The Child-Saving Movement

The new economy produces a substantial urban upper class, and a growing number of women of means — predominantly Protestant women — find themselves with time on their hands. Focusing on children seems a "natural" choice for this first generation of educated women, who cannot enter the professional workforce and need a socially acceptable outlet for their smarts and energy. The targets of their "work" are orphaned, poor, immigrant, delinquent, and dependent youth. In the name of moral uplift, these social workers seek to extend government control over a wide range of youth activity. Incorrigibility, loitering, disobedience, disorderly conduct, and the like become status offenses, only deemed illegal when perpetrated by minors. This legislation is designed to discipline and constrain these kids; by avoiding a crime and punishment framework, it bypasses the safeguards and due process rights that should be guaranteed.

From the beginning, the system is marked by issues of class, race, and gender. African American youth are placed in segregated reformatories with inferior resources; Native Americans are forced into boarding schools and stripped of their cultural heritage. In New York City, the "placing out" movement sends children, most of them Catholic, to the Midwest or upstate, often to Protestant homes, in the name of resocialization. Delinquents from the middle and upper classes are largely exempt from court referrals and imprisonment. By the end of the century, the child-saving movement will reach its apex with the creation of the first juvenile court.

Didn't Live Nowhere Jacob Riis, 1890