Abstract
This work examines power dynamics at play in the early child-saving movement as illuminated in the case records and annual reports of the Pennsylvania Society to Protect Children from Cruelty (SPCC) from 1878 to 1881 and triangulated with other historical records. 1 We draw on ecological systems theory and urban ecology to examine social and spatial relationships between child-saving institutions, communities, and individuals and families. The paper adapts template analysis for archival research as a replicable approach for studying historical power dynamics embedded in social welfare institutions. This approach highlights the changing role of community members in identifying and responding to neglect and abuse and uncovers common themes that continue to impact the modern child welfare system.
The first child protection organization, the Society to Protect Children from Cruelty (SPCC), was established in New York in 1874 (Costin et al., 1997; Flegel, 2016). Similar organizations emerged rapidly throughout the U.S. and Europe over the next several decades to address child cruelty, a newly recognized social problem (Gordon, 1985). The case of Mary Ellen, a young girl allegedly beaten by her foster parents and subsequently rescued is often held up as the dawn of the child-saving movement, but scholars have since acknowledged that the movement’s origins are a good deal more complex (Costin 1991; Pearson 2011).
While some authors dispute the prominent role of animal protection laws (Pearson 2011), the women’s rights and animal protection movements often get credited with developing the concept of dependents’ rights as the foundation of the anti-cruelty movement (Costin 1991). Notions of “republicanism, religious values favoring temperance, hard work, and sexual propriety...domesticity, manliness, and womanly decorum” influenced the movement (Broder, 2002: 54) and growing sentimentalism played into a cultural appetite for sympathizing with those who suffered (Pearson, 2011). These values became the basis for both social concerns over child well-being and divisions between the working class and the middle and upper classes over the nature of childhood, the emergence of “youth” as a precursor of adolescence, and acceptable parenting strategies (Broder, 2002; Kahan, 2019; Zelizer, 1994).
Class differences, however, were largely ignored in favor of blaming parents for their failures and their susceptibility to immoral behavior (Broder, 2002). For example, working-class life in this era often necessitated that several family members, including children, supported the household by bringing home an income (Katz and Stern, 2006). While working-class children held a monetary value in the family system, their middle-class counterparts were often seen as “priceless” (Zelizer, 1994). Therefore, this common family strategy of sending children out to work was reframed as an abuse (Broder, 2002; Kahan, 2019). Moreover, “the assumption that the child should be instrumental in meeting the needs of the family had been replaced by the conviction that the family had the duty to be instrumental in the development of the child” (Jimenez, 1990: 58).
This period also coincided with the rise of “judicial patriarchy,” which fueled the mounting power of institutions, such as SPCCs, to intervene in working-class communities and regulate family life (Costin, 1991: 214). SPCCs wielded state power and had the backing of local laws, in some ways resembling a local police force, by dispatching uniformed agents, investigating complaints against families, making arrests, and bringing defendants before magistrates (Pearson, 2011). SPCCs also acted as agents of dominant culture, responding to neighborhood complaints and enforcing standards of socially acceptable family behavior (Mahood and Littlewood, 1994).
The SPCC emerged at a time when swift social change was provoking widespread fears among existing U.S.-born elites about the stability of the social order. Rapid industrialization during and after the Civil War—that would make Philadelphia the “workshop of the world”—sparked rapid population growth and the resulting transformation of the city’s built environment (Licht, n.d.). In response to the perceived gulf between itself and an increasingly immigrant, Catholic, and Jewish working class, Protestant elites entered a feverish period of institution-building—of which the SPCC was an example—to repair the social fabric (Boyer, 1992). Yet, the motives and achievements of child-savers cannot be reduced to what Bellingham (1986) characterized as “philanthropic abduction.” Child-saving was based on a mix of motives similar to those that drove the temperance movement, such as Protestant enthusiasm, the physical and social distance between the classes, and a partial recognition of the fragile nature of working-class survival strategies (Mandler, 1990; Staller, 2020).
