Maternalist Reforms in the United States were experiments in public policy beginning in the late 19th and early 20th century that took the form of laws providing for state assistance to mothers with young children lacking the financial support of a male member of the household. This assistance took the form of financial reimbursements, as well as limits on the maximum working hours for women. These reforms arose from the belief that government has an obligation and interest in protecting and improving the living standards of women and children.

Maternalism Maternalism is the public expression of domestic values associated with motherhood. It centers on the language of motherhood to justify a women's political activities, actions and validate state or public policies. Maternalism is an extension of ...

is defined by historians Seth Koven and

Sonya Michel Sonya Michel is an American historian. She is Professor Emerita at the Department History, University of Maryland. She has also taught at Brandeis University, Brown University, Harvard University, Princeton University, University of Illinois at Ch ...

as a variety of ideologies that "exalted women's capacities to mother and extended to society as a whole the values of care, nurturance and morality", and was intended to improve the quality of life of women and children. To improve the conditions of women and children these policies attempted to reconcile the conflicting roles placed on women during this time period. As single mothers were responsible for both supporting their families and raising children, government assistance would reduce the probability that they could be charged with neglecting their "home duties".

History

Emergence

Maternal public policy emerged in the United States following the landmark

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

decision '' Muller v. Oregon'', 208 U.S. 412 (1908). This case upheld the constitutionality of a law that limited the maximum working hours of women, qualifying the previous ''

Lochner v. New York ''Lochner v. New York'', 198 U.S. 45 (1905), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that a New York state law setting maximum working hours for bakers violated the bakers' right to freedom of contract under t ...

'', 198 U.S. 45 (1905), in which setting maximum working hours for men was held to be unconstitutional, by ruling that the state was allowed to intervene in matters related to women's working hours due to "the difference between the sexes". The decision in Muller was based on a scientific and sociological study that demonstrated that the government has a legitimate interest in the working conditions of women as they have the unique ability to bear children. By the turn of the century, a middle-class women's movement emerged based on the ethos of maternalist reform. Despite not having yet gained the constitutional right to vote, these women were able to exert their influence on public policy, as is particularly demonstrated in the successes of the

Progressive Era The Progressive Era (late 1890s – late 1910s) was a period of widespread social activism and political reform across the United States focused on defeating corruption, monopoly, waste and inefficiency. The main themes ended during Am ...

maternalist reformers, whose initiatives helped establish the federal Children's Bureau, pass the Sheppard-Towner Infancy and Maternity Protection Act, and expand mothers' pensions to most states. Maternalist precepts would continue to shape American welfare policies thereafter due to activism and came to succeed in three overlapping categories:

child protection Child protection is the safeguarding of children from violence, exploitation, abuse, and neglect. Article 19 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child provides for the protection of children in and out of the home. One of the ways to e ...

, social housekeeping, and maternal and child welfare. Maternalist reformers viewed women as "social mothers" who are called to clean up political corruption so they aggressively pushed for maternalist policies to become laws, usually with provisions for female administrators. They also worked to achieve civil service reform and were also involved in promoting food and drug policies. By drawing from the association to motherhood—that mothers were responsible for protecting citizens within the home—the reformers made political demands with great efficacy. Maternalist reform began to be employed as an analytical tool to explain the modern welfare states in the United States and

Western Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...

in the early 1990s. This was facilitated by a Koven and Michel article, which compared the maternal welfare provisions in the U.S., United Kingdom, Germany, and France, effectively introducing maternalism to welfare scholarship. Later scholarship tackling the same subject revealed that paternalist welfare policies, which were designed by male bureaucrats to benefit male workers and their dependents, prevailed in England, whereas the maternalist welfare policies initiated by female reformers to address the specific plights of women thrived in the United States.

