Children's Bureau

Examples of Children's Bureau in the following topics:

• Toward a Welfare State

  • Maternalist reforms provided assistance for mothers and children, expanding the American welfare state.
  • The Children's Bureau was established by President William Howard Taft in 1912.
  • It was the first national government office in the world that focused solely on the well-being of children and their mothers.
  • Taft appointed Julia Lathrop as the first head of the bureau.
  • The Children's Bureau played a major role in the passage and administration of the Sheppard-Towner Act, the first federal grants-in-aid act for state-level children's health programs.

• Maternalist Reform

  • The Children's Bureau under Lathrop (1912-21) and her successors became an administrative unit that not only created child welfare policy but also led its implementation.
  • For many conservative women, the Bureau's focus on maternal and child welfare gave them a role in politics for the first time -- something that the suffrage or women's rights movements had not offered them.
  • The Bureau expanded its budget and personnel to focus on a scientific approach to motherhood in order to reduce infant and maternal mortality, improve child health, and advocate for trained care for children with disabilities.
  • Prior to the reform era, children over the age of seven were imprisoned with adults.
  • The United States Children's Bureau worked extensively with state-level departments of health to advise them on how to use Sheppard-Towner funding.

• Progressives and the Working Class

  • In 1901, Jane Addams founded the Juvenile Protective Association, a nonprofit agency dedicated to protecting children from abuse.
  • In 1903, Mary Harris Jones organized the Children's Crusade, a march of child workers from Kensington, Pennsylvania, to the home of President Theodore Roosevelt in Oyster Bay, New York, bringing national attention to the issue of child labor.
  • In 1909, President Roosevelt hosted the first White House Conference on Children, which continued to be held every decade through the 1970s.
  • In 1912, the United States Children's Bureau was created in order to investigate "all matters pertaining to the welfare of children and child life among all classes of our people. " An alliance of labor and humanitarian groups induced some state legislatures to grant aid to mothers with dependent children.
  • Under pressure from the National Child Labor Committee, nearly every state set a minimum age for employment and limited hours that employers could make children work.

• Elements of Reform

  • In 1903, Mary Harris Jones organized the Children's Crusade, a march of child workers from Kensington, Pennsylvania to the home of President Theodore Roosevelt in Oyster Bay, New York, bringing national attention to the issue of child labor.
  • In 1912, the United States Children's Bureau was created in order to investigate "all matters pertaining to the welfare of children and child life among all classes of our people. " At the instigation of middle class coalitions, many states enacted factory inspection laws, and by 1916 two-thirds of the states required compensation for victims of industrial accidents.
  • An alliance of labor and humanitarian groups induced some legislatures to grant aid to mothers with dependent children.
  • Under pressure from the National Child Labor to Committee, nearly every state set a minimum age for employment and limited hours that employers could make children work.Families that needed extra income evaded child labor restrictions by falsifying their children's ages to employers.
  • Many cities set up municipal reference bureaus to study the budgets and administrative structures of local governments.

• The Spread of Public Education

  • Common schools were funded by local taxes, did not charge tuition, and were open to all white children.
  • Mann hoped that by bringing children of all classes together, they could share a common learning experience.
  • From 1750–1870, parochial schools appeared as ad hoc efforts by parishes, and most Catholic children attended public schools.
  • In the era of reconstruction, the Freedmen's Bureau opened 1000 schools across the South for black children.
  • Overall, the Bureau spent $5 million to set up schools for blacks.

• Indian Resistance and Survival

  • Bureau of the Census (1894), The Indian Wars under the government of the United States have been more than 40 in number.
  • They have cost the lives of about 19,000 white men, women, and children--including those killed in individual combats-- and the lives of about 30,000 Indians.
  • Census Bureau estimated that about 0.8% of the U.S. population was of American Indian or Alaska Native descent.

• Educational Reforms

  • Common schools were funded by local taxes, did not charge tuition, and were open to all white children.
  • In the era of Reconstruction after the Civil War, the Freedmen's Bureau opened 1,000 schools across the South for black children.
  • Schooling was a high priority for the Bureau, and enrollment was high and enthusiastic.
  • Overall, the Bureau spent $5 million to set up schools for African Americans.
  • With 120 million copies sold since 1836, McGuffey Readers taught many American children to read.

• The Social Gospel

  • He established a free dispensary for medical emergencies, an employment bureau for job seekers, a summer camp for children, night schools for extended learning, and English language classes.
  • The Baptist minister Jim Goodhart set up an employment bureau, and provided food and lodging for tramps and hobos at the mission he ran.
  • He build a model church, with night schools, unemployment bureaus, a kindergarten, an anti-tuberculosis clinic, and the nation's first church-owned radio station.
  • The Presbyterians described its goals in 1910 by proclaiming the following: "The great ends of the church are the proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of humankind; the shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship of the children of God; the maintenance of divine worship; the preservation of truth; the promotion of social righteousness; and the exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the world."

• The Freed Slaves

  • The bureau was created through the Freedmen's Bureau Bill, which was initiated by President Abraham Lincoln, and was intended to last for one year after the end of the Civil War.
  • They had worked hard to establish schools in their communities prior to the advent of the Freedmen's Bureau.
  • The bureau faced many challenges despite its good intentions, efforts, and limited successes.
  • The schools for black children were consistently underfunded compared to schools for white children, even when considered within the strained finances of the postwar South.
  • Two children who were likely emancipated during the Civil War, circa 1870.

• The Freedmen's Bureau

  • The Bureau was created through the Freedmen's Bureau Bill, which was initiated by President Abraham Lincoln, and was intended to last for one year after the end of the Civil War.
  • Howard, the Bureau was operational until 1871, when it was disbanded under President Ulysses S.
  • Overall, the Bureau spent $5 million to set up schools for blacks.
  • The Bureau faced many challenges despite its good intentions, efforts, and limited successes.
  • Office of the Freedmen's Bureau, Memphis, Tennessee. (1866) From Harper's Weekly