Gender and the Politics of Welfare Reform: Mothers’ Pensions in Chicago, 1911–1929. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.