Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-21T16:23:53.287Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Child Abuse, Policy Communities, and Frame Contestation During the Progressive Era

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2019

Ann-Marie Szymanski*
Affiliation:
University of Oklahoma

Abstract:

Why did child abuse become a less significant problem after 1910? This article focuses on frame contestation, and how child-protection organizations gradually lost control of the narrative about fragile families to a competing set of groups—those that emphasized “family saving.” Like many interest groups, the SPCCs developed an “issue frame” in their efforts to publicize their mission, which sought to define a problem (child abuse), attribute blame for that situation (inadequate parents), propose a solution (the removal of children from parents), and encourage others to support their cause. After 1900, however, “family saving” groups identified a problem related to child abuse (fragile families), portrayed poverty as a cause of family instability, and supported policies that sought to preserve families. While advocating for policies that strengthened families, however, they undercut child protectors’ most crucial weapon against child abuse, namely, the removal of affected children from inadequate parents.

Type
Article
Copyright
Copyright © Donald Critchlow and Cambridge University Press 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

NOTES

1. “Gerry Society’s Record,” New York Times (6 February 1905), 7; Thirty-Fourth Annual Report of the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (Philadelphia, 1910), 7.

2. Figures 1 and 2 reflect the number of new complaints per year recorded by the Illinois Humane Society (1884–1936), the Philadelphia Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (1878–1924), the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (1876–1935), and the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (1881–1930). Some data are missing because of the organizations’ idiosyncratic recordkeeping. (For example, in its early years, the Illinois Humane Society combined its reports on children and animals.) To determine per capita complaints, the author used the U.S. Census Reports for Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. In 1898, the City of Greater New York was created, consolidating the existing City of New York (Manhattan) with the eastern Bronx, Brooklyn, most of Queens County, and Staten Island. For the purposes of consistency and historical accuracy (the NYPCC was a Manhattan institution), the per capita data for New York was based on the population of Manhattan.

3. Wilkin, Robert J., “Why Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children Are Needed,” Humane Advocate 9 (October 1914), 602–3, 606–7;Google Scholar “Fewer Humane Societies,” New York Times, 6 October 1914, 5.

4. Baumgartner, Frank R. and Jones, Bryan, Agendas and Instability in American Politics , 2nd ed., (Chicago, 2009), chaps. 1, 5, and 8.Google Scholar

5. Nelson, Barbara J., Making an Issue of Child Abuse: Political Agenda Setting for Social Problems (Chicago, 1984), chap. 4;Google Scholar Baumgartner, and Jones, , Agendas and Instability in American Politics , chap. 8.Google Scholar

6. Downs, Anthony, “Up and Down with Ecology: The Issue-Attention Cycle,” The Public Interest 32 (Summer 1972): 3850.Google Scholar

7. Nelson, , Making an Issue of Child Abuse, 25, 5156.Google Scholar

8. For an overview of the literature on framing, see Benford, Robert D. and Snow, David A., “Framing Processes and Social Movements: An Overview and Assessment,” Annual Review of Sociology 26 (2000): 611–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For a discussion of issue framing by interest groups, see Boscarino, Jessica E., “Setting the Record Straight: Frame Contestation as an Advocacy Tactic,” Policy Studies Journal 44 (2016): 280308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9. See, for instance, Haines, Herbert H., Against Capital Punishment: The Anti-Death Penalty Movement in America, 1972–1994 (New York, 1999), chaps. 4–6.Google Scholar For an account of adversarial framing, see Boscarino, “Setting the Record Straight,” 291–303.

10. See, for example, Recchiuti, John L., Civic Engagement: Social Science and Progressive-Era Reform in New York City (Philadelphia, 2007);Google Scholar Cunningham, Raymond J., “‘Scientia Pro Patria’: Herbert Baxter Adams and Mugwump Academic Reform at Johns Hopkins, 1876–1901,” Prospects 15 (1990): 109–44;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Fee, Elizabeth, Disease and Discovery: A History of the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, 1916–1939 (Baltimore, 1987).Google Scholar

11. Ashby, LeRoy, Endangered Children: Dependency, Neglect, and Abuse in American History (New York, 1997), 6;Google Scholar Costin, Lela B. et al., The Politics of Child Abuse in America (New York, 1996), 5258.Google Scholar

