Cruelty to Children: A Dormant Issue and Its Rediscovery, 1920-1960

Why, after the "discovery" of child abuse in 1874 and the formation of the Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, did child abuse disappear from public consciousness as well as from the practice of child welfare, only to be "rediscovered" in the early 1960s? To address this question, I examined two models of child protection that emerged between 1900 and 1920, the controversy that ensued as to "who should do protective work and what should be its functions," and a pattern of unforeseen societal and professional forces that led to a dormancy of organized concern with respect to child abuse.