 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
THE U.S. CHILDREN'S BUREAU gggff |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Children's Bureau The Children's Bureau was formally created in 1912 when President William Howard Taft signed into law a bill creating the new federal government organization. The stated purpose of the new Bureau was to investigate and report "upon all matters pertaining to the welfare of children and child life among all classes of our people." As historian Kriste Lindenmeyer explains the significance of the creation of the Children's Bureau: "A history of the Children's Bureau offers an excellent example of the link between the Progressive and New Deal eras. The Children's Bureau provided a national focus for child welfare reform and designed the model upon which public child welfare policy developed throughout the twentieth century." [1] A Grassroots Campaign The signing of this law culminated a grass-roots process started in 1903 by two early social reformers, Lillian Wald, of New York's Henry Street Settlement House, and Florence Kelly, of the National Consumer's League. Along the way, their efforts picked up support from President Theodore Roosevelt, among other prominent supporters, before finally becoming law nine years after they launched the initiative. Lillian D. Wald and her friend Florence Kelley had long been concerned about the plight of children in post-industrial America. These two practical dreamers and fearless critics of the status quo met together for friendly conversation as often as their busy lives allowed. On a day in 1903, while they were having their morning coffee at the Settlement, two letters came in the mail. “Why is it so many children die like flies in the summer, time?” one of these letters asked. “Is there something I can do to help matters?” The other was from a mother whose husband had died. She was troubled because now that she would have to go out to earn support for her children, she would have to place them in an institution. “There must be thousands of mothers all over the United States in just such situations,” observed Miss Wald. “I wish there were some agency that would tell us what can be done about these problems.” Miss Wald and Mrs. Kelley turned to the morning newspaper. The Secretary of Agriculture, the paper reported, was going south that, day to find out how much damage the boll weevil was doing to the crops. That gave Miss Wald an idea. “If the Government can have a department to take such an interest in what is happening to the Nation's cotton crop, why can't it have a bureau to look after the Nation's crop of children?” she asked. Mrs. Kelley talked to Dr. Edward T. Devine, Columbia University sociologist, about the idea. He wired President Theodore Roosevelt that Lillian Wald had an idea which he wanted the President to know about. “Bully,” the President wired back, “Come down and tell me about it!” Dr. Devine and Lillian Wald went to Washington and met with the President and in short-order persuaded him to support the idea of a Children’s Bureau. With the President’s support, the idea began to gain momentum, although it would take several years of a grass-roots campaign before Lillian Wald’s idea became the law of the land. In the campaign to get the Congress to act, Miss Wald was one of the most powerful and persuasive voices in support of the Children’s Bureau–testifying before Congress, making speeches, lobbying officials, and refusing to take no for an answer. Finally, on April 9, 1912 President Taft signed the bill into law creating the Federal Children’s Bureau–and the lives of millions of children were forever changed for the better.
“We cherish belief in the children and hope through them for the future. But no longer can a civilized people be satisfied with the casual administration of that trust. I ask you to consider whether this call for the children's interest does not imply the call for our country's interest. Can we afford to take it? Can we afford not to take it? In the name of humanity, of social well-being, of the security of the Republic's future, let us bring the child in the sphere of our national care and solicitude.” – Lillian Wald, Congressional Hearings, 1909 After several false starts in Congress, the successful bill was sponsored by Senator William E. Borah. The bill authorized the creation of a 16-person organization, with a first-year budget of $25,640. Initially part of the Department of Commerce, the Children's Bureau was transferred to the Department of Labor in 1913. The law also called for the Bureau to be headed by a Chief, who would be a Presidential appointee, subject to Senate confirmation. The first Chief of the Children's Bureau was Julia Lathrop. The Children's Bureau & The Social Security Act A large part of the Social Security Act of 1935 was intended to support and address the programs of the Children's Bureau. Staff from the Bureau, especially Katherine Lenroot and Martha Eliot, worked with the President's Committee on Economic Security which designed and drafted the Social Security Act. Title V of the Act, Grants to the States for Maternal and Child Welfare, was assigned to the Children's Bureau and gave the Bureau equal status with the unemployment compensation and old-age provisions of the Social Security Act. Indeed, Title IV of the Act, the Aid to Dependent Children (ADC) program, was also in furtherance of the general mission of the Bureau, although formal oversight responsibility for the ADC program was assigned to the Social Security Board. The Bureaucratic Journey of the Children's Bureau The Children's Bureau continued to be part of the Department of Labor until 1946. As part of the same reorganization that created the Social Security Administration (SSA), the Children's Bureau was transferred to SSA, effective July 1946. This was done, according to President Truman's executive order, because "The transfer of the Children's Bureau . . . will strengthen the child-care programs by bringing them in closer association with the health, welfare, and educational activities with which they are inextricably bound up." This transfer was deeply significant in terms of the Bureau's mission. The Children's Bureau began life in an era when child labor was commonplace, and one of its core initial missions was to work to relieve the misery caused by exploitative child labor. It was natural, therefore, to think of the Children's Bureau as aligned with the labor-related agencies, first Commerce and then Labor. Over time, as child labor was outlawed, the focus of the Bureau had shifted more to health and welfare issues--a shift which was, in many respects, an expression of the Bureau's success. The year 1962 saw both the 50th anniversary of the Children's Bureau and the end of its placement within SSA. The Public Welfare Amendments of 1962 expanded the role of the Bureau in the welfare area, and increased the emphasis on the Bureau's work. One result was a reorganization of the Department of Health Education and Welfare (HEW), in which both SSA and the Bureau were components. This reorganization created a new Welfare Administration and the Children's Bureau become a component in the new organization. Over time, the organizational placement and role of the Children's Bureau continued to evolve. In 1968 the Children's Bureau became part of the Social and Rehabilitation Service of HEW; in 1970 it was submerged in a new Office of Child Development; later in the 1970s it became part of the Public Health Service; it is currently part of the Department of Health & Human Services' Administration for Children and Families. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| [1] Lindenmeyer, 253. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