12. Gordon, , Heroes of Their Own Lives, chap. 2.Google Scholar

13. In many ways, the crusade to prevent cruelty to children was an outgrowth of the campaign to prevent cruelty to animals. Hence, Humane Societies often sought to address both issues within the same organization. For a discussion of the relationship between animal and child protection, see Pearson, Susan J., The Rights of the Defenseless: Protecting Animals and Children in the Gilded Age (Chicago, 2011).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14. See, for example, Szymanski, Ann-Marie, “Regulatory Transformations in a Changing City: The Anti-Smoke Movement in Baltimore, 1895–1931,” Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 13 (2014): 336–76;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Szymanski, , “Wildlife Protection and the Development of Centralized Governance in the Progressive Era,” in Statebuilding from the Margins: Between Reconstruction and the New Deal, ed. Nackenoff, Carol and Novkov, Julie (Philadelphia, 2014);Google Scholar Szymanski, , “Stop, Thief! Private Protective Societies in Nineteenth-Century New England,” New England Quarterly 78 (2005): 407–39;Google Scholar Szymanski, , “Dry Compulsions: Prohibition and the Creation of State-Level Enforcement Agencies,” Journal of Policy History 11 (1999): 115–46;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Wang, Jessica, “Dogs and the Making of the American State: Voluntary Associations, State Power, and the Politics of Animal Control in New York City, 1850–1920,” Journal of American History 98 (2012): 9981024;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Freitag, Raelene, “The Peril and Promise of Nineteenth-Century Child Protection: The Wisconsin Humane Society, 1879–1920” (PhD diss., University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, 1997).Google Scholar

15. Walker, L. Charlotte H., “A Comparison of the Characteristics of Child Abuse and Neglect Cases Investigated by the Illinois Humane Society in 1904, 1934, and 1964” (M.A. thesis, University of Illinois–Chicago, 1968);Google Scholar Marciniak, Virginia, ed., The Illinois Humane Society, 1869–1979 (Chicago, 1981);Google Scholar Freitag, , “The Peril and Promise of Nineteenth-Century Child Protection;Google Scholar Gordon, Linda, Heroes of Their Own Lives, 3752;Google Scholar Myers, , Child Protection in America, chap. 2.Google Scholar

16. McArthur, Benjamin, “‘Forbid Them Not’: Child Actor Labor Laws and Political Activism in the Theatre, Theatre Survey 36 (1995): 6380;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Costin, et al., The Politics of Child Abuse in America, chap. 2;Google Scholar Bremner, Robert H., ed., Children and Youth in America: A Documentary History (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), 192–95;Google Scholar Thomas, Mason P. Jr., “Child Abuse and Neglect, Part I: Historical Overview, Legal Matrix, and Social Perspectives,” North Carolina Law Review 50 (1972): 310–12.Google Scholar

17. Gordon, Linda, “Single Mothers and Child Neglect, 1880–1920,” American Quarterly 37 (Summer 1985): 175;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Ashby, , Endangered Children, 59;Google Scholar McCrea, , The Humane Movement, 1415.Google Scholar In some of these cases, the groups in question sought to protect both animals and children and adopted the more generic name, “humane society.”

18. McCrea, , The Humane Movement, 1824;Google Scholar Shultz, William J., The Humane Movement in the United States, 1910–1922 (New York, 1924), 216, 297–99;Google Scholar Nineteenth Annual Report of the Louisiana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (New Orleans, 1911), 90–92; Gordon, , Heroes of Their Own Lives, 5155;Google Scholar Freitag, , “The Peril and Promise of Nineteenth-Century Child Protection,” chaps. 1–4.Google Scholar

19. Oakes, Dallin H., “Habeas Corpus in the States, 1776–1865,” University of Chicago Law Review 32 (1965): 270–74.Google Scholar

20. Gordon, , Heroes of Their Own Lives, 55;Google Scholar Gordon, , “Single Mothers and Child Neglect,” 173–87;Google Scholar Freitag, , “The Peril and Promise of Nineteenth-Century Child Protection,” chap. 4.Google Scholar

21. Fourth Annual Report of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (Boston, 1885), 19–23; Thirty-Third Annual Report of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (Boston, 1913), 17–19; Twenty-Ninth Annual Report of the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (Philadelphia, 1906), 17–22.

22. Gordon, , Heroes of Their Own Lives, chap. 2;Google Scholar Cave, Mark, Saving Wednesday’s Child (New Orleans, 2008), 2629.Google Scholar

23. Walker, , “A Comparison of the Characteristics of Child Abuse and Neglect Cases Investigated by the Illinois Humane Society,” 3036;Google Scholar Thirty-Ninth Annual Report of the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (Philadelphia, 1916), 17; Ashby, , Endangered Children, 61;Google Scholar Thomas, Jr., “Child Abuse and Neglect,” 313–22;Google Scholar Broder, Sherri, “Informing the ‘Cruelty’: The Monitoring of Respectability in Philadelphia’s Working-Class Neighborhoods in the Late Nineteenth Century,” Radical America 21 (1987): 3447;Google Scholar Gordon, Linda, “Family Violence, Feminism, and Social Control,” Feminist Studies 12 (1986): 453–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24. Freitag, , “The Peril and Promise of Nineteenth Century Child Protection,” 6869.Google Scholar

