Raising Government Children: A History of Foster Care and the American Welfare State

271 Pages·3.28 MB·English

by  Catherine E. Rymph

RAISING
GOVERNMENT
CHILDREN
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RAISI N G
G OVER N M ENT
C H I LD R EN
--------------------------------------
A HISTORY OF FOSTER CARE
AND THE AMERICAN WELFARE STATE
Catherine E. Rymph
The University of North Carolina Press
Chapel Hill
This book was published with the assistance of the
Anniversary Fund of the University of North Carolina Press and
a subvention from the University of Missouri Research Council.
© 2017 The University of North Carolina Press
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Designed by April Leidig
Set in Arno by Copperline Book Services, Inc.
The University of North Carolina Press has been a member
of the Green Press Initiative since 2003.
Cover illustration: From the United Home Finding Campaign
(Chicago), “Help Me and You Help America!,” ca. 1943,
National Archives, College Park, Md.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Rymph, Catherine E., author.
Title: Raising government children : a history of foster care
and the American welfare state / Catherine E. Rymph.
Description: Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, [2017] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017015700| ISBN 9781469635637 (cloth : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9781469635644 (pbk : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781469635651 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Foster home care — United States — History — 20th
century. | Foster home care — Government policy — United States. |
Foster parents — United States. | Public welfare — United States.
Classification: LCC HV881 .R95 2017 | DDC 362.73/309730904 — dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017015700
Parts of chapter 2 and chapter 4 appeared previously in somewhat
different form, respectively, in Catherine E. Rymph, “From
‘Economic Want’ to ‘Family Pathology’: Foster Family Care, the New
Deal, and the Emergence of a Public Child Welfare System,” Journal
of Policy History 24, no. 1 (2012): 7–25; and Catherine E. Rymph,
“Looking for Fathers in the Postwar U.S. Foster Care System,” in
Inventing the Modern Family: Family Values and Social Change in
20th Century United States, ed. Isabel Heinemann, 177–95
(Frankfurt and New York: Campus Verlag, 2012).
To D-D and to Polly
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Abbreviations xv
Introduction 1
CHAPTER 1
Into the Family Life of Strangers:
The Origins of Foster Family Care 17
CHAPTER 2
The New Deal, Family Security, and the Emergence
of a Public Child Welfare System 43
CHAPTER 3
Helping America’s Orphans of War 66
CHAPTER 4
Providing Love and Care:
Foster Parents as Parents 91
CHAPTER 5
The Hard-to-Place Child:
Family Pathology, Race, and Poverty 113
CHAPTER 6
Compensated Motherhood and the State:
Foster Parents as Workers 135
CHAPTER 7
Poverty, Punishment, and Public Assistance:
Reorienting Foster Family Care 157
Conclusion 177
Appendix 187
Notes 189
Bibliography 227
Index 243
ILLUSTRATIONS
“Board Wanted” 79
“A War Job for You in Your Own Home!” 83
“Help Me and You Help America” 84
Joy and cash 85
“We Need Homes” 128
“Surprise Your Husband with a Child That Isn’t His” 153
Foster fathers 155