A short history of child protection in America

Family Law Quarterly

Volumn 42, Issue 3, 2008, Pages 449-463

  Myers, John E B ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF THE PACIFIC   (United States)

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EID: 69249185466     PISSN: 0014729X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (61)

1. For those interested in in-depth treatment of the history of child protection, I have written three overlapping books on the subject: Child Protection in America: Past, Present and Future (2006)
2. A History of Child Protection in America (2004) [hereinafter A History]; and Child Protection in America: A History (manuscript available from the author; jmyers @pacific.edu).
3. See also Marvin Ventrell, The History of Child Welfare Law, in Child Welfare Law and Practice: Representing Children, Parents, and State Agencies in Abuse, Neglect, and Dependency Cases 113-42 (Marvin Ventrell & Donald N. Duquette eds., 2005).
4. The case against the shopkeeper was sold to the public as a pamphlet.
5. See Henry C. Southwick, The Trial of Amos Broad and His Wife, on Three Several Indictments for Assaulting and Beating Betty, A Slave, and Her Little Female Child Sarah, Aged Three Years (1809), reprinted in Free Blacks, Slaves, and Slave Owners in Civil and Criminal Courts: The Pamphlet Literature, at 179-209 (Paul Finkelman ed., 1988) [hereinafter Free Blacks, Slaves, and Slaveowners]. The original pamphlet was published in 1809 in New York and covered pages 1-31. For details of this case of horrendous physical abuse
6. see A History, supra note 1, at 126-27.
7. This was another pamphlet.
8. See Ryer Schermerorn, Report of the Trial of Susanna (1810), reprinted in Free Blacks, Slaves, and Slaveowners, supra note 2, at 211-60. The original pamphlet was published in 1810 in Troy, N.Y., and covered pages 1-50.
9. See Fletcher v. People, 52 Ill. 395 (1869).
10. Id. at 395.
11. See People v. Benson, 6 Cal. 221 (1856). The Benson case is discussed in detail in A History, supra note 1, at 126-27.
12. I read every reported rape case in the California Supreme Court and the California Courts of Appeal from 1856 to 1940. Most victims were children, not adult women.
13. Clyde E. Buckingham, Early American Orphanages: Ebenezer and Bethesda, 26 Soc. Forces 311,311-321 (1948).
14. An Act Concerning the Care and Education of Neglected Children, 1866 Mass. Acts ch. 283.
15. th ed. 1886).
16. The case of Mary Ellen is discussed at length in my books on the history of child protection. See supra note 1.
17. Mary Ellen's father died in the Civil War, and her mother disappeared. After the judge removed Mary Ellen from her guardians' custody, Etta Wheeler asked the judge to allow the child to live with Wheeler's own mother in upstate New York. The judge agreed, and Mary Ellen was sent to live with Wheeler's mother. Wheeler's mother died soon after Mary Ellen arrived, but one of Wheeler's sisters stepped in and raised Mary Ellen as a daughter. At the age of twenty-four, Mary Ellen married. She had two daughters of her own, both of whom went to college and became teachers. Mary Ellen lived well into the twentieth century.
18. Douglas P. Falconer, Child and Youth Protection, in 3 Social Work Yearbook 63, 65 (Fred S. Hall ed., 1935).
19. Social Security Act of 1935, § 521, 49 Stat. 620, 633.
20. See Vincent De Francis, Child Protective Services in the United States: Reporting a Nationwide Survey (1956).
21. See Vincent De Francis, Children's Div., Am. Humane Ass'n, Child Protective Services: A National Survey (1967).
22. Id. at 11.
23. Id. at 122.
24. E. Elizabeth Glover & Joseph H. Reid, Unmet and Future Needs, 355 Annals Am. Acad. Pol. & Soc. Sci. 9, 14 (1964).
25. See John Caffey, Multiple Fractures in the Long Bones of Infants Suffering from Chronic Subdural Hematoma, 56 Am. J. Roentgenology 163 (1946).
26. See C. Henry Kempe et al., The Battered-Child Syndrome, 181 J. Am. Med. Ass'N 17 (1962).
27. When They're Angry, Newsweek, Apr. 16, 1962, at 74.
28. Id. (quoting Kempe et al., supra note 21).
29. Elizabeth Elmer, Identification of Abused Children, 10 Child. 180, 180 (1963).
30. Public Welfare Amendments of 1962, Pub. L. No. 87-543, § 528, 76 Stat. 172, 172.
31. De Francis, supra note 16, at 4.
32. See generally U.S. Gov't Accountability Office, GAO 07-816, African American Children in Foster Care: Additional HHS Assistance Needed to Help States Reduce the Proportion in Care (2007).
33. Letter of Transmittal from Walter F. Mondale to Harrison A. Williams (Mar. 15, 1974), in Questions and Answers on Children and Youth of the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, S. 1191, 93rd Cong. pt. VII (1974).
34. Pub. L. No. 93-247, 88 Stat. 4 (1974)
35. see also Sanford N. Katz, Family Law in America 139-47 (2003).
36. Pub. L. No. 95-608, 92 Stat. 3069 (1978).
37. Id. at § 2(3)-(4).
38. Nat'l Ass'n of Black Social Workers, Position Paper (Apr. 4-9, 1972) (on file with author). The position paper was developed at a conference of the National Association of Black Social Workers in Nashville, Tennessee, on April 4-9, 1972.
39. Elizabeth Bartholet, Nobody's Children: Abuse and Neglect, Foster Drift, and the Adoption Alternative 124-25 (1999).
40. Cynthia G. Hawkins-Leon & Carla Bradley, Race and Transracial Adoption: The Answer Is Neither Simply Black or White nor Right or Wrong, 51 Cath. U. L. Rev. 1227, 1239 (2002).
41. -42 U.S.C. §§ 671(18), 1996b (2006).
42. Pub. L. No. 96-272, 94 Stat. 500 (1980).
43. Richard J. Gelles, The Book of David: How Preserving Families Can Cost Children's Lives (1996).
44. Id. at 148-50.
45. Pub. L. No. 105-89, 111 Stat. 2115 (1997).
46. Vincent De Francis, Protecting the Child Victim of Sex Crimes Committed by Adults 5 (1969).
47. David R. Walters, Physical and Sexual Abuse of Children: Causes and Treatment (1975).
48. Suzanne M. Sgroi, Molestation of Children: The Last Frontier in Child Abuse, Child. Today, May-June 1975, at 18.
49. C. Henry Kempe, Sexual Abuse, Another Hidden Pediatric Problem: The 1977 C. Anderson Aldrich Lecture, 62 Pediatrics 382, 382 (1978). Kempe wrote, "Often, pediatricians will simply not even consider the diagnosis of incest in making an assessment of an emotionally disturbed child or adolescent of either sex." Id. at 383.
50. What writing there was prior to the 1970s tended to be highly skeptical of women and children who claimed to have been sexually assaulted. For analysis of the pre-1970s literature
51. see generally A History, supra note 1.
52. See De Francis, Protecting the Child Victim, supra note 40.
53. Id. at vii.
54. Id. at 1.
55. David Finkelhor, Sexually Victimized Children (1979).
56. Id. at 1.
57. Id. at 53.
58. Diana E.H. Russell, Incidence and Prevalence of Intrafamilial and Extrafamilial Sexual Abuse of Female Children, 7 Child Abuse & Neglect (Special Issue) 2, 133-146 (1983).
59. See id.
60. See id.
61. De Francis, supra note 16, at 11.