25. “For the Protection of Children,” The Daily Picayune (New Orleans), (10 December 1893), 4; “Christmas for the Waifs,” Daily Picayune (New Orleans), 18 December 1893, 3; Gordon, , Heroes of Their Own Lives, 37, 60;Google Scholar Myers, , Child Protection in America, 4547.Google Scholar

26. For some examples of these photographs, see the annual reports of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children; Myers, , Child Protection in America, 3839;Google Scholar Gordon, , Heroes of Their Own Lives, chap. 2;Google Scholar Sealander, Judith, The Failed Century of the Child: Governing America’s Young in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge, 2003), 58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

27. Gordon, , Heroes of Their Own Lives, 55.Google Scholar

28. Nelson, , Making an Issue of Child Abuse, 10.Google Scholar

29. Shultz, , The Humane Movement in the United States , 1417.Google Scholar

30. Freitag, , “The Peril and Promise of Nineteenth-Century Child Protection,” chaps. 4–6.Google Scholar

31. For Milwaukee, see ibid., 225.

32. For the pattern of complaints to the Illinois Humane Society, the PSPCC, the NYPCC, and the Boston branch of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, see the annual reports of these groups as well as the U.S. Census data about population trends in Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston.

33. See, for example, “L.S.P.C. May Give Up for Lack of Funds,” Daily Picayune (New Orleans), 22 November 1913, 5; “S.P.C.C. Society Has Annual Meeting,” Daily Picayune (New Orleans), 2 February 1917, 5.

34. Smith, Bridges, “Just ‘Twixt Us,” Macon (Georgia) Telegraph , 18 October 29, 6.Google Scholar

35. Freitag, , “The Peril and Promise of Nineteenth Century-Child Protection,” 191–94;Google Scholar Thirtieth Annual Report of the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (Philadelphia, 1907), 20; Thirty-first Annual Report of the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (Philadelphia, 1908), 14; Thirty-fifth Annual Report of the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (Philadelphia, 1911), 2, 7–9; Thirty-sixth Annual Report of the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (Philadelphia, 1912), 2, 10–11; Forty-fourth Annual Report of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (Boston, 1924), 8–9. The MSPCC relied heavily on bequests to cover its operating deficits for a good portion of the early twentieth century.

36. Thirty-fourth Annual Report of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (Boston, 1914), 24; Thirty-fifth Annual Report of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (Boston, 1915), 21; Fortieth Annual Report of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (Boston, 1920), 8; Forty-first Annual Report of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (Boston, 1921), 16.

37. Myers, , Child Protection in America, 4971;Google Scholar Ashby, , Endangered Children, chap. 5;Google Scholar Costin, et al., The Politics of Child Abuse in America , chap. 3;Google Scholar Nelson, , Making an Issue of Child Abuse, 811.Google Scholar

38. Gordon, , Heroes of Their Own Lives, chaps. 3 and 5;Google Scholar Shultz, , The Humane Movement in the United States, 209–22;Google Scholar Twenty-first Annual Report of the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (Philadelphia, 1898), 21; Thirty-fourth Annual Report of the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, 7–8; Cave, , Saving Wednesday’s Child , 111–12.Google Scholar

39. Nelson, , Making an Issue of Child Abuse, 11;Google Scholar “The Gerry Society Wins,” New York Times, 10 January 1900, 4; “Against the Gerry Society,” New York Times, 16 January 1900, 8; “Anti-Gerry Bill Disposed Of,” New York Times, 5 April 1900, 5; “Child Witness Held in Strict Seclusion,” New York Times, 2 October 1902, 16; “Too Haughty by More Than Half,” New York Times, 18 September 1909, 8; “Schiff Tells Why He Quit the S.P.C.C.,” New York Times, 11 December 1924, 19; “Heckscher Fights Caffey’s Report,” New York Times, 13 December 1924, 7; “Decry Police Work by Welfare Bodies,” New York Times, 22 January 1925, 8; “S.P.C.C. Police Work Is Again Criticized,” New York Times, 5 February 1925, 10; “S.P.C.C. Hit Again for Police Tactics,” New York Times, 19 February 1925, 12; “Talley Defends Children’s Society,” New York Times, 27 March 1925, 12.

