Since the dawn of time, working women have found creative solutions to the age-old problem of child care. But the Industrial Revolution added a new urgency to this challenge, as American women flooded into New England's textile mills. The first infant schools began popping up, and they caught on like wildfire. That is, until a prominent psychologist claimed that early intellectual activity caused physical illness and insanity. Yep, insanity.
The opinion of one quack doctor caused public support for early childhood education to vanish for decades. Poof. But at the turn of the century, as our country woke up to inequality on many fronts, progressive-era reformers took up the child care cause too, making the education of poor children, our youngest, most vulnerable citizens, a top priority.
Nurseries were once again in vogue, and kindergartens opened nationwide. Experts began codifying educational standards, and a new profession was quickly born, the preschool teacher. Then, in the 1940s, World War II sent 16 million men into the armed forces, and millions more women into the workforce.
A child care crisis loomed once again. Sensational reports of children running wild in the streets caused a public outcry. So Congress, for the first time, established a nearly universal... federally subsidized child care program, and it was a smashing success for the kids and their working parents'financial stability. America had finally become a progressive society with universal high-quality early education for any family that needed it.
Everything was looking up. So why isn't that how our system works today? Stay tuned for more from No Small Matter.