Philanthropy and the Gospel of Child Development

Datos Bibliográficos

ID9882154
AutoresSteven L Schlossman, Steven Schlossman (autor de correspondencia)
Año1981
Volumen21
Número3
Páginas275
Fecha de publicación1981-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaHistory of Education Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0018-2680 • E-ISSN: 1748-5959
EditorialJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/367699
OpenAlexW2435847934
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas12

PHILANTHROPY in America has sparked numerous innovations in the fields of education, social work, and public health, but rarely has it been instrumental in generating and sustaining a popular social movement. In the Post-World War One decade, however, the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial (LSRM) did just that, subtly but aggressively nurturing and coordinating the long-since-forgotten movement. (1) For hundreds of thousands of middle-class Americans, principally young mothers, provided not only a topic of everyday conversation and a structure for continuing education, but a genuine social cause. Philanthropy alone did not create this crusade, of course. Many other factors were involved, some antedating the war, others originating in the twenties and reflecting its distinctive political and cultural spirit. Nonetheless, LSRM's role was central and formative, and merits considerably more attention from historians of and of philanthropy than it has heretofore received. Before proceeding, a few comments on terminology may be helpful. Were it not for literary awkwardness, I would join the terms development, study, and parent education to form a single, hyphenated phrase, so closely were they linked in common discourse and in LSRM's philanthropic strategy. The modern field of child development owes its very existence as a respectable scholarly enterprise to the Rockefellers' generous financial support in the twenties, as part of what LSRM referred to most frequently as the child study and movement. Much more than today, child development research was then oriented unabashedly toward immediate practical application. Indeed, LSRM agreed to invest so heavily in this relatively uncharted scientific arena only on the supposition that programs in would be created concurrently to carry the latest findings to mothers for

Gospel · Political science · Sociology · Theology · Indigenous and Place-Based Education · Philosophy · Psychology