The Farm, Foster Care, and Dependent Children in the Midwest, 1880–1920

Abstract

Between the Civil War and World War I, the midwestern farm played an important role in the care of dependent children. Instead of paying families to take in children, welfare workers relied on farmers to take children in for free. However, the situation for dependent children and farmers changed during the Progressive Era. Movements to improve farming methods and standards of living in the hopes of keeping rural people on the land highlighted the difficulties of farm life. For the children placed in free homes with farmers, reformers sought to improve record keeping and supervision. Such reforms had unforeseen consequences. The bureaucracy needed to supervise children placed on farms increased costs, while farmers resented the intrusion. Children who labored for free on farms no longer learned skills useful in the modern, industrializing nation. As more systematic supervision became standard across the Midwest, farm placement lost its appeal. By examining the motivations for better supervision of placed-out children and how those plans became policy, this article reveals complexities, underestimated by previous scholars, in the commonly told story of the transition of child-welfare practices from an emphasis on free farm placement to paid foster care in suburban and urban settings.