ABSTRACT
American values surrounding women and motherhood contrasted sharply with those of France. In nineteenth-century America, the maternal role was exalted to the exclusion of all other occupations for women. Though reformers framed the issue of institutional child care in maternalist terms, the practice itself—more than any other social programs— caused them profound uneasiness. A closer examination of the political careers of child care and mothers' pensions during the Progressive Era exposes the strengths and weaknesses of a political strategy based on the ideology of American maternalism, and the limits imposed by its condemnation of maternal employment. In the 1890s the need for child care increased, as industrial accidents, dramatic business cycles, immigration, and the disruptions of urban domestic life sent more mothers into the work force. The radical potential of mothers' pensions was further eroded through the process of implementation.
