Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, Volume 4, Number 3, 2003

The American Creche: ‘Let’s do what the French do, but do it our way’ LARRY PROCHNER University of Alberta, Canada

ABSTRACT Early childhood programs in the USA have been characterized as fragmented. In recent times more integrated European models have been studied as lessons for the USA. The French system in particular has been held up as a model of high-quality service for families with particular relevance for US policymakers. This article reviews the history of early childhood programs in the USA that included attempts to introduce the French model of daily group infant care as early as the 1850s. While the French approach inspired American programs at the time, group infant care developed in line with the dominant approach to charity and social welfare that viewed the family as having the first responsibility for child rearing barring exceptional circumstances.

The provision of early childhood (EC) programs in the USA has been described as fragmented (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD], 2000; Kamerman, 2001), a patchwork (OECD, 2000; Merrow, 2001), and a non-system (Kagan & Cohen, 1996). This situation derives in part from the history of EC programs in the USA that developed along two tracks, with those for poor children rooted in social welfare, and those for privileged children primarily educational (Cahan, 1989). Current EC programs vary in quality and quantity from state to state. More integrated systems are found in countries such as France, where national standards ensure that EC programs are of uniform high quality. In recent years the French approach to serving children and families has been brought to the attention of American policymakers and the public: it was described by Sheila B. Kamerman (2001) in her testimony prepared for the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions in 2001; featured on John Merrow’s report, The Promise of Preschool (Merrow, 2001) that aired on the Public Broadcasting Service in 2002; and profiled in studies sponsored by the French-American Foundation.

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The three French-American Foundation studies were published in a series entitled ‘A Welcome for Every Child’; ‘How France Achieves Quality in Child Care’ was released in 1989 (Richardson & Marx), ‘How France Protects Maternal and Child Health’ in 1994 (Richardson), and ‘Ready to Learn: the French system of early education’ in 1999 (Cooper). In each case, a team of American experts conducted a study tour of French programs, with the aim of learning from the French system. Members of the first group in 1989 included Hilary Rodham Clinton, then Chair of the Board of Directors of the Children’s Defense Fund, and researchers Bettye Caldwell and Carollee Howes. The reports concluded that despite differences between the two countries, the principles underlying the French approach to EC programs were relevant within an American context, providing useful lessons for the situation in the USA. This attention to EC programs in France attracted my interest as a historian. What importance was afforded the history of the programs as a context for understanding current developments? Comparative research that has focused on the current scene has added to our understanding of policy developments across a number of national systems (Robinson et al, 1980; Lamb, 1992; Lall & Lall, 1983; England, 1996; Lubeck, 1989, 1996; Melhuish & Moss, 1991). Tobin et al (1990) examined the preschool model across three nations, China, Japan, and the USA, demonstrating the sociocultural origin of central ideas and practices. Two large-scale crossnational studies – the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) Preprimary Project (Olmsted & Weikart, 1989, 1994; Weikart, 1999) and the Thematic Review of Early Childhood Education and Care Policy conducted by the OECD (2001) – have contributed a wealth of information through in-depth descriptions of national systems, and the identification of concerns and issues from a variety of viewpoints. However, there are gaps in the overall approach to comparative research as identified by Peter Moss (2001) in his review of the OECD report. Moss stressed the need to engage a wider range of perspectives as a means to avoid viewing children and services for children through a single disciplinary lens: We need to be aware that the cross-national researcher is partial and is involved in a meaning making process, using his or her favoured collection of theories and perspectives. We also need to consider what disciplinary perspectives are not being brought to the work and what the consequences might be. For example, what might a historian see? (p. 14)

This article aims to contribute to the debate over the viability of a French approach to EC programs in the USA by reviewing the history of group infant care programs in France in the nineteenth century, and experiments with the French system in the USA in the same period. The focus is the development of the model of infant care called the crèche. As the article elaborates only some of the influences that contributed to its complex history, it is acknowledged that other factors played a part in its development, and that the history of early childhood care and education in France did not unfold in a linear fashion. Part I

