FOREWARD
By Martha M. Eliot, M.D. and William M. Schmidt, M.D.
This
and the two succeeding volumes of Children and Youth in America have
been prepared by the staff of the Child and the State Project under the
auspices of the American Public Health Association and with the financial
support of the Children's Bureau of the Department of Health, Education, and
Welfare. The project took its name and derived its inspiration from the work of
Grace Abbott (1878- 1939), Chief of the Children's Bureau from 1921 to
1934, and from 1934 to 1939 professor of public welfare administration in the
School of Social Service Administration of the University of Chicago. In the
latter position Miss Abbott undertook the preparation of a two-volume
documentary history of legislative, judicial, and administrative actions
affecting apprenticeship and child labor, child welfare, delinquency, and the
legal relations of children to parents and other adults in the American
community. Published as The Child and the State in 1938 by the
Convinced
that an enlargement and revision of the work would serve the needs of scholars
and professionals in work with children in many fields, we undertook in 1964
the initial planning of the Child and the State Project. Our point of view has
been expressed in this way: "Children, because of their ever changing,
gradually merging patterns of growth and development, and because of their
constantly shifting response to environmental influences require for the
solution of their problems the attention of closely integrated health and
social services and a variety of educational opportunities in their homes,
their communities, their schools, and in many cultural settings."1 We
first thought to supply a volume on child health to accompany Grace Abbott's
work on child welfare, delinquency, labor, and legal status. As we discussed
the idea further, however, we became convinced that it would not suffice merely
to add a volume on health and bring the subjects of the two earlier volumes
down to date. In particular, the topics of education and of the treatment of
children of minority racial and ethnic groups seemed so intimately related to
the development of public policy for children that those subjects could not be
ignored. A thorough restudy and expansion of the material was called for if we
were to do justice to the range and complexity of the involvement of the
American public with its children.
Since
many of the additional documents would come in the field of child health, it
was appropriate to approach the American Public Health Association and its
Program Area Committee on Child Health in seeking a sponsor for the project. At
the October 1964 meeting of the committee a proposal for the preparation of a
new edition of The Child and the State was considered. The committee's
membership, drawn from a broad spectrum of those concerned with maintaining
children's health, endorsed the proposal with enthusiasm and authorized a
search for funds. From the beginning the committee intended that the work
should be so broadly conceived that it would appeal to professional schools and
scholars in medicine and the health professions, social work, law, education,
public administration, and the clergy. The committee expected that many who are
actively engaged in organizing and directing services for children would also
find interest in the work and would profit from its breadth.
The
members of the committee during the life of the project have been:
Paul
F. Wehrle, M.D. (chairman 1967-1969)
David
B. Ast, D.D.S.
Virginia
A. Beal, M.P.H.
Sidney
S. Chipman, M.D.
Mildred
E. Doster, M.D. (acting chairman 1968-1969)
Agnes
L. Fuller, R.N.
Enrique
L. Matta, Jr. M.D.
Sam
Shapiro
William
Schmidt, M.D. (chairman 1964-1966)
Elizabeth
Watkins, D. Sci. Hyg.
Staff:
Thomas R. Hood, M.D.
Susan
V. Baker
A statement requesting financial support was
submitted to the Children's Bureau in April 1965. It was prepared by Dr. Eliot,
who accepted the committee's invitation to become project director. The
approval of the application on
The
collection and editing of the documents and the interpretive introductions are
the work of Mr. Bremner and his staff. In this first volume of the series, Mr.
Bremner, in addition to supervising the preparation of the entire work, assumed
responsibility for the materials on dependency and, with Mr. Barnard, collected
and edited the documents which form the introductory sections on family and
child life at the be- ginning of each of the three parts of the volume. Mr.
Barnard prepared the sections on education and on Negro and Indian children.
Miss Hareven contributed the documents and introductions on child labor and on
immigrant children. Mr. Mennel supplied the materials on the history of
delinquency, and assisted all the members of the staff in a variety of research
tasks. Manfred Waserman assisted Mr. Bremner and Mr. Mennel in the collection
of documents on the history of child health.