Women, War, Race, and the Making of Early Childhood Education
A History Worth Understanding
Imagine two mothers living in the United States during the 1940s.
One is a White woman entering a factory to support the war effort. For the first time, she needs someone outside her family to care for her young children while she works.
The other is a Black woman who has worked outside her home for years, perhaps cleaning houses, preparing meals, or caring for another family's children. She has always needed dependable care for her own children, but affordable, accessible options have been limited.
Both mothers need child care. Yet their circumstances are viewed differently by American society.
For one, child care becomes a national concern tied to wartime production. For the other, the need has existed for generations, often without comparable public recognition or support.
This contrast illustrates a fundamental question in American early childhood history:
Whose need for child care has been recognized, whose caregiving has been valued, and whose children have received opportunities?
To understand the modern early childhood education system, we must examine the histories of both Black and White American families, including the ways race, class, gender, and government policies shaped their experiences.
Historian Sonya Michel (1999) demonstrates that American child care policy emerged from competing beliefs about motherhood, women's employment, children's interests, and public responsibility. These tensions remain relevant to early childhood educators and leaders today.
Before Formal Child Care: Different Experiences of Motherhood
Throughout early American history, families relied on parents, relatives, neighbors, and community members to care for young children.
Among White Americans, caregiving arrangements varied considerably according to economic circumstances. Wealthier families sometimes employed domestic workers, while working-class mothers often combined paid employment with family responsibilities.
For enslaved Black women, however, motherhood existed under profoundly different conditions. Enslaved mothers were frequently required to work while others cared for their children. They could experience forced separation from their families and had limited control over their children's daily lives. Roberts (1997) examines how slavery established systems of racial and reproductive control that denied Black women autonomy over their bodies, motherhood, and family relationships. These historical practices contributed to enduring inequalities in how American society viewed and regulated Black motherhood. King (1995) describes how slavery shaped childhood experiences through forced labor, family instability, and restricted opportunities.
At the same time, enslaved Black women provided essential caregiving labor for White households, often while their own children received care from other enslaved family or community members. These circumstances reveal an important contradiction: Black women's caregiving labor supported White families within a system that denied Black mothers autonomy over their own families.
Following emancipation, Black women continued working in agriculture, domestic service, and other occupations, frequently under unequal economic conditions. These experiences contributed to different societal expectations of Black and White motherhood. Feldstein (2000) examines how racialized ideals of motherhood shaped American social and political discourse between 1930 and 1965, revealing how Black and White mothers were evaluated through different standards of maternal responsibility, employment, and citizenship. Black families relied on extended relatives, churches, neighbors, and community organizations to support children's care and development.
These caregiving networks demonstrated resourcefulness, cultural continuity, and collective responsibility. Yet their importance should not obscure the barriers that made such arrangements necessary. For educators, this history challenges the assumption that one family structure or caregiving arrangement represents the American norm.
Industrialization: When Child Care Became a Public Concern
During the nineteenth century, industrialization increased employment opportunities outside the home while creating additional challenges for working families. As women entered factories, domestic service, and other occupations, the need for organized child care became increasingly visible. Charitable organizations established day nurseries to serve children whose mothers needed to work. However, these programs were not based on a widespread belief that all families deserved child care.
Rose (1999) explains that early day nurseries reflected social attitudes toward poverty, maternal employment, and family responsibility. Assistance was often tied to judgments about whether mothers were considered deserving. Meanwhile, nursery schools serving more affluent families increasingly emphasized children's learning and development. This distinction contributed to a division that continues to influence American early childhood education - care for children of working families versus education for children whose families could afford enrichment opportunities.
Black families encountered additional barriers, including discrimination and segregation. In response, Black churches, women's organizations, and community leaders developed services to support children and families. These efforts were not simply substitutes for formal institutions. They reflected community knowledge, leadership, and a commitment to children's futures.
Early childhood professionals can recognize this history by acknowledging the contributions of community-based programs and family child care providers whose work is sometimes overlooked in accounts of the profession's development.
World War II: A Turning Point in Child Care Policy
World War II brought unprecedented attention to the nation's need for organized child care. As women entered defense industries, employers and government officials recognized that reliable care was necessary for maintaining wartime production. Federal funding under the Lanham Act supported child care programs in communities affected by defense-related employment. These centers provided supervision, meals, educational experiences, and services designed to accommodate working families.
Stoltzfus (2003) explains that wartime debates about child care reflected broader disagreements about motherhood, employment, and government responsibility. For a brief period, the nation demonstrated that public investment in child care was possible when economic priorities demanded it. However, opportunities were not equally distributed.
Racial segregation and discriminatory practices continued to affect Black families' access to services. Many Black women had already spent generations balancing employment and caregiving without comparable institutional support. When the war ended, most federally supported wartime child care programs closed. The prevailing message again emphasized mothers' responsibilities within the home, despite the continuing employment needs of many families.
Michel (1999) demonstrates how cultural beliefs about motherhood influenced the development, and limitations, of American child care policy. This period offers an important lesson: The availability of child care has often depended as much on political priorities and social expectations as on children's and families' actual needs.