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elaborates on the crèche in France, while Part II turns to the development of the model in the USA. An important primary source was Jean-Baptiste-Firmin Marbeau’s (1845) Des crèches; ou, moyen de diminuer la misère en augmentant la population (The crèche or a way to reduce poverty by increasing the population). Interested readers can contact the author to request an English translation of the document in PDF format. Throughout the article, references to the French crèche are written with the accent. References to the generic American creche are written without the accent, as was the usual practice. Part I. The Crèche Model of Daily Group Infant Care in France The crèche was established in Paris in 1844, as a charity-sponsored group infant care service for children under the age of 2. Working mothers in midnineteenth-century France had several options for infant care. The preferred choice was to employ a nourrice or wet-nurse, thus avoiding the dangers stemming from artificial feeding. If children were older, they could be left on their own for the day, or under the care of a slightly older sibling. In some cases, young children were tethered to bedposts during their mother’s absence in an effort to keep them safe from harm. In others, a neighbour was asked to keep an eye on the children. The Irish writer Maria Edgeworth (1809), in her fictionalized account of Adelaide de Pastoret’s asile or shelter for infants (opened in Paris in 1802), told the story of a wealthy woman moved to start her service through discovery of children locked in their apartment for the day. The least desirable option was to employ a sevreuse or childminder. The limitation of a sevreuse was that she was not a wet-nurse. As a result, infants in garderies (daily boarding homes) or maisons de sévrage (longer-term boarding homes) were often weaned at an early age, and thus exposed to gastrointestinal bacteria or in danger of malnutrition. Jean-Baptiste-Firmin Marbeau was a lawyer commissioned to write a report on the status of the salle d’asile, the forerunner of the école maternelle. Salles d’asile were preschools for children from age 2 that were based on the British infant school. Through his investigations amongst the poor in Paris, he discovered many babies of working mothers, too young for the salle d’asile, who languished in the care of a sevreuse. In response, he submitted a report to the Bureau de Bienfaisance (welfare office), outlining a plan for an institution he named the crèche. The crèche was proposed as a charity-sponsored, yet regulated, childcare option, modelled on the original shelter of Pastoret. It was a distinctly moral alternative: Marbeau believed that the crèche provided better care than the children received in their homes. The crèche also had religious significance, with the name evoking images of the Christ child. The principal aim of the crèche was to enable poor mothers to work without having to worry about the fate of their children; older siblings would no longer have to care for their younger brothers and sisters, and could attend school; and child health would be guaranteed by care supervised by physicians in hygienic surroundings. Further, because mothers were required to 269

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breastfeed their infants during the day, their babies would be less likely to suffer from neglect or artificial feeding. As more lives were saved, there would be more ‘arms’ available for work, and in turn, less poverty. The crèche would also serve as a school for mothers. Marbeau ([1845] 1994) wrote that poor mothers were: always in need of advice because they never have the necessary time or tranquillity to observe and reflect, and they are generally ignorant. They do not always follow advice (sometimes they cannot), but when it is accompanied by help they follow it better and more willingly. (p. 83)

Advice centred on methods of hygienic care of infants and the importance of breastfeeding. Mothers were also taught their place within the social structure, promoting a permanent link of gratitude between the poor and their benefactors (Marbeau, [1845] 1994). Marbeau’s proposal found support from like-minded Social Catholics, and the first crèche was opened with remarkable speed by the newly formed Société des Crèches on Rue de Chaillot in Paris on November 14, 1844. Marbeau continued his promotional work by creating a quarterly publication, the Bulletin des Crèches, in 1845. In the same year, five additional crèches opened in Paris and eight more were established in 1846. Similar facilities were founded in Denmark and Austria in 1848, and in the cities of Dresden in 1850, and Barcelona in 1855 (Marbeau, 1885). Marbeau ([1845] 1994) considered the experimental phase of the crèche to be already over as early as 1845. He predicted, ‘the crèche will establish itself more quickly [than did the salle d’asile], because the Asile, its precursor, has already paved the way. The crèche has only to materialize in order to be accepted. People everywhere are only surprised that it hasn’t appeared sooner’ (pp. 29-30). Marbeau’s manual was widely distributed and went through five editions in 20 years. In the manual, Marbeau compiled extracts from sermons, reports by medical doctors, his own observations on charity, and legalistic descriptions of the model crèche. He wrote in a rich rhetorical style, mixing homilies with history, and philosophical musings with economic theory. The publication served two purposes; as a tract to be used in fundraising and as a guide for operating a crèche. Marbeau appealed to wealthy Parisians to respond in a personal way to the needs of the poor. Charity was not to be offered only as an expression of an individual’s goodwill. It was the duty of the rich to open their purses – the obligation of noble families – just as it was required that the poor be grateful. Marbeau used sentiment, guilt, and fear to induce the rich to fulfil this duty: poor families deserved pity; despite their efforts to support themselves, fate made survival difficult. Marbeau also drew on a fear of the uncontrolled children of the poor – the regulation of poor families was a theme for childsavers throughout the nineteenth century (Donzelot, 1979). Marbeau was particularly inspired on this theme: ‘I see the infernal well,’ wrote Marbeau ([1845] 1994), ‘where the tears of the unhappy turn into a pestilent secretion of

