Warring factions in the United States like to use children as weapons

        for their political agendas as Americans try to determine the role--if

        any--of the federal government in the lives of children. But what is the

        history of child welfare policy in the United States? What can we learn

        from the efforts to found the U.S. Children's bureau in 1903 and its eventual

        dismemberment in 1946?

      This is the first history of the Children's Bureau and the first in-depth

        examination of federal child welfare policy from the perspective of that

        agency. Its goal was to promote "a right to childhood," and

        Kriste Lindenmeyer unflinchingly examines the successes--and the failures--of

        the Bureau. She analyzes infant and maternal mortality, the promotion

        of child health care, child labor reform, and the protection of children

        with "special needs" from the Bureau's inception through the

        Depression, and through all the legislation that impacted on its work

        for children. The meaningful accomplishments and the demise of the Children's

        Bureau have much to tell parents, politicians, and policy-makers everywhere.