40. Costin, , et al., The Politics of Child Abuse in America, chaps. 2 and 3;Google Scholar Marciniak, , ed., The Illinois Humane Society, 2656;Google Scholar Freitag, , “The Peril and Promise of Nineteenth Century Child Protection,” chap. 6;Google Scholar Ashby, , Endangered Children, 75;Google Scholar Myers, , Child Protection in America, 7476.Google Scholar

41. Gordon, , Heroes of Their Own Lives, chap. 2;Google Scholar Schlessinger, Jill Beth, “‘Such Inhuman Treatment’: Family Violence in the Chicago Middle Class, 1871–1920” (PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1998), 6568.Google Scholar

42. Tiffin, Susan, In Whose Best Interest? Child Welfare Reform in the Progressive Era (Westport, Conn., 1982);Google Scholar Platt, Anthony M., The Child Savers: The Invention of Delinquency , expanded ed. (New Brunswick, 2009), chap. 6.Google Scholar

43. Tiffin, , In Whose Best Interest? , 215–29;Google Scholar Platt, , The Child Savers;Google Scholar Ryerson, Ellen, The Best Laid Plans: America’s Juvenile Court Experiment (New York, 1978);Google Scholar Schlossman, Stephen, Love and the American Delinquent: The Theory and Practice of ‘Progressive’ Juvenile Justice, 1825–1920 (Chicago, 1977);CrossRefGoogle Scholar Sealander, , The Failed Century of the Child, 131 (first quotation on p. 21);Google Scholar Costin, 2008Costin, et al., The Politics of Child Abuse in America, 9094;Google Scholar Freitag, , “The Peril and Promise of Nineteenth-Century Child Protection,” 230–31.Google Scholar

44. Nackenoff, Carol and Sullivan, Kathleen, “The House That Julia (and Friends) Built: Networking the Chicago Juvenile Court,” in State-Building from the Outside In: Agency and Institution Formation Between the Civil War and the New Deal , ed. Nackenoff, Carol and Novkov, Julie (Philadelphia, 2014).Google Scholar

45. Nackenoff, and Sullivan, , “The House That Julia (and Friends) Built”;Google Scholar Tiffin, , In Whose Best Interest? , 215229;Google Scholar Freitag, , “The Peril and Promise of Nineteenth Century Child Protection,” 236–38;Google Scholar Myers, , Child Protection in America, 7980;Google Scholar Ashby, , Endangered Children, 118.Google Scholar

46. Thirty-sixth Annual Report of the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, 8–9; Thirty-eighth Annual Report of the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (Philadelphia, 1914), 8–9; Warner, Charles H., “County Children’s Courts,” Humane Advocate 8 (December 1917): 1719.Google Scholar

47. Specht, Harry and Courtney, Mark, Unfaithful Angels: How Social Work Has Abandoned Its Mission (New York, 1994), 60175;Google Scholar Anderson, Paul Gerard, “The Origin, Emergence, and Professional Recognition of Child Protection,” Social Science Review (December 1989): 228;Google Scholar Costin, et al., The Politics of Child Abuse in America, 9597;Google Scholar Freitag, , “The Peril and Promise of Nineteenth-Century Child Protection,” 236–38;Google Scholar Myers, , Child Protection in America, 7980;Google Scholar Ashby, , Endangered Children, 118.Google Scholar

48. Curran, Laura, “Longing to ‘Belong’: Foster Children in Mid-Century Philadelphia,” Journal of Social History 42 (December 2008): 425–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

49. Gordon, , Heroes of Their Own Lives, chap. 7;Google Scholar Thirty-fourth Annual Report of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, 29.

50. Myers, , Child Protection in America, chap. 5;Google Scholar Ashby, , Endangered Children, 118;Google Scholar Sacco, Lynn, Unspeakable: Father-Daughter Incest in American History (Baltimore, 2009).Google Scholar

51. Myers, , Child Protection in America, 80;Google Scholar Ashby, , Endangered Children, 11.Google Scholar

52. Contrary to the claims of Nelson (Making an Issue of Child Abuse) and Baumgartner and Jones (Agendas and Instability in American Politics), newspapers continued to report on dramatic episodes of child abuse prior to its “re-discovery” in 1962. However, the primary actors in these episodes were law-enforcement agencies and the criminal-court system, not child-welfare organizations. See, for example, the episodes discussed in Freitag, “The Peril and Promise of Nineteenth-Century Child Protection,” 224–26.

53. Walker, , “A Comparison of the Characteristics of Child Abuse and Neglect Cases Investigated by the Illinois Humane Society,” 5;Google Scholar Marciniak, , ed., The Illinois Humane Society , 5456, 63–64;Google Scholar Pfohl, Stephen J., “The ‘Discovery’ of Child Abuse,” Social Problems 24 (1977): 310–19;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Nelson, , Making an Issue of Child Abuse, chap. 1;Google Scholar Myers, , Child Protection in America, 7690.Google Scholar

54. Baumgartner, and Jones, , Agendas and Instability in American Politics, 169.Google Scholar