Science discovers the child, 1893-1935: A history of the early scientific study of children.

Abstract

In 1918, twenty-five years after pioneer American psychologist G. Stanley Hall launched the first organized effort to establish scientific child study, only three psychologists and two psychiatrists were full-time students of children. Today, however, an estimated eight thousand scholars are studying children. This study tells the story of how women social reformers, reform-minded scientists, and science-minded philanthropists succeeded where Hall's child study movement had failed. Hall abandoned his child study movement in 1910. By 1917 women social reformers and their scientist allies had established three new child study organizations, each with a new approach: the first child guidance clinic, established in Chicago in 1909; the United States Children's Bureau, founded in 1912; and the first institution in the world to study the normal child, established by the Iowa state legislature in 1917. In the decade after World War I, private philanthropy invested millions in child study and parent education programs based on these prewar initiatives, and the federal government also increased its commitment to the scientific study of children. The immediate result was to transform prewar efforts to reform society for the benefit of the child into postwar efforts to reform the child for the benefit of society. The enduring result was the rapid institutionalization and professionalization of scientific child study. This thesis focuses on the birth and growth of three movements, each with a different approach. The child development movement initiated research on the physical, mental, and emotional development of children. The child guidance movement focused on the clinical study of children with emotional or behavioral problems. The Children's Bureau applied to children the sociological survey techniques developed by urban progressive reformers. The first integrated history of the emergence over four decades of all three approaches, this study views them not as isolated efforts but as related parts of a single broad movement. Three interrelated themes are emphasized: the influence of social context, especially social reform; the importance of uniquely American attitudes, values, and circumstances; and the prominent role of American women social reformers and American philanthropists in creating the new child sciences.