The formation of SPCCs in the U.S. provided an “organizational blueprint” for the foundation of similar Societies in Liverpool and London between 1882 and 1884, and Ireland in 1889 (Buckley, 2013; Flegel, 2016). Child cruelty emerged as a distinct legal concept in the U.K. in the late 19th century (Flegel, 2016). While the Liverpool SPCC explained the causes of cruelty in terms of social and economic conditions, the London SPCC viewed the issue in terms of the individual moral failings irrespective of class or gender. As the country’s leading organization, the London SPCC published case studies in a monthly journal, The Child’s Guardian, to promote awareness of child abuse and demonstrate the Society’s work to prevent it (Flegel, 2007). Where its U.S. counterparts had to contend with a fragmented political structure that provoked institutional dynamism, the London SPCC (later National SPCC in 1889) gained influence in the British legal system and advocated for sanctions for parental cruelty and neglect, which became an integral part of the European family law system (Weisberg, 1978).
This paper builds on existing SPCC and early child-saving movement literature to make three unique contributions. First, we apply two theoretical perspectives—ecological systems theory and urban ecology—to illuminate the interplay between institutions, community actors, and families and individuals within one city. Second, these theoretical perspectives highlight the changing role of community actors in relation to child welfare concerns over time, which has been often overlooked in the previous literature. Third, our methodology, which employs template analysis of archival case records and triangulated with data from multiple sources, demonstrates a replicable approach for analyzing historical data within social welfare institutions. Altogether, we provide a novel theoretical and methodological strategy for unearthing historical power dynamics that has implications for today’s practitioners.
Theoretical frameworks: Ecological systems and urban ecology
Bronfenbrenner (2005) developed ecological systems theory to address the impact of social and cultural practices on behavior by examining interactions across different strata of social organization, suggesting that actions are nested within hierarchical levels starting from the micro, individual level and radiating outwards toward the macro, societal level. In comparison, the urban ecology model of the Chicago School directs focus to spatial units within cities, rather than to society at large (Turner, 1988), and offers the idea of collective efficacy rooted in informal social control and social cohesion at the community level (Sampson, 2012). While both perspectives use ecology and focus on how individual action is embedded in a variety of social contexts, ecological systems theory establishes a set of relationships influenced by actors at multiple levels while urban ecology highlights the importance of space and place within these interactions.
Several scholars have proposed a developmental-ecological model as a way of merging Bronfenbrenner’s account of hierarchical contexts with the spatial concerns of Chicago School scholars (Henry et al., 2014; Sampson, 2012; Tolan et al., 2003; Wang and Fowler, 2019). Historical analysis certainly challenges the neatness of the conventional divisions predicated within these models. In contrast with Britain, the widely noted fragmentation of U.S. political institutions opened the door for uneasy relationships between existing and newer institutions. SPCCs, police, and courts experienced this institutional dynamism as they sought to establish their authority and cooperate and compete in defining their role (Tichenor, 2002: 29–31). Ultimately, these struggles led to many of the distinctive features of the development of the social work profession and of U.S. social welfare, including the persistence of local control and the significant role of non-governmental entities. Therefore, we incorporate an examination of power dynamics into our framing of ecological systems and urban ecology. Focusing on power dynamics—that is, how one’s ability to influence outcomes affects one’s interactions with other people or groups—provides a more holistic understanding of persistent exchanges across systems and space that continue to guide present-day child welfare systems (Fabinyi et al., 2014).
Methods
Our analysis draws on a selection of agency case records (N = 78; identified by the case number listed on the record) from the Pennsylvania SPCC (hereafter, Society) between 1878 and 1881, reflecting the formative years of the Society alongside the emergence of social work as a profession. While later sociologists and social workers would debate the definition of the “case,” the SPCC treated a case as a self-evident instance of agency interaction with defendants, “sufferers,” and witnesses (Lee, 2018). Between 1878 and 1904, the Society used a standardized record system which included information on the nature of the complaint; sufferer(s)’ (i.e., the child’s) name, age, and placement; defendant(s); complainant(s); witness(es); and open-ended case notes. The Society delineated each case by the defendant (often one person, but sometimes a set of parents or related family members) and the allegation made against them. Case record selection 2 was driven by purposive sampling to select critical cases with few missing fields as well as to ensure maximum variation (Patton, 1980). Of note, sampled case records often (50.7%) noted additional case records linked to the same family (i.e., one or more additional complaints against the same family in a separate, distinct record). 3
The study employed a template analysis approach. Unlike other thematic approaches, template analysis does not provide a set sequence of coding levels in advance, but rather encourages a flexible template style and format to develop themes more extensively and adapt to the needs of a particular study (Brooks et al., 2015). Due to its flexibility, this approach can be used to discover themes through deep exploration of the available data. Thus, by using a template analysis approach, this study illustrates a replicable method that is sufficiently flexible to use with historical sources.