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prostitution, theft and crime, that poverty vomits over all the regions’ (p. 117). As the American prison expert Enoch Wines observed in his glowing evaluation of the crèche later in the century, funding nurseries was cheaper than building jails (Wines, 1968). The second task of the manual was to provide a practical guide for running the institution. Crèches were to be administered by a committee consisting of two or three directors, and 12 patronesses, all of whom were women. Marbeau ([1845] 1994) optimistically observed that while the directors ‘hold absolute power in the crèche ... their goodwill prevents them from abusing it’ (p. 24). The directors inspected the crèche, managed staff, and looked after general accounting and record keeping. Mothers paid for most of the cost of the nurses’ wages. Marbeau included a fee for service so that mothers would not ‘get into the habit of thinking that society provide everything for their children for free’ (pp. 86-87). All other operating costs were raised from the public by the committee (food and rent). Marbeau underscored that fundraising would not be a burden. With reference to food, he noted that ‘[the babies] need so little’ (p. 77). Crèche doctors provided their service as volunteers, and carried out daily inspections of the children. The intent was that crèches would double as medical clinics, and the frequent visits by doctors would regulate the quality of care in line with new approaches to paediatric and maternal medicine. Crèches were to be located in areas where the poor lived, in proximity to a salle d’asile and a Bureau de Bienfaisance. This would reduce the amount of time that a mother who had several children of different ages had to travel from her home to the crèche, salle d’asile and her workplace. The crèche and salle d’asile were therefore envisioned as two parts of a comprehensive childcare service for children from the age of a few weeks to 6 years. Although it was recommended that a building be constructed for the sole use of the crèche, in keeping with Marbeau’s allusion to Bethlehem it could be housed in more humble quarters. In either case, it was to have one multipurpose room for the children, a kitchen, and a laundry room. As in Pastoret’s shelter, the first crèche was furnished with 12 cradles and was thus a small-scale operation (even if two infants slept in each cradle, as was the usual practice). Marbeau’s main concern in relation to the physical environment was that it was warm in winter, and well ventilated in all seasons. Good ventilation was needed to prevent a build-up of disease-causing pollutants in the air of stuffy rooms, a condition known as miasma. The crèche hours were 5.30 am to 8.30 pm every day except Sunday, which Marbeau considered a family day. Marbeau ([1845] 1994) was vague regarding what children were to do during their long day at the crèche, beyond advising that they be given ‘care and foods that are suitable for their age’ (p. 70) in consultation with the crèche doctors. He did acknowledge that they needed to be physically stimulated, referring to a medical report that warned that the children ‘must not ... be left sitting too long’ or ‘[their] growth might be stunted’ (p. 81). The requirements for admission were related to age (children 271

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must be under the age of 2), poverty (their mothers must be poor and employed outside the home), and morality (their mothers must be married). Children had to be vaccinated prior to admission, and mothers had to supply a birth certificate for each child. As in Pastoret’s asile, mothers were to return to feed their infants twice during the day, at 9 am and again between 2 and 3 pm. Marbeau enthused on the value of the feeding times for both mother and child: ‘How happily they take a rest from work, pressing against their breasts the objects of all their care! One should hear their blessings!’ (pp. 43-44). Mothers were required to bring their infant ‘neatly swaddled,’ and to supply clean linen for the day, which, along with the infant’s cradle, was marked with a number to ensure identification. Dirty linen was sent home with the mother at the end of the day. Once weaned, mothers sent their children with a basket with food to supplement that offered by the crèche. This practice was followed in the salle d’asile, where children brought bread and wine, and were supplied with a hot meal at noon (Farrington, 1906). Crèche staff were called nurses, and they were required to be mothers themselves. Marbeau ([1845] 1994) advised that they ‘should have raised children, should be of good moral repute and should love children. Gentleness, cleanliness, submissiveness and patience – these are essential qualities for a nurse’ (p. 84). They were instructed to ‘care equally for all the children, and gently attend to all of their needs, as if they were their own’ (p. 68). In order to guarantee that there was no favouritism, nurses were forbidden from accepting cash from individual mothers. However, the committee retained the right to provide an extra payment for ‘those nurses who perform their duties most enthusiastically and conscientiously’ (p. 77). This was done in the hope of preventing the loss of the best nurses to better paying positions elsewhere. The crèche did not need wet-nurses because infants who were not yet weaned were fed by their mothers. The recommended ratio of nurses to children was one to six. In 1862, the ratio was set at 1 berceuse (nurse) for 6 infants under 8 months, and 1 gardienne (caregiver) for every 12 children aged 8 months to 3 years (Rollet-Echalier, 1990). Marbeau ([1845] 1994) added that even if only four or five out of six registered children come each day, nurses should be employed in relation to the number of children ‘on the books.’ In a simple hierarchy, the eldest employee was appointed ‘head nurse’ (p. 85) and was responsible for the conduct of the other staff and the daily record keeping. One nurse was required to live at the crèche, and open the doors for the first arrivals. Marbeau’s manual was written at the very start of the crèche movement and it does not offer any insight into the actual development and use of the institution. It is properly considered part of a group of similar works published in France in the nineteenth century described by Rachel Fuchs (1992) as reflecting ‘elite perceptions of the working-class situation’ (p. 17). As Fuchs and others have pointed out, the crèche had only a limited success (see Buluze, 1910; Reynolds, 1990; Rollet-Echalier, 1990; La Berge, 1991, 1992). Few working mothers used the service. This was partly due to bad planning. 272

