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I. Introduction
The history of child protection in America is divisible into three eras.1 The first era extends from colonial times to 1875 and may be referred to as the era before organized child protection. The second era spans 1875 to 1962 and witnessed the creation and growth of organized child protection through nongovernmental child protection societies. The year 1962 marks the beginning of the third or modern era: the era of government-sponsored child protective services.
II. Child Protection Prior to 1875
It was not until 1875 that the world's first organization devoted entirely to child protection came into existence-the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Prior to 1875, many children went without protection, although there has never been a time when children were completely bereft of assistance. Criminal prosecution has long been used to punish egregious abuse. In 1809, for example, a New York shopkeeper was convicted of sadistically assaulting his slave and her three-year-old daughter.2 In 1810, a woman was prosecuted in Schenectady for murdering her newborn child.3 Although the woman admitted to several people that she killed the baby, the jury found her not guilty, probably because she was insane. In 1869, an Illinois father was prosecuted for confining his blind son in a cold cellar in the middle of winter.4 Defense counsel argued that parents have the right to raise their children as they see fit, but the Illinois Supreme Court disagreed, writing that parental "authority must be exercised within the bounds of reason and humanity. If the parent commits wanton and needless cruelty upon his child, either by imprisonment of this character or by inhuman beating, the law will punish him."5 In 1856, the first rape conviction in California history reached the state supreme court.6 The victim was thirteen years old. From 1856 to 1940, the majority of rape appeals in California involved child victims.7
Prosecution was not the only remedy before 1875. As early as 1642, Massachusetts had a law that gave magistrates the authority to remove children from parents who did not "train up" their children properly. In 1735, an orphan girl in Georgia was rescued from a home where she was sexually abused.8 In 1866, Massachusetts passed a law authorizing judges to...