Template codes examined for each system.
Three sources supplemented case record data: (1) data from the 1880 census 10% sample provided a profile of Philadelphia’s population and family structure (Ruggles et al., 2019); (2) 1880 census records provided insight into the ethnicity of Society staff and leadership and the families with whom they interacted; and (3) annual reports released by the Society during the same period as the reviewed case records demonstrated the narrative the Society presented to the public.
Limitations
Historical analysis that relies primarily on case records has inherent limitations, the most intractable of which is that the records themselves do not represent a disinterested account of an agency’s actions. A case record is better seen as a therapeutic contract meant to provide justification for the actions of the agency (Garfinkel, 1967), which must be interpreted within the historical context to surmise how other influences may have impacted it. Inconsistent data collection by the Society further exacerbates this issue. For example, Society agents did not always record witness details and testimony, which limits analysis of the ecology of witnesses and its relationship to patterns in case outcomes and power dynamics. Moreover, case records did not offer further information on witnesses or outcomes that could have illuminated additional influential factors within each case. Finally, the number and scope of included records was limited by the physical condition of the records themselves. Our use of additional sources aims to minimize these limitations and provide a more holistic understanding of power dynamics in 19th century Philadelphia.
Findings
Philadelphia context
The Society formed in 1877 and expanded rapidly during the period of analysis, reporting annual increases in the number of cases, arrests, children involved, and children removed from families consistently between 1878 and 1881 (Pennsylvania Society to Protect Children from Cruelty (SPCC), 1881). In 1880, the majority (54.3%) of Philadelphia households had at least one or two children and few (15.6%) had more than five. Over one-quarter (28.7%) of households contained two or more families. Among all households with children, 95.8% of men and 7.9% of women worked outside of the home.
Forty-nine percent of Philadelphia’s household heads were foreign-born in 1880, with Ireland (23%) and Germany (16%) constituting the largest origins (Ruggles et al., 2019). Census records indicate that close to two-thirds of defendants located in the census were either born or had a parent born in Ireland. In contrast, all 17 Society board members or staff located in the census were born in the U.S., and only one had a parent born in Ireland. The stark differences in nativity represented a division between U.S.-born Protestants and foreign-born Catholics, which remained a source of friction between agencies and the populations they served for the next century.
Additionally, just under 4% of the city’s residents and 3% of its children under the age of 18 were identified as African American (Ruggles et al., 2019). As with many mainstream institutions, African Americans were underrepresented in the Society’s records. As a result, we could not identify any cases involving African American parents or children in the sample.
The society perspective
The objects of the Society, as preserved at the outset of their annual reports, were “to step in and place a ‘shield between the hard hand and its helpless victim’” (Pennsylvania Society to Protect Children from Cruelty (SPCC), 1878: 6). Although the Society’s legal standing was ambiguous in 1878, over the next several years, the Pennsylvania legislature strengthened the Society’s authority to prosecute cases. The Society itself opened a temporary home for children placed in their care and built an extensive network of Philadelphia institutions and relief associations for more long-term placements. From their annual reports, the Society also conveyed increasing cooperation with the police force and magistrates in matters of child welfare. As part of a larger “child saving” enterprise that addressed child labor, compulsory education, and the care of dependent children, the SPCC contributed to an evolving field of practice that influenced the emergence of social work.
Society power
The formal complaints listed in case records suggest that the Society saw its work as a moral undertaking, especially regarding alcohol use, cleanliness, and chastity. Drunkenness, either alone or in combination with other allegations, was the most common complaint noted by the Society: over half (57.5%) of all records included a charge of drunkenness. The Society employed judgmental language to describe defendants in cases reporting drunkenness, such as one mother labeled as “a habitual drunkard, common scold, and a nuisance in the neighborhood” (#1108). In another case that failed to detail any neglect or physical abuse, the agent described a woman as “a habitual drunkard and lost to all motherly feelings” (#2578).
Following drunkenness, the next most common charges in case records were neglect (50.7%), abuse (17.8%), and cruelty (17.8%), and in nearly one in five cases (17.8%), drunkenness and neglect overlapped. Neglect frequently reflected inadequate housing conditions or cleanliness, or what the Society viewed as a poor use of money. For example, one charge of drunkenness and neglect portrayed a child as insufficiently dressed and terribly neglected. In another record, which did not provide evidence of any physical mistreatment of the child, the Society agent suggested that the mother received visitors and sold whatever she could for rum (#764). When a report of cruelty alleged a newborn’s malnourishment, a Society agent visited the house during a doctor’s examination of the child. The agent noted that the doctor saw no indication of neglect and believed the mother to be doing the best she could. Despite this appraisal, the Society felt it necessary to counsel the mother on the use of liquor (#1131).
