Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T11:39:46.898Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Professional Social Workers, Adoption, and the Problem of Illegitimacy, 1915–1945

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 October 2011

E. Wayne Carp
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Several years ago, Regina G. Kunzel presented a provocative examination of the Florence Crittenton maternity homes between 1915 and 1945. Her goal was to trace “the history of the transformation from evangelical to professional work with unmarried mothers.” Kunzel's thesis is that in the early twentieth century the control and treatment of unmarried mothers shifted dramatically: from evangelical women “who understood their work in terms of the ‘feminine’ virtues of piety and sympathy” to social work professionals “who claimed expertise based on training in the scientific method.” Evangelical women wanted to redeem “fallen women” in need of salvation—which they regarded as “a moral problem to be solved by sisterhood.” In contrast, social workers viewed unmarried mothers as “social units” requiring scientific treatment and “adjustment.” These differing viewpoints had practical consequences when it came to treating unwed mothers. Evangelical women were committed to keeping mother and illegitimate child together—a principle Kunzel describes as “the cornerstone of womanly benevolence in maternity homes.” In contrast—and this point is at the heart of Kunzel's thesis—social workers were militant proponents of separating mother and child because they believed that the majority of unmarried mothers “were unfit and would be better off giving their babies up for adoption.”

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Policy History , Volume 6 , Issue 3 , July 1994 , pp. 161 - 184
Copyright
Copyright © The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. 1994

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. Kunzel, Regina G., “The Professionalization of Benevolence: Evangelicals and Social Workers in the Florence Crittenton Homes, 1915 to 1945,” Journal of Social History 22 (1988): 21–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Kunzel's interpretation of professional social workers remains unchanged in her recent book, Fallen Women, Problem Girls: Unmarried Mothers and the Professionalization of Social Work, 1890–1945 (New Haven, 1993).Google Scholar

2. Kunzel, “Professionalization of Benevolence,” 21; Kunzel, Fallen Women, 2.

3. All quotations are from Kunzel, “Professionalization of Benevolence,” 21.

4. Ibid., 34; Fallen Women, 32–33.

5. Kunzel, “Professionalization of Benevolence,” 34; Kunzel, Fallen Women, 128–29.

6. Kunzel, “Professionalization of Benevolence,” 23. The literature on middle-class women's entry into the professions is enormous. On discrimination of women in the professions, see Rossiter, Margaret W., Women Scientists in America: Struggles and Strategies to 1940 (Baltimore, 1982)Google Scholar; Walsh, Mary Roth, “Doctors Wanted: No Women Need Apply”: Sexual Barriers in the Medical Profession, 1835–1975 (New Haven, 1977)Google Scholar; Fee, Elizabeth, Disease and Discovery: A History of the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, 1916–1939 (Baltimore, 1987)Google Scholar; Abir-Am, Penina G. and Outram, Dorinda, eds., Uneasy Careers and Intimate Lives of Women in Science, 1789–1979 (New Brunswick, 1987)Google Scholar; Hummer, Patricia M., The Decade of Elusive Promise: Professional Women in the United States, 1920–1930 (Ann Arbor, 1979)Google Scholar; Glazer, Penina Migdal and Slater, Miriam, Unequal Colleagues: The Entrance of Women into the Professions, 1890–1940 (New Brunswick, 1987)Google Scholar. On women combining female and professional values, see Morantz-Sanchez, Regina, Sympathy and Science: Women Physicians in American Medicine (New York, 1985), 308–9Google Scholar; Melosh, Barbara, The Physician's Hand: Work Culture and Conflict in American Nursing (Philadelphia, 1982), chap. 4Google Scholar; Antler, Joyce, The Educated Woman and Professionalization: The Struggle for a New Feminine Identity, 1890–1920 (New York, 1987)Google Scholar; Muncy, Robyn, Creating a Female Dominion in American Reform, 1890–1935 (New York, 1991)Google Scholar and “Gender and Professionalization in the Origins of the U.S. Welfare State: The Careers of Sophonisba Breckinridge and Edith Abbott, 1890–1935,” Journal of Policy History 2 (1990): 290–315CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Morton, Marian J., And Sin No More: Social Policy and Unwed Mothers in Cleveland, 1855–1990 (Columbus, 1993), 56Google Scholar; Chambers, Clarke A., “Women in the Creation of the Profession of Social Work,” Social Service Review 60 (March 1986): 1–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Feder, Elizabeth, “The Elite of the Fallen: The Origins of a Social Policy for Unwed Mothers, 1880–1930” (Ph.D. diss., Johns Hopkins University, 1991), chap. 4.Google Scholar See also Garrison, Dee, Apostles of Culture: The Public Librarian and American Society, 1876–1920 (New York, 1979)Google Scholar; Brumberg, Joan Jacobs and Tomes, Nancy, “Women in the Professions: A Research Agenda for American Historians,” Reviews in American History 10 (June 1982): 275–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Cott, Nancy, The Grounding of Modern Feminism (New Haven, 1987), chap. 7Google Scholar. The complexity of social work professionalism is discussed in Walkowitz, Daniel J., “The Making of a Feminine Professional Identity: Social Workers in the 1920s,” American Historical Review 95 (October 1990): 1051–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7. Kunzel, “Professionalization of Benevolence,” 23.