The Civil Rights Movement: Expanding the Meaning of Early Education
The 1960s brought significant changes in American education, civil rights, and social policy. Established in 1965 as part of the War on Poverty, Head Start recognized the importance of comprehensive early childhood experiences for children from families experiencing poverty. The program connected early education with health, nutrition, family engagement, and community participation.
For many Black communities, Head Start also represented an opportunity to advance educational equity and local leadership. Sanders (2016) documents how Black communities in Mississippi connected Head Start with broader efforts to secure civil rights, community empowerment, and educational opportunities. Families were not merely recipients of services. Parents and community members actively participated in shaping programs and advocating for their children's needs.
This history is especially relevant to current discussions about family engagement. When early childhood programs treat families as knowledgeable partners rather than passive participants, they acknowledge a long tradition of community leadership in children's education.
Head Start expanded opportunities, but it did not establish universal child care. The nation continued to rely on a combination of public programs, private providers, nonprofit organizations, and family arrangements.
In 1971, Congress passed the Comprehensive Child Development Act, proposing a substantial expansion of federally supported child development services. President Richard Nixon vetoed the legislation. The decision reflected continuing disagreements over whether child care should be considered a public responsibility or primarily a private family matter (Michel, 1999).
What This History Means for Today's Educators
The history of American child care helps explain several persistent challenges facing early childhood education. The separation between care and education continues to influence how programs are funded, how educators are compensated, and how the public understands early learning.
Historical assumptions about women's caregiving responsibilities continue to shape perceptions of professional expertise. Racial and economic inequalities also affect families' access to affordable, high-quality early childhood experiences. Understanding these patterns allows educators to examine current practices more critically. Consider four ways early childhood professionals can apply this historical perspective.
1. Recognize multiple family experiences.
Avoid assuming that all families have the same caregiving arrangements, employment flexibility, or access to resources. Learn about families' experiences through respectful conversations and meaningful partnerships.
2. Honor the full history of early childhood education.
Include Black educators, family child care providers, community organizations, and other historically overlooked contributors when discussing the profession's development.
3. Challenge the separation between care and education.
Recognize that responsive caregiving, relationships, routines, play, and intentional instruction all support children's development. Care and education are interconnected rather than competing responsibilities.
4. Examine equity in everyday decisions.
Review enrollment policies, tuition structures, communication practices, family participation opportunities, and access to learning resources. Consider whether these practices create barriers for particular families.
These actions connect historical understanding with professional responsibility. They also align with the broader purpose of developmentally appropriate practice: understanding children within the contexts of their families, communities, cultures, and lived experiences.
Moving Forward: Learning From the Past
The history of American child care is not a single story. For many White middle-class families, social expectations historically emphasized maternal caregiving within the home. For working-class White families, economic necessity often required different arrangements. For Black families, the history includes enslavement, exclusion, unequal employment opportunities, and the development of strong community caregiving networks. These histories intersect, but they are not interchangeable.
Together, they reveal that American child care has always been shaped by decisions about whose labor matters, whose families deserve support, and whose children receive opportunities. Early childhood educators cannot change the past. However, they can use historical knowledge to inform more equitable professional practices, stronger family partnerships, and more inclusive early learning systems.
Understanding history also encourages educators to look beyond individual families' circumstances and consider the systems that influence their choices. A family struggling to locate affordable child care is not experiencing an entirely new problem. A provider seeking professional recognition is participating in a conversation that has continued for generations. These contemporary challenges have historical roots.
For early childhood professionals, understanding where the field has been is essential to deciding where it should go. The question is no longer simply whether child care matters. History has repeatedly demonstrated that it does. The question is whether we will apply those lessons to create an early childhood system that values every child, respects every family, and recognizes the professional contributions of those who care for and educate America's youngest learners.
Reflecting on Practice
The following questions can support staff meetings, professional learning communities, teacher preparation courses, or leadership discussions.
How have historical beliefs about race, motherhood, and employment influenced the ways families and early childhood professionals experience child care today?
What does the history of World War II child care programs reveal about the relationship between public priorities, economic needs, and support for families?
How can early childhood programs honor the contributions of Black communities and other historically marginalized groups while strengthening equitable access and meaningful family partnerships?
References
Feldstein, R. (2000). Motherhood in black and white: Race and sex in American liberalism, 1930–1965. Cornell University Press.
King, W. (1995). Stolen childhood: Slave youth in nineteenth-century America. Indiana University Press.
Michel, S. (1999). Children's interests/mothers' rights: The shaping of America's child care policy. Yale University Press.
Roberts, D. E. (1997). Killing the Black body: Race, reproduction, and the meaning of liberty. Pantheon Books.
Rose, E. (1999). A mother's job: The history of day care, 1890–1960. Oxford University Press.
Sanders, C. R. (2016). A chance for change: Head Start and Mississippi's Black freedom struggle. University of North Carolina Press.
Stoltzfus, E. (2003). Citizen, mother, worker: Debating public responsibility for child care after the Second World War. University of North Carolina Press.
About the Author
Victoria Long-Coleman, Ph.D., MBA is the Founder and Principal of Early Childhood Innovations. An early childhood educator, leadership, coach, author, speaker, she focuses on strengthening educators, developing leaders, and translating research into practical approaches that improve early childhood systems.
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