Fallen Women, Problem Girls

Unmarried Mothers and the Professionalization of Social Work, 1890-1945

Author: Regina G. Kunzel
ISBN: 9780300065091

During the first half of the twentieth century, out-of-wedlock pregnancy came to be seen as one of the most urgent and compelling problems of the day. The effort to define its meaning fueled a struggle among three groups of women: evangelical reformers who regarded unmarried mothers as fallen sisters to be saved, a new generation of social workers who viewed them as problem girls to be treated, and unmarried mothers themselves. Drawing on previously unexamined case records from maternity homes, Regina Kunzel explores how women negotiated the crisis of single pregnancy and analyzes the different ways they understood and represented unmarried motherhood. Fallen Women, Problem Girls is a social and cultural history of out-of-wedlock pregnancy in the United States from 1890 to 1945. Kunzel analyzes how evangelical women drew on a long tradition of female benevolence to create maternity homes that would redeem and reclaim unmarried mothers. She shows how, by the 1910s, social workers strugg

Publisher: Yale University Press
Publish Date: 1995-08-01

Subjects: Political Science / Public Policy / Social Services & Welfare, Social Science / General, Social Science / Social Work

This book is available in the following Community Centers: Women's Center (Location: History)