8. Ibid., 25.

9. Ibid., 36.

10. Ibid., 34; Kunzel, Fallen Women, 128. It is evident from the notes in her article and the bibliography in her book that Kunzel failed to consult the Child Welfare League of America's Bulletin, one of the most important journals of professional social workers for this period.

11. Rodgers, Daniel T., “In Search of Progressivism,” Reviews in American History 10 (December 1982): 123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12. This paragraph and the next rely heavily on White, Morton, Social Thought in America: The Revolt Against Formalism (New York, 1949), 3–93Google Scholar. See also Ross, Dorothy, “The Development of the Social Sciences,” in Oleson, Alexandra and Voss, John, eds., The Organization of Knowledge in Modern America, 1860–1920 (Baltimore, 1979), 113–21Google Scholar; Purcell, Edward A. Jr., The Crisis of Democratic Theory: Scientific Naturalism and the Problem of Value (Lexington, Ky., 1974), 3–46Google Scholar; and Kimball, Peter, The “True Professional Ideal” in America: A History (Cambridge, Mass., 1992), 198–212.Google Scholar

13. White, Social Thought in America, 13.

14. Ibid., 12.

15. Ibid., 49–51.

16. Richmond, Mary, Social Diagnosis (New York, 1917), 25.Google Scholar

17. Lubove, Roy, The Professional Altruist: The Emergence of Social Work as a Career, 1880–1930 (Cambridge, Mass., 1965), 7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18. Ibid., 8. On the values of the charity organization movement, see also Bremner, Robert H., From the Depths: The Discovery of Poverty in the United States (New York, 1956), 51–53Google Scholar; Bremner, , American Philanthropy, 2d ed. (Chicago, 1988), 86–87Google Scholar, 94–96; Kusmer, Kenneth, “The Functions of Organized Charity in the Progressive Era: Chicago as a Case Study,” Journal of American History 40 (December 1973): 657–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Becker, Dorothy G., “Exit Lady Bountiful: The Volunteer and the Professional Social Worker,” Social Service Review 38 (March 1964): 57–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kaplan, Barry J., “Reformers and Charity: The Abolition of Public Outdoor Relief in New York City,” Social Service Review 52 (June 1978): 202–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Saveth, Edward N., “Patrician Philanthropy in America: The Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries,” Social Service Review 54 (March 1980): 76–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19. Richmond, Social Diagnosis, 25, 96–100.

20. Ibid., 357.

21. Ibid., 51; quotation on 87.

22. Ibid., 62; Lubove, Professional Altruist, 47.

23. For the extraordinary influence of Richmond's work on the social work profession, see Pumphrey's, Muriel W. sketch and accompanying bibliographical references in Trattner, Walter I., ed., Biographical Dictionary of Social Welfare in America (New York, 1986), 622–25Google Scholar. See also Bruno, Frank J., Trends in Social Work, 1874–1956 (New York, 1957), 186–87Google Scholar; and Lubove, The Professional Altruist, chaps. 2, 3.

