Mother-Work: Women, Child Welfare, and the State, 1890-1930

MOTHER-WORK: WOMEN, CHILD WELFARE, AND THE STATE, 1890-193O by Molly Ladd-Taylor.

Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994. 211 pp. $14.95 (paper).

Molly Ladd-Taylor explores women's contributions to child welfare legislation at the turn of the century in Mother-Work: Women, Child Welfare, and the State, a volume in the Women in American History series. She begins with the late nineteenth century, when maternal and child welfare first became national political concerns. Chronicling the events of welfare legislation, most notably the Sheppard-Towner Maternity and Infancy Protection Act of 1921, the first national welfare legislation, Ladd-Taylor analyzes...