Complaints related to children begging or performing on the street (12.3%), desertion (6.8%), immorality (6.8%), rape or incest (4.1%), and incorrigible children (2.7%) made up a smaller proportion of complaints investigated by the Society. These cases often overlapped with claims of drunkenness and/or physical mistreatment. In a complaint of drunkenness and sending a child out to beg, the agent described a young girl as the “sole support of a drunken family” who would be beaten if she didn’t return with a suitable dinner for her parents at the end of the day (#1354). The Society described cases of desertion, which they believed involved parents who abandoned their children due to their own habitual drunkenness, but which overlooked the necessity for many working-class parents to travel in search of employment. Several cases of immorality resulted from mothers or other female caregivers suspected of prostitution, such as one mother who lived in a house of “disreputable men and women” (#1124). Though the Society investigated these cases, there was frequently little, if any, physical evidence collected. The Society primarily relied on its own observations or witness accounts. Nearly one-third (31.5%) of case records noted no follow-up, while slightly more (39.7%) recorded one or two follow-ups.
Society influences on outcomes
The Society positioned itself as both a protector of children and an educator of adults and used a top-down approach to attempt to bring virtue and morality to the working classes. The objects of the Society noted that while laws for the protection of children already existed, law enforcement was “necessarily occupied with the gravest and most obvious cases of crime,” leaving the Society to investigate less egregious cases (Pennsylvania Society to Protect Children from Cruelty (SPCC), 1878: 6). Though the Society deemphasized legal recourse in its annual reports, about half of the cases reviewed reported an arrest resulting in a sentence, ranging from 3 to 9 months, or a fine or bail, typically of 500 dollars or more.
However, the Society claimed education as its main objective, especially for those parents who they felt “have very inadequate and erroneous views of the parental relation” (Pennsylvania Society to Protect Children from Cruelty (SPCC), 1878: 7). Alternate outcomes took the form of counseling parents and/or requiring them to commit to changing their behavior, such as taking an oath to abstain from drinking (#1861) or agreeing to have their child learn a trade instead of sending them out to beg (#1125). In this way, the Society claimed to be “exercising, though quietly, a powerful influence, preventing, at the same time, both crime and cruelty without resorting to public prosecution” (Pennsylvania Society to Protect Children from Cruelty (SPCC), 1881: 8).
Overall, about one-half of reviewed cases resulted in a child removal from the family, at least temporarily, often with different outcomes for children within the same household (e.g., one child placed in an institution and another with a relative). Of these records, over one-third (37%) indicated placement in an institution, and a similar proportion remained with their family or were placed in the care of the Society for a brief period and then returned (32.9%). A smaller proportion of cases reported placement with a private family other than a relative or friend (11%). However, nearly a quarter (24.7%) of all case records did not identify the disposition of children. Annual reports denote that the Society placed about half of all children removed from their family with private families and identified over 60 placement institutions, including shelters, asylums, and hospitals. Notably, 6.8% of case records described a cyclical relationship between placing children in institutions, returning them to their families, and then placing them in institutions once more.
Society limitations
The neatness of the Society’s presentation of outcomes in its annual reports belie the true complexity of cases. While the Society established itself as a powerful moral authority protecting the most fragile members of society, in reality, it was limited in the actions it could take. The cases analyzed demonstrate limitations of the Society’s power to track delinquent families, hold parents accountable, and change the structural dynamics of poverty that affected the working-class families they served.
One limitation to arrests and legal action was simply the transient nature of defendants and families. Several records reflected case dismissals when the Society or police could no longer locate the defendant. When one family left their neighborhood, the Society investigated their new residence so that they could “keep watch over them” (#1093, see Figure 1). In another, police attempted to arrest a man who raped his granddaughter, but they were unable to locate him. This case was further complicated when the child’s mother also moved, making correspondence with the Society more difficult (#1115). In a set of linked cases, the defendants could not be found and therefore avoided arrest. When they later called on the Society to receive a pass to visit their institutionalized daughter, they reconnected with the child without prosecution (#1123). Defendant (D) and witnesses (W, X) for cases 1093 and 1138. (a) Case 1093 (b) Case 1138.
