When the bough breaks: Dependent children in Westchester County, New York, 1880--1914.
Item
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Title
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When the bough breaks: Dependent children in Westchester County, New York, 1880--1914.
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Identifier
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AAI3169992
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identifier
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3169992
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Creator
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Towers, Iris.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Gerald Markowitz
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Date
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2005
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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History, United States | Sociology, Public and Social Welfare
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Abstract
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Between 1880 and 1914, children from more than 350 families in Westchester County entered the Westchester Temporary Home for Destitute Children. This study offers an analysis of their institutional experience from the perspective of the community, the family, and the children themselves. It also examines the 1880 Census for three representative Westchester towns in order to determine how the educational and work experiences of children committed to Westchester institutions compared to those of the general population. Although the youngsters left no written accounts, rich and previously unexamined records of the Home and related court proceedings reveal how they reacted to their treatment.;Scholars who have examined subordinate populations, such as women, slaves, and serfs generally ignore children, who also suffered oppression under the guise of protection and support. Youngsters committed to institutions such as the WTH had to cope with life outside their families and to negotiate on their own changing circumstances as they travelled from their families to institutions to placements. The children in this study responded with behavior that ranged from acceptance and accommodation to resistance, retaliation, and running away. Behavior admired in adults, namely independence, self-determination, and resistance to oppression, was condemned in children. Those who dared to criticize or oppose their treatment risked punishment, arrest, and commitment to institutions.;This work builds on scholarship that considers the strategies of families who used institutions as a refuge for their children during times of crisis. This is not, however, merely an institutional study, but one that develops the experiences of the children of the WTH on a larger social and economic canvas. Their hardships and deprivations aroused both the charitable impulses and the anxieties of the county's upper classes, who feared that they posed both an imminent and a future threat. The WTH was part of the community, and many layers of Westchester society converged there. Their interactions shed light on changing theories regarding the education, healthcare, work, and discipline of children during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