24. Proceedings of the Conference on the Care of Dependent Children, 1909, in Bremner, Robert H., ed., Children and Youth in America: A Documentary History, vol. 2 (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), 365Google Scholar; Skocpol, Theda, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States (Cambridge, Mass., 1992), chap. 9Google Scholar; Hawes, Joseph M., The Children's Rights Movement: A History of Advocacy and Protection (Boston, 1991), chaps. 3 – 5Google Scholar; Trattner, Walter I., From Poor Law to Welfare State: A History of Social Welfare in America, 4th ed. (New York, 1989), chap. 10Google Scholar; King, Charles R., Children's Health in America: A History (New York, 1993), chap. 3Google Scholar; Tiffin, Susan, In Whose Best Interest? Child Welfare Reform in the Progressive Era (Westport, Conn., 1982), chaps. 5, 9Google Scholar; and Muncy, Creating a Female Dominion in American Reform, 1890–1935, chaps. 2, 4–

25. Meckel, Richard A.Save the Babies: American Public Health Reform and the Prevention of Infant Mortality, 1850–1929 (Baltimore, 1990), chap. 4Google Scholar; quotation on 100 (emphasis in the original). See also Klaus, Alisa, Every Child a Lion: The Origins of Maternal and Infant Health Policy in the United States and France, 1890–1920 (Ithaca, 1993), chap. 6.Google Scholar

26. Quoted in Meckel, Save the Babies, 121.

27. Ibid., chap. 7.

28. Tiffin, In Whose Best Interest?, 173–74; Klaus, Every Child a Lion, chap. 6.

29. Ibid., 167–68. In a 1915 survey, the Children's Bureau estimated the number of white children born out of wedlock in the United States at 32,400, or about 1.8 percent of all live births. Lundberg, Emma O. and Lenroot, Katharine F., Illegitimacy as a Child-Welfare Problem, pt. 1, Children's Bureau Pub. 66 (Washington, D.C., 1920), 24–26Google Scholar. In 1928, the Bureau of the Census reported 63,942 white children born out of wedlock, or about 2.8 percent of all live births. Donahue, A. Madorah, “Children Born Out of Wedlock,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 151 (September 1930): 163, hereafter cited as Annals.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30. Morton, Marian J., And Sin No More: Social Policy and Unwed Mothers in Cleveland, 1855–1990 (Columbus, 1993), chap. 2Google Scholar; Aiken, Katherine G., “The National Florence Crittenton Mission, 1883–1925: A Case Study in Progressive Reform” (Ph.D. diss., Washington State University, 1980), 54, 71Google Scholar; McConnell, Nancy Fifield and Dore, Martha Morrison, 1883–1983: Crittenton Services: The First Century (Washington, D.C., 1983), 9–10.Google Scholar

31. Barrett, Kate Waller, “Informal Discussion,”Proceedings of the 46th National Conference of Social Work,(Chicago,1919): 86; Tiffin, In Whose Best Interest?, 169.Google Scholar

32. Committee on Mother Care, “The Unwed Mother as Deserted Wife,” in The Unwed Mother and Her Child: Reports and Recommendations of the Cleveland Committee on Illegitimacy (Cleveland, 1916), 15.Google Scholar

33. Amey Eaton Watson, “The Illegitimate Family,” Annals 77 (May 1918): 109.

34. Stoneman, Albert H., “Adoption of Illegitimate Children: The Peril of Ignorance,” Child Welfare League of America, Bulletin 5 (15 February 1926): 8Google Scholar, hereafter cited as CWLA, Bull.

35. Ibid.

36. Lundberg, Emma O. and Lenroot, Katharine F., Illegitimacy as a Child-Welfare Problem, pt. 2, Children's Bureau Pub. 75 (Washington, D.C., 1921), 88–93, 139–43Google Scholar; Emma O. Lundberg, “General Introduction,” in ibid., pt. 3, Children's Bureau Pub. 128 (Washington, D.C., 1924), 3; Watson, “The Illegitimate Family,” 110; Lenroot, Katherine F., “Case Work with Unmarried Parents and Their Children,” Hospital Social Service 12 (August 1925): 70–71Google Scholar; Donahue, “Children Born Out of Wedlock,” 163, 166.

37. The Illinois Children's Home and Aid Society, Children's Home Finder, new series, 4 (May-June 1915): 13; Pfeffer, Paula F., “Homeless Children, Childless Homes,” Chicago History 16 (Spring 1987): 58.Google Scholar

38. Watson, , “The Illegitimate Family,” Annals 77 (1918): 112.Google Scholar

39. “Legislation for Children Born Out of Wedlock, Survey 43 (13 March 1920): 747Google Scholar; Davis, Otto W., “Children of Unmarried and of Illegitimate Parents: Recent Legislation in Minnesota and Elsewhere,”Proceedings of the 45th National Conference on Social Work(Chicago,1918), 94.Google Scholar