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Because most crèches were not located in working-class residential areas, mothers had to travel long distances with their children (La Berge, 1991). If mothers did not work nearby, they could not return at intervals to feed their baby as Marbeau planned. Fuchs also found that one-quarter of parents sent their infants to a wet-nurse prior to using a crèche. Mothers merely shortened the stay of their infant with a wet-nurse, and weaned them earlier, not later. Thus, mothers incorporated the crèche into their existing childcare options, rather than adopting it as a replacement. La Berge (1991) suggested, further, that mothers preferred to employ caregivers from their own social class: ‘The woman who ran [garderies or maison de sévrage] came from the same background, lived much the same, had the same ideas about child care. Day nurseries [garderies] were flexible and undemanding’ (p. 79). La Berge (1991) concluded, ‘crèches failed to achieve their founding purposes’ (p. 76). Most significantly, mortality in crèches was no lower than for babies sent out to wet-nurses. Nor did they help lessen the number of children born to unmarried women as Marbeau had hoped. Single mothers continued to rely on the local boarding house, relatives, or the foundling hospital (Reynolds, 1990), even after the ban on admitting children of single mothers was relaxed in the 1870s (Fuchs, 1992). When Fuchs (1992) reviewed the records of admissions to several crèches in Paris, she found that they were used by a different class of parents from those who used other charities. In general, the clients of the crèche had a higher family income. La Berge (1991), however, came to a different conclusion, finding that most women using the Crèche St. Ambroise in Paris were day labourers. Thus, the situation may have varied according to location. The slow growth of the crèche after the first few years is made clear by comparing it to what Marbeau considered to be its sister institution, the salle d’asile. While crèches were few in France, the salle d’asile proliferated, providing care and instruction for children from 2 years of age to the school starting age of 6 in the manner of the British infant school. In 1868, the number of crèches in the whole of France was 85 with a total capacity of 3000-4000 infants, whereas 465,712 children were enrolled in 3951 salle d’asile in the same year (Luc, 1989). Part II. The Crèche outside France In 1892, Nathaniel Rosenau stood before delegates at the first ever day care conference in the USA, and pointed to the French system as a lesson for America: I might conclude by calling your attention to the usefulness of the crèche and the good it may do ... I believe day nurseries are a necessary adjunct to the social conditions of the day. The municipal government of Paris recognizes this by supporting fifty day nurseries, and there are nearly as many in the French Capital carried on by individuals, not as charitable enterprises, but as money making institutions. The day nursery properly conducted helps widowed and deserted mothers to earn a livelihood, and 273

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thus reduce pauperism. It introduces children to cleanliness, instructs them in good manners, and surrounds them with an atmosphere of refining, quiet and gentleness which must have a beneficial effect on the coming generation. Therefore, the universal establishment of such institutions is to be welcomed. (Rosenau, 1892, p. 11)

