Chapter III   YEARS OF ECONOMIC CRISIS   1921-1933

THE PERIOD BETWEEN 1921-33 opened with a mild depression, followed by a short middle period of great prosperity, and closed with a great depression–all events that affected the Bureau’s work.

In August 1921, Grace Abbott succeeded Julia Lathrop as Chief of the Bureau.  She had come to the Bureau to administer the new child-labor law in April 1917. During these years, the Bureau’s investigating and reporting activities expanded and deepened–and in addition the Bureau had the administration of a grant-in-aid program.  But the whole tenor of the Bureau’s investigations changed in 1929-30–the depression and its effects occupied the center of the Bureau’s efforts-and the grant-in-aid program was terminated.

During these years the foundation was laid for the children’s programs under the Social Security Act (1935) by the Bureau’s administration of the Maternity and Infancy Act and its studies of child welfare, and care for crippled children.

The work in the States under the Maternity and Infancy Act, a direct outgrowth of the Bureau’s early studies of infant and maternal mortality, went on for 7 years and then ended.  But with the advent of the Social Security Act in 1935, the Bureau once again had the administration of a maternal and child health program.

Among the studies carried forward by the Bureau were the following:

Infant and maternal mortality.

Child growth, health, and nutrition, especially the prevention of rickets.

Services for crippled children. Child labor.

Child dependency.

Foster care.

Children of working mothers. Mother’s aid.

Children born out of wedlock. Adoption.

Recreation.

Mental defectives.

Juvenile courts and juvenile delinquency.

Domestic relations or family courts.

Public and private programs for child welfare.

Economic handicaps and the effects of the great depression on  children, and measures for mitigating them.

On the basis of these studies and through its administration of the Maternity and Infancy Act from 1921-29, the Bureau was in a position to make strong presentations to the President’s Committee on Economic Security in 1934 and to the Congress in 1935 on next steps in protecting the health and welfare of children and mothers, and later to Congress on the need for regulating child labor.

1930 White House Conference

The 1930 White House Conference on Child Health and Protection was called by President Herbert Hoover “to study the present status of the health and well-being of the children of the United States and its possessions, to report what is being done, to recommend what ought to be done, and how to do it.”  For 16 months prior to the Conference in November 1930, 1,200 experts devoted themselves “to study, review, and fact-finding.”

The Conference as a whole assembled in Washington, November 19 to 22, 1930, with 3,000 in attendance. The final reports of the Conference consisted of a series of 32 volumes and were a contribution of unique value to those concerned with the well-being of children.

All Children

The Bureau’s second Chief in looking back through the Bureau’s first decade in the report for 1922 said: “There has been an increasing appreciation of the importance of technique in the field of child care; of linking up the State with the local administrative machinery and of including in the field of interest all the children of the community. The medical profession is giving more consideration to the social and economic aspects of child health, and the social workers have learned the importance of a physical diagnosis before determining social treatment .  The Children’s Bureau does not claim responsibility for these changes.  It can, however, be said that its investigations furnished the facts on which action was frequently based, and because of the cooperation of experts in child welfare, public and private child-caring agencies, and women’s organizations, the bureau has been able to focus national attention on some of the most important aspects of child care.”

Administration of the Maternity and Infancy Act (Sheppard-Towner Act)

Everywhere in accordance with the spirit and intent of the Act, the States took on the most difficult work as their responsibility. The work was largely educational in character.  Methods of preventive care that had been developed in large cities were tried in or adapted to smaller cities or rural areas. Some of the more important features found in many of the State programs were these:

1. Conferences with mothers held by specialists in maternity and child health with the object of trying to help mothers appreciate the need for good care and what its essentials were; and in some States the distribution of supplies to mothers unable to go to hospitals for confinement so that adequate and sterile materials might be available at their homes.

2. More maternity, infant, and child health centers; nutrition classes, dental hygiene work for mothers and children; more public health nurses and physicians, particularly in rural areas.

3. Education of mothers in the essentials of maternity and infant hygiene through correspondence courses, and of young girls through classes for “Little Mothers.”

