Mother-Work

Molly Ladd-Taylor is a professor of history at York University, Toronto. She is the author of Fixing the Poor: Eugenic Sterilization and Child Welfare in the Twentieth Century and a coeditor of Women, Health and Nation: Canada and the United States Since 1945.

• Introduction 1Part 1Mother-Work at Home1. The Work of Mothering 17Part TwoMother-Work in the Community2. "When the Birds Have Flown the Nest, the Mother-Work May Still Go On", Sentimental Maternalim and the National Congress of Mothers 433. "The Welfare of Mothers and Babies Is a Dignified Subject of Political Discussion", Progressive Materinalism and the Children's Bureau 744. "How Cruelly Unjust to Handicap All Women", Feminism and the Abandonment of Motherhood Rhetoric 104Part ThreeMothers and the State5. "Every Mother Has a Right", The Movement for Mothers' Pensions 1356. "We Mothers Are So Glad the Day Has Come", Mothers' Work and the Sheppard-Towner Act 167Conclusion 197Index 207

"The essential guide to the politics of motherhood during a crucial period in the history of American women and the incipient welfare state."--Sonya Michel, editor of Mothers of a New World: Maternalist Politics and the Origins of Welfare States