More than nine generations of children grew up in America between the founding of the first English colonies and the end of the Civil War. This book, the first of three volumes that will provide the most complete documentary history of public provision for American children, traces the changing attitudes of the nation toward youth during the first two and one half centuries of its history.

The editors have divided volume I into three units of time--1600-1735, 1735-1820, 1820-1865 each of which represents a stage in the development of public policies toward children. The question raised in the first section is: What is the function of government or the public authority when the child is a subject, not a citizen, of a private family government? The second part deals with the question: How does the public sector respond when children, although still officially subject to familial authority, practice the doctrines of self-help, independence, and self-interest? The third part asks: How did the state and the adult public regard children in a society marked by political and social change, population mobility, and rapid economic growth? What was expected of children? What was done for them? What was denied them?

The editors have chosen documents chronicling all aspects of the welfare of children, including education, child health, care of dependent children, child labor, juvenile delinquency and the special problems of children of minority and disadvantaged groups. They have skillfully linked the papers together with interpretive introductions and have woven them into a fascinating and enlightening narrative. The documents have been selected from both published and unpublished materials, private diaries and correspondence, as well as the records of governmental and voluntary agencies on the local, state, and national levels. In addition to the time divisions, the documents are arranged geographically and topically, though the rigid maintenance of topical distinctions has been avoided so that related topics may be presented from different viewpoints and organized in the most meaningful and useful way.

Volume II will cover the events occurring between 1866 and 1932, and Volume III will deal with policies adopted and developed since 1933. Each volume will include selected contemporary illustrations.

Public provision for the rights of children has, at last, a complete documentary history. In three volumes, covering United States history from 1600 to the present, this is a monumental contribution in an area central to American domestic policy.

All aspects of the welfare of children are considered. The documents, as comprehensive as they are diverse, are woven into an enlightening narrative of the fundamental issues involved in the place of youth in America.

The concluding volumes present forty years of tumultuous history. They begin with the problems and protests of youth in the 1930s; their response to depression, war, and the draft; their organizations and participation in struggles for equality; and their changing legal status. With the advent of the New Deal and continuing into the Nixon administration, the sources show a growing popular emphasis on the rights and welfare of children as well as a dramatic shift in the position and commitment of the federal government. Policies and programs are many and vigorous, but gaps, protests, and inequalities persist.

Upon the appearance of the first volume, Children and Youth in America was hailed as "an important event in the history of child welfare in the United States." Now completed, these volumes constitute an indispensable reference and absorbing chronicle of American social history.

Although the number of people under twenty years of age in the United States rose from 17 million in 1860 to 47.6 million in 1930, the percentage of them in the total population declined sharply during the same seventy years from 51 percent to 38 percent. This declining proportion of children and young people to adults did not lessen concern for their welfare. On the contrary, as they became relatively less numerous, the young became in a way more visible, and their needs were more easily recognized.

This second of three volumes that trace the history of the nation's changing provisions for its youth covers the period from the end of the Civil War to the beginning of the New Deal. These were years rich in innovations which, although not fully realized, represented substantial advances in the welfare, education, and health of children. Much of the philanthropic energy of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries went into the provision of special facilities for children, who had formerly been treated in the same way as adults. State, and in some eases, federal legislation attempted to safeguard children against premature, excessive, and dangerous labor; sought to protect them against abuse. neglect, immorality, disease, and unsanitary surroundings: and compelled them to spend more time in school. The first White House Conference on the Care of Dependent and Neglected Children was convened by Theodore Roosevelt in 1909, and in 1912 the United States Children's Bureau was established. This single most important development in public provision for children during the early twentieth century signified the acceptance by the federal government of responsibility for promoting the health and welfare of the young.

In this two--book volume, major topics like the legal status of children, child health, and education have been broken down into specific areas so that the items of specialized concern are easily accessible. Some of the nearly 100 topics covered include birth control and abortion, the mothers' aid movement, theories and studies of juvenile delinquency, the progressive attack on child labor, and the child labor amendment. The Children's Bureau, the development of pediatric thought, the fight against infant mortality, child health and the Depression, the origin and development of the public high school, and the education of children of minority groups are also treated.

The text includes both published and unpublished, private and public documents. It is augmented with selected contemporary illustrations.