New and interesting work among midwives was done.  Little attention had been paid to the midwife in the United States.  Our census figures, which showed approximately 5,000 midwives practicing in various States, seemed to indicate that the midwife was not an important problem in this country.  Suspecting otherwise, the Bureau sent out a questionnaire. On the basis of this questionnaire, the Bureau estimated that 45,000 midwives–not 5,000–were practicing in the 41 States from which information was secured and that this number was probably below the correct total.   The percentage of births attended by mid-wives in some States was large.

In nearly all the States in which midwives were practicing, efforts were made to improve their services rather than to outlaw them.  The midwife was an interesting figure with many strange and time-worn superstitions which were hard to eradicate and replace with scientific knowledge.  One midwife in a southern State explained seriously that she was taught her method “by the Spirit.”  Another midwife in another State described her profession as “ketchin’ babies.” Almost always the midwife had some strange concoction in which she placed implicit faith.   In one group, one of the favorite devices was the brewing of strange teas, teny, pennyroyal, muddauber, this last made of the nest of a wasp found in the barns under the eaves.

The Act provided that the plan should originate in the States and be carried out by them.  A Federal Board of Maternity and Infant Hygiene composed of the Chief of the Children’s Bureau, the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service and the Commissioner of Education was given authority to approve or disapprove of State plans, but the act specified that the plan must be approved by the Board “if reasonably appropriate and adequate to carry out its purposes.” In all of the 45 States cooperating under the act between 1921 and 1929, with the exception of four, the administration was lodged in the State Department of Health.   Each State drew up its program on the basis of its own needs.

Several surveys of the work carried on under the maternity and infancy act were made by outside agencies. The Elizabeth McCormick Memorial Fund of Chicago after a study of activities under the Sheppard-Towner Act in nine States (1928) said: “The Elizabeth McCormick Memorial Fund . . . is convinced that a fine piece of work is under way and that a great need exists for State programs of maternal and infant welfare…………………     It is evident to us as a result of this survey that the States have not been hampered by Federal administration, but they have profited greatly by the pooling of experience through conferences arranged by the Children’s Bureau and by advice received from the Bureau.”

The American Child Health Association and the Maternity Association of New York after a joint survey of the work carried on under the maternity and infancy act (1928) speaking particularly of the decreased death rate of mothers in rural districts, said: “In view of the fact that practically all of the work . . . has been in country districts, it is fair to assume that some of that reduction may be due to this campaign.  In the States whose work is reported here, it was undoubtedly a factor.  Everyone shows a lowered rate.”

In January 1927, Congress continued the act for 2 years–that is until June 30, 1929–when it ceased to operate.

But even though the appropriation for the Sheppard-Towner Act was not renewed by Congress, the influence of the Bureau’s work for maternity and infancy lived on.  Upon this foundation was erected the cooperative Federal-State program for maternal and child health under the Social Security Act (1935), when Congress gave the Children’s Bureau more ample funds than ever before for infancy and maternity work.  And on this foundation, too, was created the Emergency Maternity and Infant Care program for the wives and babies of enlisted men during the Second World War.

Control of Rickets

The Children’s Bureau was directed by its organic act to investigate “diseases of children.”  One of the first diseases selected for study was rickets, which was known to so impair the nutrition and resistance of the child’s body to infection that it opened the way to pneumonia in its severest form accompanying measles, whooping cough, and respiratory diseases and increased materially the death rate from these diseases.

The Bureau not only investigated the facts about the incidence of the disease but it selected a typical community and showed what could be done by any city to meet the problem. The year was 1924.   The community selected was New Haven, Conn.  The study was done in cooperation with the Pediatric Department of the Yale University School of Medicine and the New Haven Department of Health.  The work was under the direction of Dr. Martha M. Eliot with the guidance of Dr. E. A. Park, Professor of Pediatrics.

The demonstration was in two parts: First, the prevention of rickets by means of sunbaths and cod-liver oil among babies born in the district selected for study; and second, the study of older children in the district to determine the amount of rickets already present.

