The Forgotten Children: African American Children and Child Welfare Reform in St. Louis, 1890-1930

Abstract

Abstract Forgotten Children examines the influence of racial ideology on the trajectory of child welfare reform in late nineteenth century and early twentieth century St. Louis. The modern American child welfare system emerged in this time period. It was also a period where racial assignments were unstable. Whiteness, in particular became unstable as a marker for racial privilege. In the first chapters, this dissertation examines how scientific racism became an official story through which child welfare reform became connected to the larger theme of modernizing whiteness for the twentieth century. This dissertation plays close attention to the role that the emerging profession of social work played in disseminating the findings of scientific racism. It examines how racial ideology affected the way in which the city's white child savers created a child welfare system. Specifically, how scientifically supported racial beliefs allowed them to adhere to the St. Louis's system of segregation. In the middle chapters, Forgotten Children looks at the way in which St. Louis's African American children's institutions coped with a modernizing child welfare system that was in part predicated on racial exclusion. It examines the history of three institutions: The St. Louis Colored Orphans Home, St Francis Home, and The Missouri State Industrial School for Negro Girls. Each of these institutions experienced segregation if a different way. Their ability to navigate St. Louis's racially segregated child welfare system highlights the importance of white social capital to these institutions. Their access to white patrons had an important influence on the quality of care these institutions could provide. An examination of the history of these institutions also demonstrates the degree to which these institutions were able to use the space created by segregation to produce their own version of child welfare reform. The final chapter of this dissertation examines how the St. Louis Juvenile Court incorporated racial ideology into its work with black children. It looks at the differences in disposition in court cases for white and black children, and then critiques these differences in light of the conservative racial ideology of the period. An analysis of juvenile court dispositions shows how racial beliefs became a naturalized part of court decisions.