About the Book

Book Synopsis

Between the 1920s and the 1950s, the child welfare movement that had originated as a moral reform effort in the Progressive era evolved into the science of child development. In Before Head Start, Hamilton Cravens chronicles this transformation, both on the national level and from the perspective of the field's best-known research center, the University of Iowa's Child Welfare Research Station. Addressing the changing role played by women and the importance of Rockefeller philanthropy, he shows how a women's reform movement became a male-dominated, conservative profession and demonstrates how lay pressure groups can influence the structures and processes of science. Animated by the reformist goals of the child welfare movement, scientists at the Iowa Station challenged the pervasive idea that an individual's development was determined by such group traits as race, class, and gender. Instead, their research suggested that early social intervention could rescue a child from a grim future. Cravens argues that this individualistic perspective, rejected in the 1940s by a scientific community that mirrored society's deterministic notions, anticipated the national social reforms of the post-1950s era, including Head Start.

Review Quotes

"Before Head Start is a major contribution to American historical scholarship. By using a case study approach, Hamilton Cravens has written what is in effect a history of the evolution of child development theory from the early part of the twentieth century to the 1970s. This work will be of interest not only to historians, but to those in the social and behavioral sciences (including developmental and child psychology). . . . An indispensable contribution." -- Gerald N. Grob, Rutgers University

"A well-written, insightful history of the origins and growth of the discipline of child development." -- Historian

"The book is satisfying in its detail, offering a rich and complex analysis of the theories and personalities of the nationally prominent child development researchers of the period." -- Isis

"The definitive work on the origins of academic child development research in the United States." -- History of Education Quarterly

"This readable and painstakingly researched study will be welcomed by faculty and advanced students." -- CHOICE

"This solid, superior study of an important and misunderstood discipline is a major contribution to the history of science." -- American Historical Review

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