40. Lenroot, Katharine F., “Social Responsibility for the Protection of Children Handicapped by Illegitimate Birth,” Annals 98 (November 1921): 128Google Scholar; Donahue, A. Madorah, “Children Born Out of Wedlock,” Annals 151 (1930): 165.Google Scholar

41. Guibord, Alberta S. B. and Parker, Ida R., What Becomes of the Unmarried Mother? A Study of 82 Cases (Boston, 1922), 63.Google Scholar

42. Hewins, Katharine P. and Webster, L. Josephine, The Work of Child-Placing Agencies, Children's Bureau Pub. 171 (Washington, D.C., 1927), 1, 28.Google Scholar

43. “It Doesn't Pay to Give Babies Away,” California Children 29 (September 1929): 13.Google Scholar

44. Keneran, Winifred A., How Massachusetts Provides for Its Dependent Children, Child Welfare League of America Publication No. 67 (New York, 1928), 3.Google Scholar

45. Bozarth, Maud, “Local Standards of Service to the Unmarried Mother and Her Child, Including the Problem of Non Residence,” CWLA, Bull. 8 (January 1929): 8.Google Scholar

46. For similar expressions of the value of keeping unwed mothers and their children together, see also Kammerer, Percy Gamble, The Unmarried Mother: A Study of Five Hundred Cases (New York, 1918), 310–11Google Scholar; Goodrich, Constance, “Placing Children for Adoption,” Hospital Social Service 10 (October 1923): 195–96Google Scholar; Committee on Mother Care, “The Unwed Mother as Deserted Wife,” 17; Acerboni, A. F., “Recent Conferences on Illegitimacy,” Catholic Charities Review 4 (March 1920): 83Google Scholar; “Report of the Committee on Admitting and Placing Children for the Year Closing Oct. 31, 1922,” Annual Report of the Cleveland Protestant Orphan Asylum (Cleveland, 1922), 9–10Google Scholar; Lathrop, Julia C., “Standards of Child Welfare,” Annals 98 (November 1921): 6Google Scholar; Nims, Elinor, “Experiments in Adoption Legislation,” Social Service Review 1 (1927): 245CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cleveland Conference on Illegitimacy, Study of Adoption in Cuyahoga County, July 1, 1922 to June 30, 1923 (Cleveland, 1925), 2Google Scholar; Butler, Edmond J., “The Essentials of Placement in Free Family Homes,” in Foster Care for Dependent Children, Children's Bureau Pub. 136 (Washington, D.C., 1924), 47–48Google Scholar; Donahue, “Children Born Out of Wedlock,” 165, 166; Morton, And Sin No More, 62–64; and Sedlak, Michael W., “Young Women and the City: Adolescent Deviance and the Transformation of Educational Policy, 1870–1960,” History of Education Quarterly 23 (Spring 1983): 12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

47. In her article, Kunzel does not provide any evidence to support her assertion that before 1945 social workers routinely or enthusiastically advocated separation of unmarried mothers from their children for the purpose of adoption. In her book, the only social worker Kunzel cites, Leontine Young, wrote in 1947, i.e., after the period Kunzel is analyzing. See Kunzel, Fallen Women, 129. Young's advocacy of adoption reflected professional social workers’ recent embrace of a Freudian psychodynamic view of illegitimacy, which in turn provided a positive rationale for separating unwed mothers from their babies. For this development, see Carp, E. Wayne, “The Sealed Adoption Records Controversy in Historical Perspective: The Case of the Children's Home Society of Washington, 1895–1988,” Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare 19 (June 1992); 44–46Google Scholar; Solinger, Rickie, Wake Up Little Susie: Single Pregnancy and Race Before Roe V Wade (New York, 1992), chap. 3; Morton, And Sin No More, 82–84.Google Scholar

48. “Inter-City Conference on Illegitimacy Bulletin,” CWLA, Bull., new ser., 5 (15 May 1926): 8Google Scholar; Murphy, J. Prentice, “Mothers and—Mothers,” Survey 42 (3 May 1919): 171–72Google Scholar, and “What Can be Accomplished Through Good Social Work in the Field of Illegitimacy, Annals 98 (November 1921): 130Google Scholar; Watson, Amey Eaton, “Philadelphia's Problem and the Developing of Standards of Care,” in Illegitimacy as a Child-Welfare Problem, pt. 3, Children's Bureau Pub. 128 (Washington, D.C., 1924), 40.Google Scholar

49. Putnam, L. H., “The Mother's Responsibility for the Care of the Child,” in Standards of Legal Protection for Children Bom Out of Wedlock, Children's Bureau Pub. 77 (Washington, D.C., 1921), 142Google Scholar; Catharine Mathews, “Case Work with Unmarried Mothers,” Family 13 (October 1932): 185.

