Staller provides a treasure trove of the ideas and practices of Charles Loring Brace. She uncovers his aims as revealed in his prolific writings and rich agency records and documents. What was children's aid and how did it differ from other 19th c. welfare? Readers will be drawn into provocative comparisons to modern services, they will be inspired by Brace's mission against formidable times, and they'll thank Staller for her contribution. ziger, Ph.D., E Dan
Karen Staller has produced a remarkable work of scholarship that casts the history of child welfare in the United States and the development of the social work profession in a new, more complex light. She synthesizes a wide array of primary and secondary sources in a creative analysis that places the origins and evolution of the Children's Aid Society (CAS) - the oldest, continuously operating non-profit child welfare agency in the U.S. - squarely in the social, political, and intellectual context of its times. Many of the issues she discusses with clarity and erudition * for example, the assimilation of immigrants, poverty and homelessness among urban youth, and the role of the juvenile justice and foster care systems *
As we seek to address societal grand challenges today, Staller reminds us of what we can learn from 19th century social innovators like Charles Loring Brace. She uses historical material to paint a vivid description of the conditions that produced child poverty and delinquency and of the individualized, non-coercive approaches to bettering the lives of these children developed by Brace and the Children's Aid Society decades before reformers like Jane Addams. - Wynne Sandra Korr, PhD, Professor and Dean Emerita, School of Social Work, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Long before child welfare came into being in the U.S., New York City's Children's Aid Society created an innovative alternative to orphanages and asylums during the last half of the 19th century. Karen Staller's New York's Newsboys offers a compelling and illuminating keyhole through which to inspect a residential sanctuary that offered multiple forms of support for impoverished street youth. We are fortunate to have this ground-breaking analysis with which to rethink contemporary approaches to teenagers without homes. - Barbara Levy Simon, PhD, Emerita Professor, Columbia University School of Social Work, New York City
Staller provides a treasure trove of the ideas and practices of Charles Loring Brace. She uncovers his aims as revealed in his prolific writings and rich agency records and documents. What was children's aid and how did it differ from other 19th c. welfare? Readers will be drawn into provocative comparisons to modern services, they will be inspired by Brace's mission against formidable times, and they'll thank Staller for her contribution. * Sandra K. Danziger, Ph.D., Edith A. Lewis Collegiate Professor Emerita of Social Work & Research Professor Emerita of Public Policy, University of Michigan *
