Rural Unwed Mothers: An American Experience, 1870-1950

Mazie Hough

Rural Unwed Mothers

An American Experience, 1870-1950

Search within full text

Between 1880 and 1920 there was a sea change in the public response to unwed mothers. What had once been a community issue became a central concern of the new federal Children’s Bureau and social work professionals, whilst in urban areas across the country middle-class women opened more than 150 homes for unwed mothers. Although historians have explored the development of and experiences within these homes they have failed to take into account that a majority of the young women within these homes were from the countryside.Drawing extensively from agency records, newspaper accounts, sociological studies and court documents, Hough explores the experiences of rural white unwed mothers in Maine and Tennessee, as the world that defined and responded to them shifted from an isolated island community to a nation integrated by a consumer culture, an industrial economy, and a professionalized work force.

"'This is a fresh and much needed microscopic view of a neglected topic ... Recommended.'"

- Aa Reduce text
- Aa Enlarge text

View selected items
Save to my bookmarks
Export citations
Download PDF (zip)
Save to Kindle
Save to Dropbox
Save to Google Drive
Save content to
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to .

To save content items to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Please be advised that item(s) you selected are not available.
You are about to save
Your Kindle email address

Please provide your Kindle email.

@free.kindle.com @kindle.com (service fees apply)

By using this service, you agree that you will only keep content for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services

Metrics

Total number of HTML views: 0

Total number of PDF views: 0 *

Loading metrics...

Total views: 0 *

Loading metrics...

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

Usage data cannot currently be displayed.

Rural Unwed Mothers

An American Experience, 1870-1950

Book description

Reviews

Refine List

Actions for selected content:

Contents

Frontmatter
pp i-iv

CONTENTS
pp v-v

Acknowledgements
pp vi-vi

Introduction
pp 1-14

1 - Rural Communities and Regional Differences: Maine and Tennessee
pp 15-42

2 - Tennessee: Maintaining Hierarchies of Race and Class
pp 43-72

3 - Maine: Preserving Resources: Hard Work and Responsibility
pp 73-116

4 - Professional Standards in Tennessee: Only Perfect Children Will Do
pp 117-150

5 - Professional Standards in Maine: Relying on Strangers
pp 151-184

Conclusion
pp 185-188

Notes
pp 189-220

Works Cited
pp 221-228

Index
pp 229-235

Metrics

Full text views

Book summary page views

Rural Unwed Mothers

An American Experience, 1870-1950

Book description

Reviews

Refine List

Actions for selected content:

Save Search

Contents

Metrics

Full text views

Book summary page views