50. Lenroot, “Social Responsibility for the Protection of Children Handicapped by Illegitimate Birth,” 128; “Report of the White House Conference on Child Health and Protection on Prenatal and Maternal Care,” CWLA, Bull., new ser., 10 (December 1930): 8, 7.

51. Pendleton, Ora, “New Aims in Adoption,” Annals 151 (September 1930): 157Google Scholar. See also Lawton, Rachel M., “Compilation from the Minutes of the Boston Conference on Illegitimacy,” CWLA, Bull. 8 (March 1929): 8.Google Scholar

52. Carstens, C. C., “The Pitfalls of Adoption,” CWLA, Bull. 15 (1936): 4Google Scholar. Citing psychiatric studies, social workers at the Illinois Children's Home and Aid Society argued against unmarried mothers relinquishing their children for adoption because “giving up the child could cause a mother permanent emotional damage.” See Pfeffer, “Homeless Children, Childless Homes,” 58.

53. “Help Mothers Keep Their Children,” Children's Home Society of California Magazine 41 (1932): 10.Google Scholar

54. “Preventing Separation of Mothers and Babies,” State Charities Aid Association News 12 (September 1917): 11Google Scholar. See also Cornell, Ruth Arven, “Report of the Child Accepting Committee,” Annual Report of the Spence Alumnae Society (New York, 1930), 7.Google Scholar

55. Committee on Mother Care, “The Unwed Mother as Deserted Wife,” 15–17. Social workers' concern for establishing paternity and forcing fathers to contribute to the financial support of unwed mothers was common. See Lenroot, “Social Responsibility for the Protection of Children Handicapped by Illegitimate Birth,” 128; Lundberg, Emma O., “Unmarried Mothers,” Survey 43 (28 February 1920): 654Google Scholar; “Legislation for Children Born Out of Wedlock,” Survey (13 March 1920): 754; Mattingly, Mabel, “The Unmarried Mother and Her Child,” CWLA, Bull., new ser., 7 (15 June 1928): 5Google ScholarPeck, Anita, “Casework Treatment of the Unmarried Father,” CWLA, Bull., new ser., 8 (February 1929): 8Google Scholar; Hodson, William, “The Trend of Modern Legislation for the Child Born Out of Wedlock,” CWLA, Bull., new ser., 9 (September 1930), 8Google Scholar; Redding, Grace, “The Unmarried Family,” CWLA, Bull., new ser., 9 (October 1930): 8Google Scholar; Donahue, “Children Born Out of Wedlock, ” 169–70.

56. Donahue, A. Madorah, “A Case of Illegitimacy, Where Mother and Baby Have Been Dealt with Separately,”Proceedings of the 42nd National Conference of Charities and Correction(Chicago,1915): 125Google Scholar; “Inter-City Conference on Illegitimacy Bulletin,” CWLA, Bull., new ser., 5 (15 May 1926): 8Google Scholar; Lenroot, Katharine F., “Social Responsibility for the Care of the Delinquent Girl and the Unmarried Mother,” Journal of Social Hygiene 10 (February 1924): 79–80Google Scholar; Committee on Mother Care, “The Unwed Mother as Deserted Wife,” 15–17.

57. Slingerland, W. H., Child-Placing in Families: A Manual for Students and Social Workers (New York, 1919), 85.Google Scholar