Moreover, while annual reports provide neat counts of cases, the common occurrence of overlapping case records demonstrates the more nuanced nature of reporting. For example, multiple complaints might implicate a single family, and adult complainants in one case would reappear as defendants in a later case. These cases underline recurrent family issues, which the Society had limited power to control.
Community perspective
Although our assessment of the Society’s activities echoes findings by other scholars, the case records also provide a community perspective that has rarely been illuminated, including the role of neighbors and religious or charity organizations in the Society’s investigations. Among the cases analyzed, at least 40% of complaints were submitted by members of these categories, including neighbors (13.7%), law enforcement (13.7%), religious and charity organizations (8.2%), and affiliate organizations (e.g., the New York SPCC; 4.1%). A large portion of complaints also came from anonymous letters (38.4%), for which some portion can reasonably be attributed to neighbors or other community representatives.
The Society recorded an average of 2.6 witnesses per case across those analyzed, and over a quarter included five or more witnesses. Two cases listed 10 witnesses, the maximum observed in the sample. In terms of witness relationships to the children or alleged sufferers, 37% were known to be neighbors of the family in question. Among the large number of witnesses whose relationships were not stated in the case, over 19% were implied to include neighbors based on their address. Police made up just 5.5% of the witness pool.
Community power
These findings demonstrate the large role of neighbors in referring cases to the Society as well as in supplying witness accounts during investigations. Moreover, case records suggest that communities wielded their power to not only address suspected child abuse and neglect, but also to invite the Society to intervene in other social concerns, such as drunkenness, “tramping” and “lewd behavior,” child musicians and peddling, and domestic disputes. The Society’s annual reports attribute the growing caseload throughout their early years of operation to “an ever-watchful and sympathetic people who appeal to us for assistance when children are found cruelly treated or wrongfully neglected” (Pennsylvania Society to Protect Children from Cruelty (SPCC), 1881: 13).
The geography of witnesses suggests the role of informal social control reflected in communication networks within communities. In most cases, neighbors listed as witnesses came from the immediate vicinity, typically the same block as the defendants (#1093). In some notorious cases, witnesses lived several blocks away. For example, in one case of a chained and beaten child (#1138), witnesses lived half a mile from the defendant, suggesting that in this case, talk about the abuse spread throughout the neighborhood (see Figure 1).
Complaints were clearly framed in the language of child cruelty, but the ensuing investigations, evidence, and case notes often left a murkier picture of the core issues at stake. For example, in a case of alleged drunkenness and neglect, an anonymous letter reported an 8-month-old child left unattended on the floor of the home, where neighbors could hear the baby crying (#1109). Upon interviewing five neighbors, the Society agent found no evidence of drunkenness, neglect, or cruelty of the parents, and therefore dismissed the case. The neighbors, however, confirmed that the baby’s incessant crying was a nuisance and that the mother was hard of hearing. This, and other case records, point to the ways in which neighbors could call on the Society for their own purposes.
Community influences on outcomes
Communities used their power to affect arrests and child removals, particularly when joining together in larger groups to lodge a complaint or to serve as witnesses. The Society recorded two key outcomes from each case: the number of arrests and the number of children removed from the home. Overall, 45% of cases led to the arrest of at least one defendant (this calculation includes three cases of attempted arrests where defendants evaded law enforcement), and 52% of cases had at least one child removed. When looking only at cases with larger witness groups (i.e., five or more, typically made up of neighbors), the proportion of cases with arrests increases to 61% and the proportion with a child removal increases to 67%.
The two cases with 10 witnesses illuminate collective efficacy expressed in neighbors banding together to implicate a family and influence outcomes. The first was submitted via anonymous letter for a charge of neglect and immoral surroundings (#1093, see Figure 1). The mother was accused of keeping “lewd company,” neglecting her children, not feeding them enough during the day, keeping them outside or in a damp cellar, and sending the oldest child out for liquor. Based on witness accounts, the investigation concluded that the mother was a “bad woman” and that the “father has three children with dissolute bad women,” though there was no mention of whether the SPCC substantiated the accounts of child neglect. The family subsequently moved from the neighborhood “no doubt fearing any action the Society might take” and therefore precluding any follow-up arrests, removals, or other interventions.
