Invisible Childhoods: Dependent African American Children in the Urban Midwest

In 1912, Julia Lathrop, a native of Rockford, Illinois, and a veteran of service at Hull House in Chicago, became the first chief of the Federal Children’s Bureau. In an article published soon afterward, she gave examples of how the new institution would answer “the universal cry of human parenthood.” She recounted her experience at a meeting of “many great foreign societies representing hundreds of thousands of recent immigrants.” One of the delegates, drawn from “a race commonly accounted especially dull and ignorant,” delivered a plea that Lathrop found eloquent in its simplicity: “I am a [father], and like every [father] I want my child to go higher than me.” The man’s words inspired her final reflection: “I think of the long line of immigrant fathers and mothers on American soil since the beginning of the wonderful seventeenth century and I realize that at bottom he spoke the common reason for their coming. The parents who came in the cabin of the ‘Mayflower’ and those who sank in the steerage of the ‘Titanic’ had the same profound impulse.”¹

One group of early immigrants was utterly absent from this account. Had the omission of African Americans been drawn to Lathrop’s attention, she would certainly have allowed that Black parents, too, shared the hope of a better future for their children. But in terms of the prevailing story of social betterment in American history, their aspirations were invisible. The purpose of this essay is not to review the evolution of the modern child welfare system, which has been thoroughly described elsewhere.² Instead, it offers an interpretation of the moment when policy toward Black dependent children emerged in the midst of both urbanization and racial inequality.

Dependence and Migration

During the Progressive Era, 1890–1930, migrants flowed into the industrial Midwest from all parts of the U.S. and indeed the world. In particular, the region saw a dramatic increase in African American population during a movement known as the Great Migration. The most striking growth occurred in Chicago, where the Black proportion of the population rose from 2 percent to 6 percent, reaching 250,000 in 1930. In cities like Indianapolis, Cincinnati, and Cleveland, the African American population grew more slowly but accounted for a larger proportion of the total. Unfortunately, the Great Migration unfolded against the backdrop of discrimination in public amenities, employment, and housing. In several important urban areas in the Midwest, the rise in Black urban population coincided with an increase of geographical segregation and social isolation.³

In an unfamiliar and often hostile environment, what were the prospects for the growing numbers of children among Black migrants? By the time of World War I, Progressive reforms in care for dependent and neglected children had made substantial inroads in the states of the Midwest; in fact, many had originated there. Above all, a consensus had developed in favor of family placement as a means of caring for dependent children. In mid-western communities of rural, often immigrant background, ‘placing out’ was a common method of dealing with minors whose parents were dead, neglectful, or judged inadequate. This kind of foster care had roots not only in the transport of needy youth from eastern cities on the so-called “orphan trains” but also in the local practice of agricultural apprenticeship and farm labor.⁴ The Black population of the Midwest, however, was concentrated in urban areas, not the countryside.⁵

In the exploding cities, both White philanthropists and Black community leaders tried to create a system of institutions to care for African American children at risk. Influenced by a tradition that stretched back to Reconstruction, White reformers sought to instill in Black children the same virtues of self-sufficiency and independence that northern culture demanded of other ethnic groups. But their adherence to the familiar practice of foster placement was ill-suited to achieve these goals. Foster homes for Black youth were in short supply, and orphanages became overcrowded. In times of stress, Black parents preferred to rely upon family and friends to care for their dependents. Black...