The first example of an institution offering daily group infant care for children in the USA was a nursery established in the House of Industry in Philadelphia in 1795 (Michel, 1999). In England, nurseries were common in workhouses, but according to Michel this was not the case in the USA, and seems to have been limited to this single institution. More widespread were the infant schools patterned on the British model, as were the salle d’asile. Infant schools opened in New York City, Boston and Philadelphia, starting in the 1820s, and providing care and instruction for poor children from about the age of 18 months. However, by the 1840s, infant schools lost favour with American philanthropists and educators, or were incorporated into new elementary schools systems (Beatty, 1995). Separate institutions for childcare were rare from the 1840s to the 1850s apart from orphanages or foundling homes. Thus, caring for young children in groups in separate settings and on a daily basis was a novel idea in the USA at the time the crèche was founded in France. One of the first crèche-style institutions in an English-speaking country was a nursery opened in London in 1850. The nursery was operated on a very small scale by a group of upper-class women. Although they called their institution a public nursery rather than a crèche, they acknowledged their debt to Marbeau as the originator of the idea. Their aim was to prevent infant deaths by providing a higher quality of infant care than was otherwise available to mothers employed as factory workers. In particular, they offered it as an alternative to using childminders, some of whom had reputations for drugging their young charges with laudanum (a form of opium). The nursery was shortlived, a situation that one report blamed on high fees (Tizard et al, 1976), while another speculated that the location was ill suited to heavier use, and that a better site would have been an industrial city such as Manchester (‘Public Nurseries in England,’ 1851, pp. 284-285). In fact, a public nursery was opened in Manchester in the same year, although it too appears to have been a shortlived venture. Nevertheless, it seems the crèche was held in high regard, as indicated by a report in a periodical at the time. The French crèche is a sort of public nursery, combining for the elder children the features of an infant school. It is under the superintendence of mistresses and nurses paid by public charity, or by the municipality. The children are brought every morning by the parents, and taken away every night. They have all sorts of household accommodation, and a playground; and their wants and appetites are attended to as well as if they were at home – often very much better. The parents of course provide the food, and some pay a small fee, but the crèche is open to all the world; and if the mother be too poor to contribute to the common stock of bread and milk,

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and soup, public benevolence makes up the deficiency. (Cotton Metropolis, 1853, p. 248)

Public nurseries were slow to develop in England, with only three or four in London by 1855, but features of one are worth noting in relation to developments in the USA. The ‘Public Nursery, Infant Ragged School, and Laundry’ combined on-site employment for mothers with separate facilities for infants and older children (‘Poor People’s Children,’ 1855, p. 187). The eldest girls from the ragged school – a charity school providing basic education for poor children – were sent upstairs to help an elderly woman look after the babies. Thus, the nursery combined elements of the popular dame schools, ragged schools, and the workhouse, to create a service for ‘poor people’s babies’ that bore little resemblance to the crèche in France. A similar sort of hybrid developed in North America with the opening of the Nursery for the Children of Poor Women in New York (1854) and the Public Nursery in Toronto (1856) (Prochner, 1996). While their rules of operation were similar to those found in Marbeau’s manual (see Table I), there were no references to the crèche in annual reports or institutional histories. French Crèche (1845) [The mother] supplies the necessary linen for the day. The linen is marked with the number of the locker where it is placed in the laundry room. This number is the same as that of the child’s cradle.

The mother must bring her child neatly swaddled, must come to feed him promptly at meal times, and must fetch him every evening. A bottle-fed child must receive the same care from his mother. When the child is weaned, the mother must furnish his little basket for the day.

Nursery for the Children of Poor Women (1854) Each nurse shall undress her child as received, bathe it if necessary, and wash its face and hands and brush its hair, and then dress it in the clothing of the house, and put around its neck the number of its crib, hanging up the child’s own clothes upon the hook bearing the same number as the crib. [Employed wet-nurses]

Children, who have been weaned, will have bread and milk twice a day, and a bowl of soup or broth. The children should have, as regularly as possible, their hours for meals, sleep and play.

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Fitch Creche (1884) Each child, on its admission, shall be thoroughly washed, and dressed in clothes belong to the Institution, its own clothes being placed in a bag provided and hung in the air clothes shaft.

Each infant shall be provided with two feeding bottles.

Each child shall be provided with separate towel, sponge and comb; also with bowl, mug, plate, and spoon.

Larry Prochner [For admission] the child must be both vaccinated and in excellent health, or he will have to receive a vaccination as soon as possible. One of the Doctors will visit the Crèche every day, recording his observations and instructions in the inspection register. The mother comes to nurse, but all the care involved in cleanliness, feeding, positioning—in short, everything that protects the little seedling from need and from all of the dangers that besiege him—everything, for two thirds of the day (sometimes even the advice to be given to the mothers), is the responsibility of the nurses. Gentleness, cleanliness, submissiveness and patience – these are essential qualities for a nurse.

No child to be admitted who is sick of contagious disease.

The greatest care shall be exercised in receiving children, each day, so that no case of opthalmia or infectious skin disease shall be admitted.

[The nurse] shall keep [the children] constantly under her eye, and attend promptly to their wants in every particular.

No servant shall occupy herself with working or reading during the hours of attendance, as the children require all care and attention possible.