In the second case with 10 witnesses, a father charged with drunkenness, neglect, and abuse because he “beat and cuffed the children until they cried” and had a “loose woman” in their presence was sentenced to the House of Corrections for 1 year and had all five children removed (#2553). The arrest was swift, occurring on the same day the SPCC recorded the initial complaint, demonstrating the power of neighbors to come together and take action against observed, or at least suspected, injustices.
Although the seriousness of abuse may have provoked neighbors to call on the Society, some particularly nefarious acts had zero or only a single witness. For example, in a previously discussed case, a 6-year-old girl was raped by her grandfather, which a doctor confirmed through medical examination (#1115). Despite the strength of this evidence, police could not locate the grandfather and make an arrest. The lack of community involvement in this case may have influenced its outcome and allowed the grandfather to evade the police. 4
Another demonstration of community power appeared in the ability of local religious leaders to sway case outcomes. Five cases covering two different families included a Reverend Barry as a key witness and/or complainant. Reverend Thomas Berry, who served as pastor of Our Lady of the Visitation in Kensington during the years of our analysis, frequently served as an intermediary between families and the Society. His example brings to light another dynamic of community influence, where religious tension between the SPCC and the working-class communities in which it operated allowed local religious leaders to interpose themselves, simultaneously furthering and frustrating the agency’s approach.
In the first set of these cases, Reverend Barry reported a mother and father for drunkenness and neglect. Eight neighborhood witnesses confirmed the parents’ heavy drinking and abuse of the mother by the father. The three children, ages six and under, looked “dirty and distressed” but properly fed, so the agent dismissed the case and enlisted the neighbors to report back if “they fall again into the old track” (#1882). Around 10 months later, this family reappeared in case records via report from Reverend Barry. However, Reverend Barry asked the Society to give the parents another chance since they had been “really trying to do better,” and the Society complied by dismissing the case (#2579).
Similarly, in a set of three cases alleging drunkenness, abuse, and neglect against a mother of four children, the record makes clear that Reverend Barry inserted himself between the family and the Society. Even though he served as the complainant in two of the three cases, he urged the Society to “delay action until he again sends word” and to let him “aid in any way possible” instead of prosecuting the mother (#1990, #2578, #2911). The Society displayed deference to the Reverend’s numerous requests to dismiss cases and let him intervene with the family independently.
Community limitations
Although communities had the power to involve the Society in their social affairs and to build a unified evidence base to inform case outcomes, their power stopped short of changing the realities of socioeconomic conditions and class divisions. Moreover, communities were limited by the overarching values promoted by the Society (e.g., morality, religiosity, and fear of sexuality), and had to align their complaints with these values to capture the Society’s attention. The extent of action they could lobby for was limited to parental arrests, child removals, and stern warnings and threats. Though the Society acknowledged underlying issues of poverty in their annual reports, there is no indication that families received additional resources when communities called on them for assistance. Neighbors and religious leaders viewed the Society strategically. Rather than advocating for systemic change, neighborhood actors called on the Society to intervene if the Society supported them and held it off when they were skeptical of its motives and effectiveness.
Individual/family perspective
The individual/family perspective was analyzed through cases involving family members as defendants, complainants, or witnesses. Family members were the most common defendants charged in complaints, accounting for 84.9% of cases investigated by the Society. Mothers were the most frequently charged (35.6%), followed by both parents (26%), fathers (21.9%), and other family members or relatives (4.1%). Furthermore, among the case records analyzed, family members served as complainants in nearly one-quarter (23.3%) and provided evidence in over one in 10 (10.9%). However, they typically did not serve as official witnesses; only two cases listed family members serving in this capacity.
Individual/family power
As other scholars have noted (Broder, 2002), case records demonstrate family willingness to defy the Society and civil authorities, especially when their actions undermined the family economy, by challenging children’s and women’s contribution. For example, several complaints listed street musicians as the formal charge, describing parents who made their children travel and play instruments, and instructed them to sleep in station houses when necessary (#1125, #2463). Likewise, baby farming—placing young children with women outside the family—was not the unambiguously nefarious activity portrayed by the Society and was often critical to a family’s economic viability.
Individuals also demonstrated their agency when calling on the Society or making use of legal processes to intervene in and resolve family conflicts. For example, one mother who did not explicitly have a role in the case (i.e., did not serve as the defendant, complainant, or witness) used the Society and court system to influence her husband’s drinking behavior. At the mother’s urging, an 11-year-old child showed up at the Society to complain about her father’s drunkenness and abuse when she refused to get him liquor. Charges were filed, but the court deferred to the wife’s desire not to prosecute the father and instead let him off with just an oath to change (#1861).
