Child abuse and neglect are tragically common. Each year, more than 1,000 American children die due to maltreatment. Thousands more suffer physical abuse, sexual abuse, and neglect. Across the country, every community has a system of government-operated and funded child protective services (CPS). But given that social workers of CPS have the authority to remove children from unsafe parents, it is no surprise that CPS is controversial. Does CPS protect children? Does CPS do more good than harm? Is CPS fundamentally racist, as some critics argue? Should CPS be abolished? To answer these questions, it is essential to understand the origins of child protection in America. How did we arrive at the child protection system in place today? This book traces the history of child protection from colonial times to the present and provides the most in-depth analysis ever published of the origins of child protection.

In this powerful and moving history of family violence, historian Linda Gordon traces policies on child abuse and neglect, wife-beating, and incest from 1880 to 1960. Drawing on hundreds of case records from social agencies devoted to dealing with the problem, she chronicles the changing visibility of family violence.