Poor Placed-Out Girls: The Rural Household Economy and the Value of Girlhood in the US

For a small category of girls who worked for neither wages nor their own families, measuring their economic contributions can be difficult. Children in the United States were placed with families by institutions and charities because their labor was valued. Farm families were quick to take advantage of these free, pseudo-family-based labor opportunities and took thousands of placement children from institutions and agencies across the country. This popular method was viewed by child welfare advocates as a benefit to children and farm families, as the supposed exchange of work included training in household skills. Unfortunately for many girls, the process involved hard physical labor both in the house and on the farm, and girls were highly sought after because they could do both types of work. The popularity of girls as placement children indicates a strong desire among farm families to acquire someone who could be expected to do domestic chores as well as potentially provide labor on the farm.