Power was rarely distributed evenly amongst family members. In one case, a runaway child lodged a complaint against his father for abusing him, and he was subsequently placed in the Sanitarium. However, the boy’s father and sisters contradicted this story and the Society issued an order for the Sanitarium to return the boy home (#1137). Even in cases that involved a profound moral taboo—incest—families sometimes refused to allow the Society to intervene. For instance, the Society investigated a father when his daughter claimed that he attempted to rape her. With bail originally set at 1200 dollars, the mother forced the child to withdraw the complaint, and the case was dismissed. Subsequent case notes indicated that the child wanted to take her own life, demonstrating the potentially heavy toll of unequal power dynamics (#1103).
Individual/family influences on outcomes
Individuals and families influenced outcomes by fighting to keep their children at home and maintaining their parental rights. While in some cases parents preserved their custodianship throughout the case, most case records indicated that children were at least initially removed from their families. Still, defendants who pleaded for redemption from the Society often had success in getting their children back. For example, in a case of neglect, the Society investigated a mother for drunkenness while her child begged for money on the street. The Society assumed custody of the child when the mother was sentenced to 3 months in the House of Corrections. However, upon her discharge, the mother pledged to reform and the child returned home (#2269).
Individual/family limitations
While individuals and families could exercise their agency in several ways, they often lacked fundamental resources to provide better care for their children and case records suggest that they did not have access to formal relief. Often, when parents were reported for sending their children out to beg, the best they could do was ask for forgiveness from the Society, or in some cases, give up their children to institutions or foster families. Biases allowed for blaming parents for failing to provide for their children. According to the gender-specific family obligations of the period, wives were expected to make sure that children had proper clothes and food. An unkempt household became a signal of an incompetent housewife and dangerous mother. When Society agents observed “filthy” housing conditions and children with insufficient clothing, they assumed child neglect and often blamed mothers (#2269). Therefore, women were judged on their performance of domestic duties and had to convince the Society of their domestic and motherly adequacy.
Discussion
It is critical for practitioners in present-day social service systems to understand the historical underpinnings of their field and their continued impact on practice. This study demonstrates that patterns observed in child welfare agencies today echo the power dynamics across social and spatial spheres observed during the formative years of SPCCs.
As many scholars have noted, top-down projection of middle-class values has been part of child protection since the early days of SPCCs (Broder, 2002; Costin et al., 1997; Gordon, 1985). This was particularly evident in the language used to describe defendants in Society case records and in the Society’s annual reports that stated their intent to educate the “very inadequate and erroneous views of the parental relation” (Pennsylvania Society to Protect Children from Cruelty (SPCC), 1878: 7). Early case records were often centered on value-laden judgment, as reflected in the frequent use of negative stereotypes of parents and children by Society agents, and case outcomes were determined by subjective judgments rather than a clear standard of evidence. While today’s child welfare workers are trained to use an objective perspective and collect legitimate evidence for case records (Hardesty, 2015), they remain susceptible to personal bias, which contributes to continued disparities within the field. Indeed, the sharp ethnic differences of our analysis are echoed in the disproportionate representation of African American children in child welfare today (National Conference of State Legislatures, 2021). While the Society was largely run by Protestants, its caseload was disproportionately made up of recent immigrant Irish Catholic families. Despite demographic shifts, an overarching theme has remained: ethnic divisions within child welfare tend to reflect racial, social, and economic divisions within the broader population.
While glaring racial divisions between child welfare institutions and clients have been highlighted by previous scholars (Broder, 2002; Ginsburg, 1992; Kim et al., 2011), the present study adds a new perspective to this literature by unearthing the diminished role of community actors—such as neighbors, churches, and community organizations—in negotiating clashes between actors at adjacent stratum of ecological systems that highlights a changing urban ecology. The current analysis shows that communities called on the Society to address myriad social disputes, with neighbors frequently serving as case complainants and witnesses. The role of neighbors in reporting may have been due, in part, to their close physical and social distance, which was important in the creation of neighborhood ties during this period (Hipp and Perrin, 2009). Friends and neighbors no longer play such a central role, accounting for only 3.8% of complainants in the contemporary child welfare system (Children’s Bureau, 2018). Another set of contemporary reporters—professionals—barely existed in the 1880s. Today, professionals like educators, social workers, and health care providers account for nearly half of all reports (48.6%), largely because most U.S. states have mandatory reporter statutes (National District Attorneys Association, 2012).
