Care in Question: Childcare Policy and the Limits of 20th Century Liberalism

Working parents rely on childcare infrastructure, and as working parent became an ever-larger proportion of the American workforce from the 1960s onward, the lack of accessible, affordable, quality childcare became a major political and cultural issue.

In her dissertation research, Julia Fournier, PhD candidate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, traces the history of childcare in the United States from the late-1960s to the mid-1990s. Among Fournier’s sources is the archive of Catalyst, Inc., an advocacy group promoting women’s interest in the workplace, held in the Hagley Library. Her findings suggest that a confluence of public and private pressures has prevented the development of a coherent federal childcare policy, much less a universal childcare infrastructure.

In support of her work, Fournier received finding from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library. 

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