All babies born in the district were examined regularly and X-ray records made of bone growth, so that doctors might have this data to guide them in diagnosis and treatment.  The study went on for 3 years.  Results showed that simple measures could be taught to mothers and that these were successful in preventing rickets and making babies healthier.

The Bureau still had some questions as to the correct interpretation of certain X-ray signs used in the diagnosis of mild rickets, so it was decided to study a group of babies and young children who had lived continually in a tropical climate.

Accordingly, a study of Puerto Rican children was undertaken in order to study the X-ray appearance of the bones of these infants with those of babies living in temperate climates.

Maternal and Neonatal Mortality

The extent and factors contributing to infant and maternal mortality had been studied during the very early years of the Bureau. During this period the Bureau undertook more extended investigations of the causes of this mortality.

In 1927 and 1928, the Bureau appointed an advisory committee of prominent obstetricians and made a large field study of the causes of maternal death and the conditions associated with it.  This study covered the deaths of about 7,500 women attributed by the Bureau of the Census to puerperal causes.   These were not selected cases.  Every such death occurring over a 2-year period in 15 States and over a period of 1 year in 2 States was investigated.

Just what did such a study involve?  A look at some of the field reports showed that it meant riding mule-back over remote trails in the Kentucky mountains, driving over the endless Western prairies, visiting big hospitals in crowded cities and the cabins of granny mid-wives in the far South.  It meant going anywhere and everywhere that the records showed a mother had died and filling in a detailed schedule with information which might throw light on the cause of her death.

Startling facts were revealed by the study.  A large proportion of women had had little or no prenatal examination by a physician. Others had little or very poor care.  A large proportion of the deaths were “due to controllable causes.”  The highest percentage of the deaths–40 percent–were due to sepsis and nearly half of these were caused by abortion; 30 percent were due to some presumably toxic condition.

Close on the heels of this study came similar investigations by the New York Academy of Medicine and the Philadelphia Medical Society, reporting similar results–about 65 percent of deaths of mothers in childbirth were preventable.

Beginning in 1928 the Bureau cooperated with the Yale University School of Medicine in a study of the causes of neonatal morbidity and mortality. The report stated: “more careful prenatal care . . . would probably reduce the number of premature deliveries, but there are still many gaps in the knowledge of complications of pregnancy resulting in premature delivery . . . there is little doubt that many premature infants’ lives would be saved if modern methods of care were available in every community.”

Families and Children and the Depression

A major task of investigating and reporting on the “welfare of children and child life” undertaken by the Bureau during these years related to the effects of economic depression on families and children.

At first the depression was thought of as a calamity that would be over in a few months.  Government officials and executives of industry tried to reassure a bewildered people.  “Prosperity,” they told the press and the public, “is just around the corner.”  If only people would not get alarmed, this temporary storm would pass and all would be well. Only slowly was the depression recognized for what it was–a long time deepening crisis demanding the most sincere and courageous attempts to safeguard the economic and social life of individuals, families, and communities.

During the great depression, the Bureau studied:

The effect of unemployment on families and children.

The facts about the extent of relief.

The inadequacies of a relief program financed by private charity and local public funds.

The lot of youth hopelessly trekking back and forth across the country looking for work.

From time to time in the years since its founding, the Children’s Bureau had made studies of children in families of breadwinners employed in occupations which, because of the migratory or seasonal nature of the work or the development of single industry communities or for other reasons presented special problems in living conditions and community relationships.  But in 1929, the focus shifted to what unemployment and inadequate relief meant in the lives of children and their families.

In 1921-22, the country experienced an industrial depression of short duration.  And during this time, the Bureau undertook its first study of the effects of a period of unemployment upon children. The findings based on results from two cities showed frugality in food to the point of actual privation, extreme economy in clothing and household supplies, reduction in housing costs by seeking cheaper quarters or taking in lodgers.  Children frequently left school and mothers their homes for work at low wages.

This study was to serve as the touchstone for much of the Bureau’s work during the great depression beginning in 1929.  Children, the Bureau knew, suffered “not temporary but permanent losses” during a period of industrial depression-and this knowledge, in a sense, forearmed the Bureau as to the tasks it would need to undertake during a prolonged depression.