58. Lenroot, “Social Responsibility for the Protection of Children Handicapped by Illegitimate Birth,” 127; Parker, Ida R., A Follow–Up Study of 550 Illegitimacy Applications (Boston, 1924), 54Google Scholar; Lundberg, “Unmarried Mothers,” 654; Lawton, Rachel M., “Compilation from the Minutes of the Boston Conference on Illegitimacy,” CWLA, Bull., new ser., 8 (March 1929): 8Google Scholar; Collins, Elvira B., “Report of the Pittsburgh Conference on Parenthood,” CWLA, Bull., new ser., 10 (June 1931): 8Google Scholar; Donahue, “A Case of Illegitimacy, Where Mother and Baby Have Been Dealt with Separately,” 125; Hewins, Katharine P., “Hazards in Illegitimacy: Adoptions and Mortality,” Survey 46 (14 May 1921): 206Google Scholar; Donahue, A. Madorah, “Children Born Out of Wedlock,” Annals 151 (September 1930): 164–68Google Scholar; Grossberg, Michael, Governing the Hearth: Law and the Family in Nineteenth-Century America (Chapel Hill, 1985), 232–33Google Scholar; Muncy, Creating a Female Dominion in American Reform; Skocpol, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers, chap. 9; Feder, “The Elite of the Fallen,” 209. Recent historians have devalued social workers' reform efforts on behalf of unwed mothers by arguing that they favored children born out of wedlock at the expense of unmarried mothers. See, for example, Brumberg, Joan Jacobs, “‘Ruined’ Girls: Changing Community Responses to Illegitimacy in Upstate New York, 1890–1920,” Journal of Social History 18 (Winter 1984): 262CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kunzel, Fallen Women, 128–29.

59. Feder, “The Elite of the Fallen,” 196–97; Klaus, Every Child a Lion, 211–19.

60. Romanofsky, Peter, “Professional Versus Volunteers: A Case Study of Adoption Workers in the 1920's,” Journal of Voluntary Action Research 2 (April 1973): 96CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pfeffer, “Homeless Children, Childless Homes,” 56–57.

61. See, for example, Wise, Louise Waterman, in “Mothers in Name,” Survey 43 (20 March 1920): 780Google Scholar, and Dr.Chapin, Henry Dwight, Heriditary and Child Culture (New York, 1922), 204–5Google Scholar. It is perhaps the writings of these pro-adoption, upper-class amateurs that Kunzel mistakes for professional social workers’ beliefs, though nowhere does she cite them. Elsewhere, Kunzel mistakenly identifies a medical doctor, Henry C. Schumacher, director of the Cleveland Child Guidance Clinic, as “a social worker.” See Kunzel, “Professionalization of Benevolence,”34. For media support of adoption, see Jambor, Harold A., “Theodore Dreiser, The Delineator Magazine, and Dependent Children: A Background Note on the Calling of the 1909 White House Conference,” Social Service Review 32 (January 1958): 33–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

62. Parker, Ida R., “Fit and Proper”?: A Study of Legal Adoption in Massachusetts (Boston, 1927), 30–35, 40–41Google Scholar; Reed, Ruth, The Illegitimate Family in New York City (New York, 1934), 38, 48, 88–90Google Scholar; Sedlak, “Young Women and the City,” 12.

63. Parker, “Fit and Proper,” 29; Zelizer, Viviana A., Pricing the Priceless Child: The Changing Social Value of Children (New York, 1985), 198.Google Scholar

64. Howard, Carrington, “Adoption by Advertisement,” Survey 35 (11 December 1915): 285–86Google Scholar; “Newspapers Cooperate in Adoptions,” CWLA, Bull., new ser., 6 (15 January 1927): 1, 5Google Scholar; Guibard and Parker, What Becomes of the Unmarried Mother, 59; Parker, “Fit and Proper,” 34–35; Mangold, George B., Children Born Out of Wedlock: A Sociological Study of Illegitimacy, with Particular Reference to the United States (Columbus, Mo., 1921), 82–83.Google Scholar

65. Pendleton, , “New Aims in Adoption,” Annals 151 (1930): 155–56Google Scholar; Mangold, Children Born Out of Wedlock, 126–27; Murphy, , “What Can Be Accomplished Through Good Social Work in the Field of Illegitimacy,” Annals 98 (November 1921): 131Google Scholar; Donahue, , “Children Born Out of Wedlock,” Annals 151 (1930): 164Google Scholar; Donahue, “A Case of Illegitimacy,” 125; Zelizer, Pricing the Priceless Child, 196–98.

66. Lundberg and Lenroot, Illegitimacy as a Child-Welfare Problem, 2:88–93, 139–43; Lundberg, “General Introduction,” in ibid., pt. 3, Children's Bureau Pub. 128 (Washington, D.C., 1924), 3; Watson, “The Illegitimate Family,” 110; Lenroot, “Case Work with Unmarried Parents and Their Children,” 70–71; Lawton, Ruth W. and Murphy, J. Prentice, “A Study of Results of a Child-Placing Society,”Proceedings of the 42nd National Conference of Charities and Correction(Chicago,1915), 167–68Google Scholar; Guibard and Parker, What Becomes of the Unmarried Mother, 59; Stoneman, “Adoption of Illegitimate Children,” 8; Zelizer, Pricing the Priceless Child, 198.

