1897: Need of Day Nurseries

Selena Sloan Butler’s call for childcare invokes the specter of sinful behavior connected with working mothers. “Another evidence of the need of day nurseries is the large number of boys, almost babies you might say, to be found not only loitering and making mischief in the alleys, but even in the chain gangs. Many are there because in early childhood they had no one at home to hold them in check, and, yielding to the influences about them, their minds became steeped in sin and vice; and they grew wise only in the knowledge of petty crimes.” (65)