Successes and limitations

While maternalist reforms won protection for working people during a time in which labor movements made few gains and asserted the right of women to participate in the public realm, they also perpetuated ideas harmful to the advancement of women to a point of equality with men, eliciting criticism from growing numbers of

feminists Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male poi ...

during the period. Some of these ideas include the belief that all women ought to be mothers and that ideally men should be financially supporting the family.Brandeis, L. D. (1907). The Brandeis Brief. Retrieved January 27, 2010, from http://www.law.louisville.edu/library/collections/brandeis/node/235 There were also strong pushbacks to maternalist reform in the United States. The most significant of these came from opponents who attacked it as living proof of a socialist infiltration of the U.S. government. These attacks were effective in undermining some previous successes, as for example the repeal of the Sheppard-Towner Infancy and Maternity Protection Act as well as prevention of the maternalist hopes of incorporating

universal health coverage Universal health care (also called universal health coverage, universal coverage, or universal care) is a health care system in which all residents of a particular country or region are assured access to health care. It is generally organized a ...

into the

New Deal The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Cons ...

Individuals and organizations

Individual reformers who were advocates of maternalist policies include: *

Ellen Gates Starr Ellen Gates Starr (March 19, 1859 – February 10, 1940) was an American social reformer and activist. With Jane Addams, she founded Chicago's Hull House, an adult education center, in 1889; the settlement house expanded to 13 buildings in ...

Florence Kelley Florence Moltrop Kelley (September 12, 1859 – February 17, 1932) was a social and political reformer and the pioneer of the term wage abolitionism. Her work against sweatshops and for the minimum wage, eight-hour workdays, and children's rig ...

, founder of the

National Consumers League The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is an American consumer organization. The National Consumers League is a private, nonprofit advocacy group representing consumers on marketplace and workplace issues. The NCL provides government, bu ...

and factory inspector, called on middle class women to

boycott A boycott is an act of nonviolent, voluntary abstention from a product, person, organization, or country as an expression of protest. It is usually for moral, social, political, or environmental reasons. The purpose of a boycott is to inflict som ...

products made by women and children in

sweatshop A sweatshop or sweat factory is a crowded workplace with very poor, socially unacceptable or illegal working conditions. Some illegal working conditions include poor ventilation, little to no breaks, inadequate work space, insufficient lighting, o ...

s. *

Jane Addams Laura Jane Addams (September 6, 1860 May 21, 1935) was an American settlement activist, reformer, social worker, sociologist, public administrator, and author. She was an important leader in the history of social work and women's suffrage ...

Josephine Clara Goldmark Josephine Clara Goldmark (October 13, 1877 – December 15, 1950) was an advocate of labor law reform in the United States during the early 20th century. Her work against child labor and for wages-and-hours legislation (the 8-hour day, minimum ...

Julia Lathrop Julia Clifford Lathrop (June 29, 1858 – April 15, 1932) was an American social reformer in the area of education, social policy, and children's welfare. As director of the United States Children's Bureau from 1912 to 1922, she was the first wom ...

Lillian Wald Lillian D. Wald (March 10, 1867 – September 1, 1940) was an American nurse, humanitarian and author. She was known for contributions to human rights and was the founder of American community nursing. She founded the Henry Street Settlement in N ...

Sophonisba Breckinridge Sophonisba Preston Breckinridge (April 1, 1866 – July 30, 1948) was an American activist, Progressive Era social reformer, social scientist and innovator in higher education. She was the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in political science and ...

Organizations and institutions who supported maternalist reforms: *

General Federation of Women's Clubs The General Federation of Women's Clubs (GFWC), founded in 1890 during the Progressive Movement, is a federation of over 3,000 women's clubs in the United States which promote civic improvements through volunteer service. Many of its activities ...

Hull House Hull House was a settlement house in Chicago, Illinois, United States that was co-founded in 1889 by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr. Located on the Near West Side of the city, Hull House (named after the original house's first owner Cha ...

United States Children's Bureau The United States Children's Bureau is a federal agency organized under the United States Department of Health and Human Services' Administration for Children and Families. Today, the bureau's operations involve improving child abuse prevention, ...

References

{{Reflist Women's rights in the Americas