67. Slingerland, Child-Placing in Families, 85.

68. Donahue, “A Case of Illegitimacy,” 121.

69. Hart, Hastings H., “The Development of Child Placing in the United States,” in Foster-Home Care for Dependent Children, Children's Bureau Pub. 136 (Washington, D.C., 1924), 25.Google Scholar

70. Megee, Martha, “The Problems of Children as a Child-Placing Agency Sees Them,” Annals 121 (September 1925): 160Google Scholar; See also Murphy, J. Prentice, “The Foster Care of Neglected and Dependent Children,” Annals 77 (May 1918): 120–21.Google Scholar

71. Principles adopted by the New York Conference on Illegitimacy reprinted in “Legislation for Children Born Out of Wedlock,” Survey 43 (13 March 1920): 747Google Scholar; Pfeffer, “Homeless Children, Childless Homes,” 56, 59.

72. Stoneman, A. H., “Social Problems Related to Illegitimacy,”Proceedings of the 51st National Conference on Social Work(Chicago,1924), 148.Google Scholar

73. Hewins and Webster, The Work of Child-Placing Agencies, 80.

74. “Inter-City Conference on Illegitimacy Bulletin,” CWLA, Bull., new ser., 5 (15 March 1926): 8Google Scholar. For similar experessions of satisfaction at the low number of adoptions, see Deardorff, Neva R., “‘The Welfare of the Said Child …’” Survey 53 (15 January 1925): 460Google Scholar; Zelizer, Pricing the Priceless Child, 198.

75. Inter-City Conference on Illegitimacy Bulletin, “Compilation from the Minutes of the Boston Conference on Illegitimacy,” CWLA, Bull., new. ser., 8 (March 1929): 8.

76. Goddard, Henry H., The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of Feeblemindedness (New York, 1912)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cravens, Hamilton, The Triumph of Evolution: American Scientists and the Hereditary-Environment Controversy, 1900–1941 (Philadelphia, 1978), 47–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Haller, William, Eugenics: Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought (New Brunswick, N.J., 1968), 106–7Google Scholar; Kevles, Daniel J., In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Hereditary (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1985), 77–78Google Scholar. For psychometric testing, see the essays in Sokal, Michael, ed., Psychological Testing and American Society, 1890–1930 (New Brunswick, N.J., 1987).Google Scholar

77. Committee on Feeblemindedness, “The Menace of the Feeble-Minded,” in The Unwed Mother and Her Child, 8. The belief that unwed mothers were feebleminded was widespread. See, for example, Weidensall, Jean, “The Mentality of the Unmarried Mother,Proceedings of the 44th National Conference on Social Work(Chicago,1917), 294Google Scholar; Sheffield, Ada Eliot, “The Nature of the Stigma upon the Unmarried Mother and Her Child,”Proceedings of the 47th National Conference on Social Work(Chicago,1920): 120Google Scholar; Lenroot, , “Social Responsibility for the Protection of Children Handicapped by Illegitimate Birth,” 124; “A Study of Unmarried Mothers,” CWLA, Bull., new ser., 5 (15 November 1926): 8Google Scholar; Lowe, Charlotte, “The Intelligence and Social Background of the Unmarried Mother,” Mental Hygiene 11 (October 1927): 783–84.Google Scholar

78. Stoneman, “Adoption of Illegitimate Children,” 8.

79. Ibid. See also Slingerland, Child-Placing in Families, 67, 69; Keneran, How Massachusetts Provides for Its Children, 7; Lawton and Murphy, “A Study of Results of a Child-Placing Society,” 167–68; Guibard and Parker, What Becomes of the Unmarried Mother, 59.

80. Watson, “The Illegitimate Family,” 112–13.

81. Edlin, Sara Boudin, “Jewish Unmarried Mothers,” Survey 44 (19 July 1920): 408–9.Google Scholar

82. Illinois Children's Home & Aid Society, Children's Home Finder, new ser., 4 (May–June 1915): 13. For similar sentiments, see Baylor, Edith M. H., “The Necessary Changes to Be Effected in the Methods of Social Service Agencies with Unmarried Mothers,” Hospital Social Service 9 (1922): 155Google Scholar; Drury, Louise, “Milestones in the Approach to Illegitimacy,” pt. 3, Family 6 (June 1925): 98Google Scholar; Colby, M. Ruth, “The Unmarried Mother and Her Baby,” Welfare Magazine 17 (June 1926): 8Google Scholar; Smith, Mary Frances, “The Place of the Maternity Home in a Child Care Program,” CWLA, Bull., new ser., 9 (November 1930): 8–7Google Scholar; Stoneman, “Social Problems Related to Illegitimacy,” Proceedings of the 51st National Conference on Social Work, 147–48.

