User:Jaidajeter/HistoryMaternalismDraft


 * Note: Underline parts are from the original maternalism article page, but are rephrased/edited to sound and flow better

History
[ **Note: this is not the lead, it's just the intro to the history section of this piece ] Maternalism and its rhetoric has been used by U.S. historians to further explore and understand the ideologies of Republican motherhood in the 18th century. As well as in the 19th century with its application to Congress of Mothers; and progressive reformers in the 20th century. Maternalism can also be referred to as a social and political mindset, which has continued into the 20th century, by influencing United States government reform and women in the workplace.

Progressive Era
Settlement houses, mission homes or "rescue homes", were establishments founded by predominately middle-class women and became popular in American cities and urban centers in the 19th and early 20th centuries. They provided public housing and resources and public services to the working-class and newly arrived immigrants. Middle-class women who ran these settlements offered resources such as educational services, child care, health care and employment. Major settlements included Hull House in Chicago and Toynbee Hall in New York City. Mission homes or "rescue homes" like The Presbyterian Mission Home in San Francisco, was founded in 1874 by single Protestant women known as matrons, and lasted into the early 20th century. Historian Peggy Pascoe, depicts that Protestant women had two ultimate goals for the mission home; they first wanted to "rescue" the chinese immigrant women who were seeking safety from prostitutional enterprises in American communities. Second, Protestant women wanted to teach these women about the "Christian home," an ideal Protestant women were traditionally invested in, stemming from the Victorian era of a Victorian gender system and included the idea of what historians refer to as "companionate marriage." Companionate marriage idea that moves away from traditional arranged marriages, focuses on the physical attraction between partners, embodies women as the maternal nurturers and as the "sexually pure moral guardians." These matrons who embraced the compassionate marriage ideal, believing the space of the mission home would provide moral values for women such as "purity and piety," a notion that Protestant women believed to be at the essence of "true womanhood." Protestant women matrons were dedicated to their missionary work and saw their efforts of rescuing women as a professional career.

Post World War II
Following World War II, there was a high social and political demand in the United States to reform and expand the day care system. Women's prescribed gender roles in the home and their roles outside the home, such as in the workforce were also changing during this post-war period as well. As change was brought to the forefront through the discourse of the public and public policy, several political organizations embraced the rhetoric of maternalism. One of these organizations include the Children's Bureau established in 1912; It was founder and head chief was Julia Lathrop a maternalist reformer. The organization centered around the topic of child welfare, including issues of child labor, child health and maternal care. Similarly, the Women's Bureau formed in 1920; who according to the historian Laura Curran, "studied the positive implications of women's work" and took on the issues of "discriminatory practices and day care." In the early years, these organizations were situated in "maternalist political culture," and formed out of maternalist ideals that captivated the belief that the women's role was to be a mother, a role that embraced the maternal care of women which had to be "protected at all costs." Throughout the post world war II era, both organizations began to take different forms of maternalism when it came to the debate over adding a daycare program; concerning the mothers who qualified as recipients and met certain circumstances [going to expand into this more]. The Children's Bureau and maternalist activists approached the day care program as a solution to save "poor children;" whereas the Women's Bureau saw day care programs as a way to resolve a "working women's" issue.

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