In the fall of 1930, President Hoover’s Emergency Committee for Employment asked the Bureau to make surveys in various coal mining communities to determine the extent of the need for relief and resources for meeting it. Long before 1929, the depression had come to the mining villages. The use of machines in the mines threw men out of work and carried widespread unemployment beginning as early as the mid-twenties.

All of these county studies presented variations on the same unhappy theme.  The resources for relief of the suffering in these communities–in many of which unemployment had been regarded as serious as early as 1927 and had reached unheard of proportions by 1931-were few and entirely inadequate.  If hunger and further evictions were to be prevented, outside assistance was imperative–without such assistance suffering would be intense.

The reports of the Bureau’s investigators gave vivid pictures of the conditions among the unemployed.  In describing the situation in a Pennsylvania county, the report said, “Many of the small communities are half deserted.  Both private and company-owned houses . . . are, as a rule, in very bad condition-sagging porches, glassless windows boarded up, everything in a state of decay.  The general impression of decay and ruin is felt even in the larger towns.  It is reflected in the attitude of the people, businessmen, church workers, petty officials, miners who feel that things are going from bad to worse. They readily admit that many people are suffering a slow form of starvation because even the partially employed men cannot earn enough to feed their families adequately.”

During these years the Bureau was issuing each month the only national relief statistics then available.  On July 1, 1930, it took over a project of the National Association of Community Chests and Councils for the registration of social statistics.  Monthly reports from 6,832 agencies in 38 cities included the local public and private family relief agencies, mother’s aid, and agencies for transients.

Soon after this, President Hoover’s Emergency Committee for Employment asked the Children’s Bureau to expand the reporting of relief to all cities of 50,000 or over. (The Bureau continued the collection of these relief statistics until 1936 when it was taken over by the Social Security Board to form the basis of the statistics on public assistance issued monthly ever since.)

As these monthly reports came in, the staff of the Bureau watched the number of families on relief grow until, by March 1932, there were one million families on relief in 124 cities and the relief bill for that month came to more than $28 million.  The bonus march on Washington, riots in Detroit, Cleveland, and elsewhere gave dramatic force to the tragic situation which was everywhere becoming worse.

In the fall of 1931, Senator Robert M. LaFollette of Wisconsin and Senator Edward P. Costigan of Colorado introduced a bill providing Federal appropriations of $500 million for relief to be administered by the Children’s Bureau.  Although the hearings showed a clear picture of the great distress in all parts of the country, the bill was defeated in Congress in February 1932.

Finally, Congress passed the Emergency Relief and Construction Act of 1932 which authorized the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to make available to the States $300 million “to be used in furnishing relief and work relief to needy and distressed people and in relieving the hardships resulting from unemployment.”

By the winter of 1932, the Bureau knew reductions in State appropriations for child health services had become serious, indeed.  In October 1933 a National Conference on Child Health Recovery was called by the Secretary of Labor on the suggestion of the Bureau to consider plans for stimulating nationwide interest in the health and nutrition of children in families affected by the economic depression. A program designed to locate undernourished children and to develop means of overcoming malnutrition by more adequate feeding and medical care was recommended by the Conference.

As a follow-up on this program, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration requested the Children’s Bureau to act as consultant in organizing special statewide nursing projects under the direction of State health departments, in which unemployed nurses were paid from Civil Works Administration funds.  Physicians on the staff of the Children’s Bureau visited every State to assist them in working out practical programs.

Still another result of the Bureau’s emphasis on child health recovery was the school-lunch program carried on under the auspices of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration.

Many adolescents during the depression found home life, under conditions of unemployment and meager relief, intolerable. Great numbers of young people–both boys and girls–had taken to the road during the fall of 1931. In the spring of 1932, field workers from the Bureau undertook to find out the facts.   They visited St. Louis, Kansas City, St. Joseph, Birmingham, New Orleans, El Paso, and points in Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, California, and Utah.  They talked with all sorts of persons who had direct contact with boys and girls on the road, including “workers in agencies supplying the wanderers with food, shelter, and other services, interested and sympathetic police officers, trainmen and special agents of the railroads.”

