Stettner, Shannon

Left History (E-Journal - York University)

160 Reviews of course, a federal responsibility, while crown lands, after 1930 were under the province's control. The author demonstrates little understanding of the com- plexities of federal-provincial relationships when dealing with the situation of aboriginal communities in Saskatchewan's north. The narrowness of this book's intellectual and ideological framework is partly a product of its intensive, but tightly focused research. Twenty-one inter- views with northern residents were all, with one exception, conducted in July and August 1999. There is some material on First Nations peoples, but it is not extensive: Olive Dickason's work, to cite one example, is not mentioned, nor are Thomas Berger's studies of northern development. In short, this is PhD research, which should have been given a wider context before being published. Doctoral studies - usually highly specialized projects - need to marinate a while before being turned into books. This work is no exception. Readers of David Quiring's book will get a close-up view of Saskatchewan's northern policies after 1964. They will not get contextual or ideological breadth. J. Douglas Leighton Huron University College, University of Western Ontario Emilie Stoltzfus, Citizen, Mother, Worker: Debating Public Responsibility for Child Care After the Second World War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003). During World War 11, parents across America relied on publicly hnded child- care; it was a service many, especially mothers, did not want to relinquish. Accordingly, when the Federal Works Administration announced the termina- tion of federally funded daycare at war's end, mothers across the US formally organized to oppose the closures. They confronted both fiscal concerns and a conservative gender ideology that supported the breadwinner ideal and envi- sioned women as specially suited to mothering. Using case studies of Cleveland, Ohio, the District of Columbia, and the state of California, Emilie Stoltzfus documents each campaign to retain the wartime program in the post- war era. Her juxtaposition of the failures in the first two places with the even- tual success in California, offers a glimpse into barriers confronting women across the country. Moreover, she demonstrates through their struggles that women's responses to the impending loss of public childcare were much more complex than sometimes believed; many women did not go gently back to their kitchens. Rather, they practiced what she calls "dissident citizenship," engag- ing in protests such as a day-long sit-in at Cleveland's city hall. As suggested Left History 10.2 by the title, her analysis hinges on the interaction between motherhood, citizen- ship, and women's waged work, and "the way in which enduring gendered obli- gations of citizenship affected the possibilities for expanded social rights" (1). In post-war America, the debate over public childcare occurred within the context of a consumer driven and growing economy, the increasing com- monality of two-earner households, and the shifting of childcare from low-or- unpaid work inside the home to low-paid work outside the home. Within these circumstances, Stoltzfus notes, two preconditions had to be met before public childcare could be accepted. First, women would have to be considered full- time, not temporary, labourers. Second, the public would have to believe that children would flourish away from their mothers. Barriers to these precondi- tions included: popular culture, professional psychiatric, psychological, and social work wisdom, and Cold War political goals. Additionally, opponents of publicly funded childcare were motivated by personal biases and self-interests; the Cleveland Catholic Diocese, for example, was both a strong opponent of public childcare and, as Stoltzfus observes, "had a large presence in the city's private child welfare establishment" (56). Additionally, the author identifies three stages in public decision making on state-funded childcare. First, advocates had to secure new hnding to replace wartime arrangements. In peacetime, women lost the "patriotic rationale" for publicly funded childcare. Stoltzfus maintains, "virtually overnight the public provision of childcare changed (in the minds of many) from a legitimate war- related service to a 'welfare need,"'; tax-subsidized childcare was viewed as "quasi-public charity" (50, 26). Second, activists had to redefine eligibility in a manner that would gamer support for continued funding. Several measures were used to make permanently state-funded daycare more palatable, including means tests, salary caps to determine eligibility for tax breaks, and the assign- ment of "caseworkers," to decide need. Third, advocates had to establish a per- manent justification for public childcare. Arguing the "economic necessity" of a second wage was not always a successful rationale. In the end, Stoltzfus claims states realized that federal efforts to help "rehabilitate" families and pro- mote independence would prove lucrative in the form of federal matching funds payments. The success enjoyed in each place is determined by their ability to perform these three "tasks" and the challenges they encountered doing so. As noted, California was the only state to establish permanent post-war childcare. Stoltzfus argues that the state's "post-war 'neo-Progressive' political culture stressed nonpartisanship, pragmatism, moderation, and activism," and enabled unity among a range of daycare supporters (138). As well, the post-war economy was strong and encouraged a growing number of women in the paid labour force; consequently, daycare became depoliticized because it became economized. Additionally, the state's prevailing "productive citizenship" rationale supported childcare centres because they allowed women to partici- 162 Reviews pate in the booming post-war (defense) economy and helped reduce the need for Aid to Dependent Children. Finally, she argues that education was highly valued in California, with the most important support for daycare coming from the teachers, directors, and supervisors of daycares as educational profession- als; unlike DC and Ohio, California did not remove daycare from education to welfare, easing the challenge of selling permanent daycare funding. An addi- tional and important factor in California's success came from the continuous support of Governor Earl Warren. Daycare was problematic for opponents because they felt it elevated state over family responsibility for teaching citizenship values and as such could be viewed as "communistic." Conversely, parents saw daycare as creating desir- able, trustworthy citizens who learned lessons in democratic citizenship. Moreover, advocates argued that women workers were necessary to win the Cold War; this argument, Stoltzfus asserts, in effect, turned the notion of domestic containment on its head. Unlike Cleveland and DC, however, and given the more liberal Californian environment, women were also able to argue for continued funding not only on the basis of economic need, but for personal satisfaction, as well as a right of citizenship and as taxpayers; doing so defeat- ed the derisive, though effective elsewhere, notion that they were working for "pin money." Although the campaign was waged for over a decade, the author argues advocates of childcare succeeded as the state's legislators became con- vinced of the irreversibility of several societal changes. These included an increase in divorce, separation, desertion, and juvenile delinquency, an increas- ing number of married, middle-class women entering the workforce, the view that the ADC was producing dependant generations, and, once the idea of intro- ducing a tax deduction for childcare materialized, a challenge of the idea that unpaid motherhood had no market value. This book is exhaustively researched. It is a slow, but incredibly com- pelling read. Its greatest strength is the richness of the narrative. By using excerpts from letters of protest, council meetings, and congressional hearings, for example, Stoltzfus uncovers the voices of women who argued so earnestly for the necessity of continued public funding. By introducing several extraor- dinary ordinary women who spoke so persuasively for their cause, the author convinces the reader that the post-war experience of women heading back to the home was not only against the desires of many, but contrary to their financial needs. If there is any shortcoming, it is that the book's analysis is not as theo- retical as suggested by the introduction, but this omission probably makes the book more enjoyable. Shannon Stettner York University 

Emilie Stoltzfus — Citizen, Mother, Worker: Debating Public Responsibility for Child Care After the Second World War

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Emilie Stoltzfus — Citizen, Mother, Worker: Debating Public Responsibility for Child Care After the Second World War

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Left History (E-Journal - York University)