Dependent Children, Child Custody, and the Mothers' Pensions: The Transformation of State-Family Relations in the Early 20th Century

Abstract

This paper challenges the widely-held belief that government has assumed increasing authority over family life in the United States. I explore the origins and development of welfare services for dependent children from the indenture system of the colonial days to the introduction of mothers' pensions in the early 20th century. Rather than intruding more into family life, government has moved from an initial disregard of the family unit to a reinforcing of parent-child ties by supporting the custody rights of the mother. Commentators on the modern family frequently lament the progressive intrusion of government into family affairs and the resulting reduction of parental decision-making and control. A growing body of literature portrays powerless parents facing expanding government authority over the family (Donzelot, 1979; Keniston, 1978; Lasch, 1977, 1979). This paper challenges the hypothesis that government has steadily increased its prerogatives and control over children at the expense of the traditional rights of parents. To test this hypothesis, I explore the origin and evolution of government programs for dependent children in the United States from colonial times to the first decades of the 20th century. I focus on child custody, since the ability of the state to make children public wards is at the heart of competing rights between parents and the state. This paper also emphasizes: (1) class variables that organize relations between parents and the state; and (2) changes in the relative status of women which have influenced government policies. Research presented here on early government programs for dependent children suggests that, rather than progressively eroding traditional parental rights, the state has sometimes supported family unity and parental prerogatives. State intrusions into the domestic affairs of families needing income assistance have become less direct and less disruptive of parent-child relationships over time. The Mothers' Pension program, an early 20th century public assistance program, gave parents child custody rights they had earlier been denied and buttressed family relations that otherwise would have been broken. This paper is divided into three sections. The first surveys the treatment of dependent children from colonial times to the late 19th century. The second concentrates on changes in child custody laws, women's changing family roles, and the consequences of both for the care of dependent children. The third section describes the development of the Mothers' Pension program and its effects on child custody and relations between working class families and the state. I single out the Mothers' Pension program because it was an important precursor of the largest federally supported government service for families, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC).'