Since most of the communities through which the transient army passed were unable to meet the needs of their own unemployed adequately, in community after community, the transient youth found himself an unwelcome visitor, regarded with dislike and suspicion.  A dish of beans, a place to sleep on the jail floor, and an urgent invitation to leave town by morning was his lot everywhere.

In 1933, the Chief of the Bureau at a congressional hearing advanced an idea that was later reflected in the establishment of the Civilian Conservation Corps and the National Youth Administration. “The experience with work camps in which there is an opportunity for training in a wholesome environment had been excellent.  There ought to be opportunity for vocational classes and for work relief in the cities and towns.”

The Conference on Present Emergencies in the Care of Dependent and Neglected Children which met at the Children’s Bureau in December 1933 grew out of a request to President Hoover by the Child Welfare League of America.  This conference reported that unprecedented family destitution, reduction in State and local appropriations, in private contributions and endowment funds, had endangered the welfare of many children.

In 1933, the Children’s Bureau cooperating with the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Women’s Bureau undertook still another study–the effect of the depression on the standard of living of families of railway employees.

Between July 1929 and April 1933, two-thirds of the families had suffered reductions in income of at least 20 percent and one-half of at least 30 percent.  During 1932, only 18 percent reported an income of as much as $1,750 and 10 percent had received as little as $500. How had the railway men and their families lived on these lowered incomes?  Diets had been reduced to a level at which nutritional needs were not being met.  This showed especially in a marked decrease in the use of milk which is customarily used as a rough yard-stick in measuring the adequacy of children’s diets.

Special Groups of Children

The Bureau’s horizons on studies of special groups of children. widened considerably during this period (1921-33).  Indeed they were extended so greatly that the line between special groups and all children became very hard to draw.  Many of these studies led to conclusions affecting the standards of care for all children.  And the converse was equally true.  Disadvantaged children were children first–and handicapped youngsters, second.

State and County Organization for Child Welfare

From the first the Bureau had been concerned with the welfare of rural children.  The early studies of infant and maternal mortality, child dependency and “feeblemindedness” had all pointed to the unevenness and, in some States, total lack of facilities and services for rural children.

Beginning in the early twenties the Bureau began its studies of child welfare activities in the States, particularly in rural areas. These were undertaken at the request of a number of State departments of welfare and children’s code commissions who were asking for an evaluation of “administrative methods insuring reasonable standards of service for children in smaller towns and rural communities.”

Early in 1924, at the request of the Georgia State Department of Public Welfare and the Georgia Children’s Code Commission, a study was made of the care available to dependent, neglected, and delinquent children in 30 counties in Georgia.   Here work had not been organized on a county base and in many counties services were completely lacking, with serious loss to the children.

Brief studies in selected counties of Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and New York were undertaken beginning in 1925 with a view to determining the methods of organization and the results obtained in States doing pioneer work in the development of a countywide child welfare service.

These reports included a description of the organization of the State departments concerned with child care and protection and of the county agencies provided under the terms of the State laws, together with first-hand observations in several counties in each State.

Finally on February 15, 1929, representatives of State departments of public welfare came to the Children’s Bureau for a conference on child dependency and protection.   Among the representatives of the 32 States who attended were directors of State departments of welfare, members of State boards, and staff members engaged in some particular aspect of work for dependent children. The group discussed the scope of child-welfare activities of State departments, county welfare problems, the supervisory work of State departments, provisions for the care of dependent children, and minimum statistics that should be obtained by State departments from child-caring agencies and institutions.

A new conception of the duties of State departments of public welfare seemed about to be born–a conception that held great promise for the welfare of rural children.   These departments were now concerned “not only with custodial care or institutional training schools but with the prevention of social breakdown and the care in their homes of many for whom the only treatment in the past has been institutional isolation.”

