Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: Three movements, one goal -- Save the child and save the nation : the rise of social feminism and social research -- G. Stanley Hall and the child study movement -- Scientific child rearing, organized motherhood, and parent education -- Social welfare reformers and reform-minded scientists -- The Children's Bureau under Julia Lathrop : government at its best -- From juvenile delinquency research to child guidance -- Better crops, better pigs, better children : the Iowa Child Welfare Research Station -- The children's decade -- Child development research : preventive politics -- Out of step with his times : Arnold Gesell and the Yale Clinic -- The child guidance movement : another approach to preventive politics -- Child guidance becomes child psychiatry -- The Children's Bureau under Grace Abbott : uphill all the way -- Epilogue: What happened to the early movements? : the child development field after World War II.