83. Drury, “Milestones in the Approach to Illegitimacy,” 99.

84. Morlock, Maud, “The Adopted Girl,” CWLA, Bull., 15 (October 1936): 7Google Scholar (emphasis in original).

85. Richmond, Social Diagnosis, 127, 136, 363.

86. Stoneman, “Adoption of Illegitimate Children,” 8; Illinois Children's Home & Aid Society, Children's Home Finder, new ser., 4 (May-June 1915): 15; Pendleton, “New Aims in Adoption,” 155. See also Murphy, “Mothers and—Mothers,” 171.

87. White House Conference 1930 (New York, 1931), 324Google Scholar; also quoted in Smith, Mary Francis, “Changing Emphases in Case Work with Unmarried Mothers,” Family 14 (January 1934): 316.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

88. Guibard and Parker, What Becomes of the Unmarried Mother, 14, 44; Hewins, , “Hazards in Illegitimacy” Survey 46 (14 May 1921): 206Google Scholar; Henry, Charlotte, “Objectives in Work with Unmarried Mothers,” Family 14 (May 1933), 75CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a concise summary of these views, see Smith, “Changing Emphases in Case Work with Unmarried Mothers,” 315.

89. Richmond, Social Diagnosis, 103.

90. Ibid., 55.

91. Ibid., 363.

92. Ibid.

93. Richmond, Mary E., What Is Social Case Work?: An Introductory Description (New York, 1922), 23, 108, 38, 40, 37, 24.Google Scholar

94. Ibid., 126.

95. Conway, Jill, “Women Reformers and American Culture, 1870–1930,” Journal of Social History 5 (Winter 1971–72), 164–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar; quotation on 167. See also Chambers, “Women in the Creation of the Profession of Social Work,” 14–16.

96. Among the roughly 112 primary sources consulted for this article, only seven professional social workers used the term “scientific.” And among these few, there was a wide variety of meanings of the term. Some social workers, undoubtedly with roots in the charity organization society movement, had no difficulty in combining values that may seem contradictory to us. Mabel Mattingly, a child-welfare instructor at Case Western Reserve University, for example, felt no incongruity in urging that “the case worker's approach and treatment should be as scientific as possible, but she must remember always that the eternal values are spiritual ones.” Mattingly, “The Unmarried Mother and Her Child,” 5. See also Murphy, “Mothers and—Mothers,” 172. Melosh, The Physician's Hand, 124–25, notes a similar tendency of public-health nurses to use both scientific and moral language. Other professional social workers who actually used the term “scientific” in connection with illegitimacy usually meant either simple Baconianism—fact collecting and description—or keeping abreast of intellectual developments in other disciplines. See Stoneman, “Adoption of Illegitimate Children,” 8; Watson, “The Illegitimate Family,” 103; Hewins, “A Study of Illegitimacy,” 115; Lundberg, “Unmarried Mothers,” 654; Lenroot, “Social Responsibility for the Care of the Delinquent Girl and the Unmarried Mother,” 78.

97. For similar constructions of professionalism, see the relevant references in note 6 above.

98. Watson, “The Illegitimate Family,” 115.

99. Donahue, A. Madorah, “The Case of an Unmarried Mother Who Has Cared for Her Child, and Succeeded,”Proceedings of the 44th National Conference on Social Work(Chicago, 19171917), 282.Google Scholar

100. Baylor, “The Necessary Changes to Be Effected in the Methods of Social Service Agencies with Unmarried Mothers,” 146.

101. Ibid., See also Drury, “Milestones in the Approach to Illegitimacy,” pt. 3, 98.

102. Dexter, Elizabeth H., “The Worker's Personality in Case Work,” CWLA, Bull., new ser., 5 (15 December 1926): 2.Google Scholar

103. Ibid., 3. For similar expressions, see Bartlett, Harriet M., “Medical Social Work with the Unmarried Mother,” Child 2 (May 1938): 226.Google Scholar