Building the Invisible Orphanage: A Prehistory of the American Welfare System

by Matthew A. Crenson

In 1996, America abolished its long-standing welfare system in favor of a new and largely untried public assistance program. Welfare as we knew it arose in turn from a previous generation's rejection of an even earlier system of aid. That generation introduced welfare in order to eliminate orphanages.

This book examines the connection between the decline of the orphanage and the rise of welfare. Matthew Crenson argues that the prehistory of the welfare system was played out not on the stage of national politics or class conflict but in the micropolitics of institutional management. New arrangements for child welfare policy emerged gradually as superintendents, visiting agents, and charity officials responded to the difficulties that they encountered in running orphanages or creating systems that served as alternatives to institutional care.

Crenson also follows the decades-long debate about the relative merits of family care or institutional care for dependent children. Leaving poor children at home with their mothers emerged as the most generally acceptable alternative to the orphanage, along with an ambitious new conception of social reform. Instead of sheltering vulnerable children in institutions designed to transform them into virtuous citizens, the reformers of the Progressive era tried to integrate poor children into the larger society, while protecting them from its perils.

400 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strongest when it tells the compelling stories of the pioneers of child social work in this country, weakest when it gets repetitive in building its arguments at the end of each chapter. Generally a very interesting read and I buy the central premise, that what we call welfare in this country is actually the fallout of deinstitutionalization of our nations needy children — via stipends so their parents can keep them. Prior to the Aid for Families With Dependent Children, most of the inmates of our nation’s many orphanages were children with living parents who simply could not afford to keep them.

[Maureen Flatley · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating history of American child welfare.....