Dissertation

Day nurseries and wage-earning mothers in the United States, 1890-1930

Durst, Anne Ruth

1989

Overview

This study is an examination of the day nursery movement, a middle- and upper-class female reform that arose in response to the needs of wage-earning mothers of the working classes. During the period around the turn of the twentieth century, women of the working classes found it increasingly necessary to seek wage labor in order to support themselves and their dependents. Wage-earning mothers needed to procure care for their children during their work hours, and most sought the assistance of relatives and neighbors to do so. Some wage-earning women, however, were unable to secure care for their children from these sources. Some of these women turned to day nurseries, child care agencies created by upper-status women. The day nursery managers, who established and maintained the nurseries, worked within the vast network of female reform movements that arose in response to the wretched conditions in many turn-of-the-century industrial cities. Because day nurseries offered assistance to mothers who sought gainful employment, their creators faced much public criticism, especially from the Charity Organization Societies (COSs), and later from the social work profession. Although some of the day nursery movement's leaders ceded to their critics' demands to limit day nursery services to \"worthy\" families, many women at the level of the individual nurseries, who maintained close contact with the wage-earning mothers, found it difficult to refuse their services to needy women. In many instances, the very families deemed \"unworthy\" by the COSs were those assisted in the nurseries. The professionalization of social services in the 1910s and 1920s altered the day nurseries, as social workers, who were inimical to maternal employment, assumed some of the responsibilities formerly held by the nursery matrons and managers. Despite this development, many day nursery reformers continued to offer support to wage-earning mothers. The creation of day nurseries during the early twentieth century involved a complicated synthesis of the ideas of the movement's leaders, the somewhat different goals of the managers, the personalities and views of the matrons, and the needs of the wage-earning mothers.

• Publisher: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
• Subject: American history / Education history
• ISBN: 9798207139371