For several decades, scholarly attention to informal social ties has been dominated by the “community lost” perspective that focuses on the decline of informal mechanisms of social connection and control (Putnam, 2000; Sampson, 2012: 179). In recent years, however, spurred by Sampson’s articulation of collective efficacy, scholars have documented its role in addressing a variety of social issues, including child welfare. Recent scholarship on community violence suggests that urban neighborhoods demonstrate great variability in the collective efficacy of their members’ willingness to intervene effectively to reduce violence, and collective efficacy has been shown to have a powerful impact on a host of social outcomes (Sampson, 2012). Yet, a gap continues to exist between community capacity in this regard and the ability of formal institutions to leverage this capacity. While the need for community-based approaches has been emphasized within child welfare (National Technical Assistance and Evaluation Center for Systems of Care, 2009), this aim has largely gone unrealized while institutional growth continues. In the past, communities could work with formal institutions to address child welfare and it’s likely that they could play a larger role today, as well.
Insights around social and spatial relationships and the changing role of community players over time emerged through our combined use of theory and methods. Applying ecological systems theory facilitated analysis of power dynamics and social relationships while urban ecology encouraged us to layer on spatial analysis and mapping to further tease out the themes embedded in these complex cases. Ultimately, we were able to identify that community members, especially when banding together in larger groups or backed by religious leaders, were able to sway case outcomes through power dynamics embedded in social and spatial relationships. Moreover, the flexibility of template analysis allowed us to clearly identify a link between the number of complainants and case outcomes, which would not have been as apparent using other analytical lenses. We believe that researchers and practitioners can build on this theoretical and methodological framework to analyze archival case records within other social service institutions, as this type of analysis can uncover structural precedents set during institutional formation to glean insights as to how actors within the system have shaped it over time.
Conclusion
This study analyzed case records, census data, and annual reports from the formative years of the Pennsylvania SPCC to illuminate historical power dynamics between child-saving institutions, communities, and individuals and families. Our theoretical framework drew on ecological systems theory and urban ecology to consider both the social and spatial relationships between these actors and how this influenced their power and agency. A template analysis approach allowed us to analyze these dynamics within case records and identify themes, a methodology we hope will be adapted to analyze historical data from other social service institutions to shed light on their structural underpinnings. Some patterns uncovered in this study still reverberate throughout the modern child welfare system, including the ways in which the system projects middle-class values on working-class neighborhoods and families, and the racial and ethnic divides between service providers and those who receive services. However, this study also found that some patterns have clearly changed. Community actors, such as neighbors, churches, and community organizations, showed a high level of involvement and influence in child welfare cases during the early days of the SPCC as they often mitigated tensions between SPCC agents and local families. Today, these same community actors have a comparatively minor role in reporting child abuse and neglect and influencing outcomes for those involved in the system. Our approach suggests that viewing power dynamics concurrently at both the social and spatial level can promote new insights of historic and contemporary importance.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Notes
1. We would like to thank Margery Sly, Director of Temple University Library’s Special Collections Research Center, and her staff, for their help in navigating the SPCC collection. We’d also like to thank Turning Points for Children, the SPCC’s successor agency, for permission to access the collection.
2. The authors accessed physical records at Temple University Library’s Special Collections Research Center prior to developing a thesis or hypothesis about what might be found. Three authors each started with one book of case records and thoroughly flipped through the records with the aim to identify 25 cases that had detailed case notes with data written in most fields. Authors identified cases spanning the entirety of each record book to minimize bias toward seasonal patterns. Then, each author repeated the process with additional case record books until each of the four desired years had been reviewed by at least two authors. One author specifically sought to identify “linked” cases, denoted by the inscription of additional case numbers at the top of the record, with the intent to gain more insight into the Society’s ongoing interactions with families and individuals. Although the purposive, maximum variation sampling method did not allow the study to represent the entire population of interest, it facilitated the authors identifying cases to yield the most detailed information.
3. While the sample included several of these linked records, not all linked records were reviewed, nor is it possible to know if all linked records were accurately recorded during the period of observation. Therefore, findings may not account for all subsequent interactions.