In North Carolina, Minnesota, Virginia, and Alabama a broad program of public welfare or child welfare work according to a statewide plan was being put into operation.   In California, Georgia, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, and West Virginia a program of social welfare was being advocated by the State department although not as yet in a uniform statewide plan.  County care and supervision of dependent, neglected, delinquent, or defective children, with more or less close cooperation of the State department was underway in Arizona, Arkansas, Indiana, Michigan, New York, and Ohio. “While the more populous communities find it possible and economical to provide their own specialists, the rural counties must look to the State for psychiatric help with problem children … for the expert in recreation and in social casework to assist in the handling of individual cases as well as in the development of a local service program.” These county and statewide studies of child welfare work provided the base for the proposals for grant-in-aid funds for child welfare services under the Social Security Act.

Mother’s Aid

Much of the work of the Bureau for mother’s aid during this period was directed toward improving its administration in the States.  In 1922, the Bureau sponsored a small conference of experts on mother’s aid to discuss casework standards, supervision, and other problems.   The first attempt to procure a national picture of those benefiting by mother’s aid laws was made in 1921 and 1922.  The reports showed 45,825 families receiving aid in 1921.

The Bureau published a study in 1923 of reasons why mothers of young children found it necessary to apply for public aid.  The death of the father of the family was the compelling factor in three-fourths of the cases; in about one-fifth, it was the father’s inability to work because of illness or other incapacity.

In 1926, the Bureau issued Public Aid to Mothers of Dependent Children. The bulletin summarized the history of the legislation, its status in 1926, the problems connected with its administration and supervision, and how the amount of the pension was determined.

Under the State mother’s aid laws counties were either required or permitted to set up the system since the laws adopted were mandatory or permissive.  Many counties never made any mother’s aid grants.   In 1931, the Children’s Bureau reported that out of 2,723 counties authorized by State laws to grant mother’s aid, only 1,578 reported that mother’s aid was being granted.  In 1931, 93,620 families with 253,298 dependent children were known to be receiving aid. The Bureau estimated that probably more than twice that number were eligible for aid but were not receiving it.

During the depression, mother’s aid dwindled.  Reports to the Children’s Bureau showed that between 1931-33 many counties in many States which had previously granted mother’s aid had canceled all grants.

Foster-Family Care

A report on children deprived of parental care and taken under the custody of Delaware agencies was issued in 1921 “Preventive and constructive social work with families and other forms of aid would reduce the number of children removed from their homes for causes associated with poverty,” the report concluded.  In 1923, the Bureau issued a publication entitled Foster-Home Care for Dependent Children contributed to by 12 authorities in child-caring work, each dealing with a different phase of the problem. This publication was far ahead of its time-and is still good reading.  Many of the ideas advanced are still in the process of being worked into practice.

Field work was also begun on the organization and methods of foster-home care agencies in 10  communities.   All of the agencies studied were moving from a strong emphasis “on adoptions and free-home permanent placements” to “stressing the preservation of family ties.” But the degree to which they had advanced in this direction varied enormously.

Adoption

A report was prepared in 1924 dealing briefly with the history of adoption legislation in the United States.  The principal features of the laws were summarized, together with texts of some of the most recent ones.  “To safeguard the interests of all the parties concerned, the adoption law should provide for investigation of the fitness of the natural parents to care for the child, of his physical and mental condition and his heredity (as it bears on whether he is a proper subject for adoption), of the moral fitness and financial ability of the adopting parents, and in general of the suitability of the proposed home,” the Bureau’s report stated.  “It should also provide for trial placement in the home either before the petition for adoption was filed or before a final decree was granted, and for supervision during this trial period.”

Juvenile Courts and Juvenile Delinquency

In 1923, the Bureau’s advisory committee on juvenile courts presented a set of Standards for Juvenile Courts at a conference in Washington held under the auspices of the Children’s Bureau and the National Probation Association.  For more than 20 years these were the benchmarks used in the field to measure progress.

The committee also, with a view to making available comparable current statistics on juvenile delinquency, worked out a plan with the Bureau for the uniform recording and reporting by juvenile courts of a few essential statistics. The plan for reporting of juvenile court statistics of delinquency, dependency, and neglect got underway during 1927.  The first year, about 43 courts in 20 States and the District of Columbia reported. The number of courts covered was rapidly increased and from this year on, reports have been issued annually.