Nurses are expressly instructed to use invariably with the children the most gentle and kind expressions; no coarse or harsh language shall ever be uttered in the establishment, and perfect submission and respect will be uniformly exhibited by the Managers of the Nursery from all Wet Nurses in its employ.

All are requested to speak kindly and lovingly to the children and to make the place bright and home-like.

Table I. A comparison of rules in the French Crèche and American crèche. Source: , Jean-Baptiste-Firmin Marbeau (1994) The Crèche or a Way to Reduce Poverty by Increasing the Population (V. Nicolai, Trans.). Montreal. (Original work published 1845); Constitution, Bylaws, and Regulations of the Nursery for the Children of Poor Women in the City of New York (1854) New York: Author; Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Meeting of the Charity Organization Society of Buffalo. (1884) Buffalo: Author, as cited in Little, 1994, p. 58.

As was the case in London, these experiments with the French approach to daily group infant care did not immediately catch hold. Other services, medical care and permanent child placement met more immediate needs of destitute mothers (Prochner, 1996). However, during the brief time that they functioned as childcare facilities, they followed similar practices to those at the London 276

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nurseries described above: in American nurseries mothers were hired as wetnurses in the institution itself, while others were employed as wet-nurses by wealthy women. Moreover, they accepted children from birth to age 6 or beyond. In this way the English day nursery, itself a modified French crèche, established its first shallow roots in North America. As the daily group infant care idea developed in this early period, services were established to meet particular needs, and not according to any system. Care was often twinned with other services that were considered complementary. In 1859 or 1860, a nursery was established in a ragged school in Chicago, probably to care for the younger siblings of children attending the school. This facility evolved to become the Chicago Nursery and Orphan Asylum in 1861, offering residential care for children in order to free their mothers to work (Cmiel, 1995). A history of the childcare movement in the USA compiled in 1940, considered the challenges of childcare in World War II in light of this early development. Determined women ... rented space wherever they could, perhaps a house, perhaps a dingy room somewhere, perhaps quarters in a hospital – and offered to care for the children of these [poor] women. They called these places ‘day nurseries.’ They had no strong supporting groups behind them, no precedent to follow beyond that of the kindly Frenchmen, Monsiur [sic] Marbeau, who had organized a ‘crèche’ in Paris about ten years before. They blazed their own trails. (Historical Sketch, 1940, p. 2)

In general, the term day nursery was favoured, as evidenced by the name of the organization established in 1898 to promote the cause – the National Federation of Day Nurseries. Henry L. Mencken (1921) explained that crèche was a ‘loanword’ from the French language, and that while in some cases loan words were integrated into everyday language, ‘now and then, when the competing loanword happens to violate American speech habits, a native term ousts it. The French crèche offers an example; it has been entirely displaced by day-nursery’ (p. 84). However, the significance of the crèche as a touchstone for leaders in the nascent childcare movement in the USA grew over the nineteenth century even as the term fell into disuse. The founder of a day nursery in Philadelphia in 1863, Hanna Biddle, made her own ‘discovery’ of the neglected children of working mothers, leading her to open a public nursery. She traced her inspiration to a tour of a crèche in Paris. Her selection of the crèche as the model for the Philadelphia Day Nursery was deliberate. The crèche was a reference point for an American public largely unfamiliar with the idea of daily group infant care. The period from the mid-1870s to the early 1880s saw additional efforts that in many cases developed without knowledge of the existence of other nurseries. This was the case at the Fitch Creche in Buffalo. In 1881, Maria Maltby Love helped to establish the Fitch Creche under the auspice of the Charity Organization Society (COS) in the city. Rev. S.H. Gurteen, founder of the COS in 1877, had toured day nurseries in London and crèches in Paris in 1878, looking to the European institutions as models for the poor of Buffalo

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(Watson, 1971). A creche was established in Buffalo as a means of offering destitute mothers of young children the freedom to seek employment with the knowledge their children were well looked after. The Fitch Creche was housed in a substantial building in central Buffalo and was considered a showpiece of a modern approach to charity work with children and families (see Figures 1 and 2). As was the case with Hanna Biddle, Love traced her own interest to a tour of a crèche in France (Little, 1994).

Figure 1. In the Crèche (Buffalo) (Welch, 1885, p. 205).

Love believed the Fitch Creche to be the first in the USA (Little, 1994, p. 58), an erroneous claim that continues to be put forth. The entry on Love in the 1995 edition of the Encyclopedia of Social Work credits her with establishing ‘the first day nursery for the children of working women in the United States’ (Renee & Little, 1995, p. 2598), a claim repeated in 1999 when Maria Maltby Love was inducted into the Western New York Women’s Hall of Fame (‘Six to be Honored,’ 1999). By all accounts, it seems the managers of the Fitch Creche were unaware of earlier American nurseries. The managers of the Philadelphia Day Nursery eventually changed its name to the First Day Nursery in 1916, to guarantee its place in history (Rose, 1999).

