ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the child day care arrangements made by families during the war, the Lanham Act child day care centers, the child day care centers operated by private businesses, and the hugely successful, but largely forgotten, extended school services. During the Second World War, there was much public wailing about the plight of America’s neglected “latchkey children.” In 1940 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the Lanham Act, which provided federal funds for the community needs of war-boom areas. One scholar, Bernard Greenblatt, has written that the Lanham Act programs “represented a major shift of national policy on preschool programs. Despite low enrollments, however, the Edgar F. Kaiser centers stand as examples of what private industry might accomplish. Despite the many criticisms of mothers entering the labor force, Rosie the Riveter was clearly a reality–her muscles bulging, her hair tied in a kerchief, her hands holding a large pneumatic gun.