Beginning in 1928, studies of the care and training of boys com-mitted to 10 State training schools were started and carried out over a period of several years. (In 1935, a similar study of institutions for delinquent girls was undertaken.) A summary of causes, treatment and prevention of juvenile delinquency was prepared in 1930 for the Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement.  Later the committee on delinquency of the 1930 White House Conference on Child Health Protection used this material.

The Bureau of Prisons in 1931 asked the Bureau for assistance in working out a program for care and supervision of juvenile delinquents when returned to their home communities by Federal authorities.  The Bureau in furthering this program undertook to investigate and report to the Department of justice, to United States District Attorneys, and to courts and probation officers regarding State facilities for the care of delinquents.

One of the major efforts of the Bureau during this period was a project on probation and the prevention of delinquency undertaken in 1932 jointly with the University of Chicago and the juvenile court of Cook county and carried on until 1936.

Monographs relating to juvenile court work issued by the Bureau during this period covered such subjects as: probation in children’s courts, the legal aspects of the juvenile court, the federal courts and the delinquent child, the Chicago juvenile court, and the practical value of scientific study of juvenile delinquents.

Services for Crippled Children

Popular interest in adequate provision for crippled children had been steadily growing during the years of the Bureau’s existence. Early in the twenties, the Bureau began receiving many inquiries about the work done in the various States.

In an effort to meet these inquiries the Bureau in 1925 undertook a survey of provisions for crippled children in 14 States representing different sections of the country and both rural and densely populated regions.  The study included an examination in each of these States of laws for the benefit of crippled children and of methods of administration.

Public provisions for clinic, hospital, and convalescent care, and for education and employment service were studied, together with out-standing private institutions and agencies for crippled children. Methods of locating crippled children and preventive measures received special attention. Later these studies became the basis of the Bureau’s recommendation to the Committee on Economic Security for the program for crippled children to be included in the proposed Social Security Act.

Child Labor

Whether the United States as a Nation was to have the authority to insist upon certain minimum safeguards for working children in every State, east and west, north and south, was a question which became a vital issue to the American people in the early 1920’s.

By its decision in May 1922 holding unconstitutional the Federal child-labor tax law, the second attempt to regulate child labor by act of Congress, the United States Supreme Court seemed to make the issue clear.  If child labor was to be regulated on a nationwide basis, a Constitutional amendment definitely giving Congress the power to regulate child labor seemed at this time to be the only way.

All through the twenties, the proponents for child-labor legislation waged an epic battle for the passage of a child-labor amendment to the Constitution.  Inevitably the Bureau and its studies were drawn into the struggle. Between 1930 and 1932, when unemployment spread like wildfire, large numbers of employed children were discharged to make room for adult workers.  But in 1932 a counter movement occurred to utilize the labor of children for its cheapness.  They could be employed for much less than adults.  The result was that in certain industries and in certain localities more children were employed than in prosperous times.  A children’s strike in an Allentown, Pa., factory called national attention to the extremes to which child exploitation had gone.

Throughout the twenties and on into the thirties, the Bureau observed child workers in the United States-the conditions under which they worked and the laws which protected them–children working in the coal mines, children doing industrial home work, children in agriculture and working in the canneries.  During the years 1921-33, some 31 reports were made on child-labor conditions.  The results of these were placed before Congress in its consideration of the child-labor amendment to the Constitution.

In the many reports of the Bureau were vivid pictures.  In Pennsylvania the Bureau investigations found boys as young as 13 working in the coal mines.  The easiest and least dangerous work done by such youngsters was to work in the “breakers.”  Miners of the time had a saying, “You begin at the breakers and you end at the breakers, broken yourself.”

These were the conditions under which boys of 13 or 14 years of age were working: “Black coal dust is everywhere, covering the win-dows and filling the air and lungs of the workers.  The slate is sharp so that the slate pickers often cut or bruise their hands; the coal is carried down the chute in water and this means sore and swollen hands for the pickers.  The first few weeks after the boy begins work his fingers bleed almost continuously, and are called `red tops’ by the other boys.”