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Figure 2. Dining in the Crèche (Buffalo) (Welch, 1885, p. 213).

The blueprint for the Fitch Creche was ‘the French vision and philosophy’ (Little, 1994, p. 52). However, within a few years of its opening administrators believed they had improved on European institutions. After Love and her nephew toured a number of crèches in Europe in 1882, they concluded that the Fitch Creche was ‘the best in the civilized world’ (as cited in Little, 1994, p. 60). By the 1890s the American creche had developed a distinct character as a branch of charity work. Although it was still considered experimental, its main features were well mapped out. The typical American creche of the 1890s offered a range of services in addition to childcare, including job referral for mothers or work on-site in a laundry or as a caregiver. It accepted children from a few weeks of age to school age, with unweaned infants being bottle-fed instead of breastfed. The first child admitted to the Brightside Day Nursery in New York City in 1894 was just 11 days old (History of Brightside Day Nursery, 1948). Although some offered an educational program for older children, employing a kindergarten teacher perhaps, the care was predominately custodial. The American creche reflected the attitudes and practices of private charity for poor families that prevailed at the time. For example, in addition to operating its creche, the Charity Organization Society of Buffalo maintained ‘a provident wood-yard to test the genuineness of complaints that work cannot be found’ (Shepard, 1893, p. 254). The American creche, as it developed through local initiatives and was funded by private charity, took a different 279

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course from its French counterpart. It entered the twentieth century encumbered by notions of Victorian charity and largely cut off from the mainstream of progressive social reform, a situation that continued into the 1930s. Conclusion The preceding review of the early experiments with the French model of daily group infant care in the USA indicates that the fragmented approach to the provision of early childhood programs in modern times has roots stretching into the nineteenth century. Critical elements of the more integrated French system were missing from the start. In France in 1863, the year Hanna Biddle established the Philadelphia nursery, 14% of children aged 2 to 6 were registered in salles d’asile (Luc, 1997). According to Marbeau, the asile paved the way for acceptance of the crèche. While he was clearly optimistic, as we have seen, there was a ready acceptance of the charity, at least in the early years. Although in France asiles came under the jurisdiction of the Minister of Public Instruction starting in 1848, they originally had a dual purpose of instruction and care for children of working mothers. There was no clear distinction between their role as garderie or school (Luc, 1997, p. 239). As described by Deasey (1978), in the asiles ‘children under six were to be sheltered in large numbers from the dangers of the streets, disease and starvation’ (p. 21), and at the same time instructed in an informal manner through play, songs and games. As their development grew from a single institution in 1826 to include 100,000 children in 1500 centres in 1843, the asile developed a rigid pedagogy of control and discipline (Le Normand, 1992). Following an official review in 1845, reforms were initiated that resulted in the creation of the école maternelle in the 1880s. However, at mid-century the salle d’asile, like the crèche, had a preventative role in society. In the crèche, the focus was ostensibly health and hygiene, as part of a broader campaign to promote infant survival. The salle d’asile continued this ‘prophylactic tradition’ into the preschool years, by focusing on preventing social problems and preparing a labouring class (Coombes, 1991, p. 191), thus laying a component of the foundation for the French system of EC programs. In the USA, the closing of infant schools left a gap in education services for poor preschool children that was largely unmet until the start-up of free kindergartens in the late 1870s. Starting in the 1890s in the USA, the growth of day nurseries was stimulated by social needs arising from increased immigration, industrialization, and concern for child health and welfare. In cities, large numbers of under-age children attended primary schools. Many of these children were new immigrants or the children of immigrants. The eldest of these preschoolers created a ready clientele for charity kindergartens or free kindergartens, and their younger brothers and sisters entered day nurseries where they were available. By the early 1890s there were an estimated 6000 free kindergartens and 90 day nurseries, and the American creche had entered 280

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its brief Golden Age (Steinfels, 1973). But while in many cases free kindergartens were absorbed into public schools (Beatty, 1995), the day nursery retained its role as a privately supported charity program for poor families – a treatment for pauperism in the words of Robert Hunter (1904). An American delegate on the French-American Foundation study tour of preschools in France in 1999 called the French system in modern times ‘an example of the art of the possible’ (Cooper, 1999, p. x). Another delegate stated, ‘let’s do what the French do, but do it our way’ (p. 37). Although the reference in the latter statement was to funding, it is tempting to conclude that in a more general sense, what the French do is only possible in France. Kathy O’Hara’s (1998) comparative study of family policy examined the values and ideas underlying developments in individual nations. The resulting narratives or ‘stories’ of policy development were ‘rooted in the core social values and political history of each country’ (Maxwell, 1998, p. x). Distinct French and American histories, approaches to government, and conceptions of childhood and child-rearing have created different policy stories, different possibilities. However, this does not mean that that policy is dictated by history. In France, écoles maternelles were not adopted as schools for all children until after World War II, as a response to an increased need for childcare and the new appeal of early childhood education (Clark, 1991). The crèche was rejuvenated in the same period and for about the same reasons: a need for infant care for the children of working mothers, and as a support for healthy development for all children (Leprince, 1991). As Michel (1999) points out, the current integrated system of EC programs in France is not predicted by its type of political regime. In the USA too there are signs of a more integrated approach and examples of a new dedication to EC programs in the form of universal pre-kindergarten in some states. And as Nathaniel Rosenau suggested in 1892, ‘the universal establishment of such institutions is to be welcomed’ (p. 11). Correspondence Larry Prochner, Department of Elementary Education, 551 Education Centre South, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2G5, Canada ([email protected]). References Beatty, B. (1995) Preschool Education in America: the culture of young children from the colonial era to the present. New Haven: Yale University Press. Buluze, E. (1910) La Crèche Saint-Gervais, La France Médicale, pp. 21-24, 46-48, 86-88, 126-129, 171-174, 235-237, 266-268. Cahan, E.D. (1989) Past Caring: a history of U.S. preschool care and education for the poor, 1820-1965. New York: National Center for Children in Poverty.

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Clark, L. (1991) France, in J.M. Hawes & N.R. Hiner (Eds) Children in Historical and Comparative Perspective: an international handbook and research guide, pp. 277-304. New York: Greenwood Press. Cmiel, K. (1995) A Home of Another Kind: one Chicago orphanage and the tangle of child welfare. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Coombes, J. (1991) France, in M. Cochran (Ed.) International Handbook of Child Care Policies and Programs, pp. 187-210. Westport: Greenwood Press. Cooper, C.J. (1999) A Welcome for Every Child. III. Ready to Learn: the French system of early education and care offers lessons for the United States. New York: French American Foundation. Cotton Metropolis (1853) Littell’s Living Age, 36, pp. 241-252. Deasey, D. (1978) Education under Six. London: Croom Helm. Donzelot, J. (1979) The Policing of Families (R. Hurley, trans.) New York: Pantheon. Edgeworth, M. (1809) Madame de Fleury: Tales of a fashionable life: Tales and novels. London: J. Johnson. England, K. (1996) Who Will Mind the Baby? Geographies of Child Care and Working Mothers. New York: Routledge. Farrington, F.E. (1906) The Public Primary School System of France. New York: Teachers College Press. Fuchs, R. (1992) Poor and Pregnant in Paris: strategies for survival in the nineteenth century. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Historical Sketch of the Day Nursery Movement (1940) Social Welfare History Archives, University of Minnesota, SW55, Box 21, File 9. History of Brightside Day Nursery (1948) Social Welfare History Archives, University of Minnesota, SW55, Box 46, File 15. Hunter, R. (1904) Poverty. New York: Macmillan. Kagan, S.L. & Cohen, N.E. (Eds) (1996) Reinventing Early Care and Education: a vision for a quality system. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Kamerman, S.B. (2001) Early Childhood Education and Care: international perspectives. Testimony prepared for the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. Available at: www.childpolicy.org/senatetestimony.pdf La Berge, A.E. (1991) Medicalization and Moralization: the crèches of nineteenthcentury Paris, Journal of Social History, 25(1), pp. 65-87. La Berge, A.E. (1992) Mission and Method: the early nineteenth-century French public health movement. New York: Cambridge University Press. Lall, G.R. & Lall, B.M. (1983) Comparative Early Childhood Education. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas. Lamb, M.E. (1992) Child Care in Context: cross-cultural perspectives. Hillsdale: Erlbaum. Le Normand, M.T. (1992) Early Childhood Education in France, in G. Woodill, J. Bernard & L. Prochner (Eds) International Handbook of Early Childhood Education, pp. 205-216. New York: Garland.

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Leprince, F. (1991) Day Care for Young Children in France, in E.C. Melhuish & P. Moss (Eds) Day Care for Young Children: international perspectives, pp. 10-26 London: Routledge. Little, K. (1994) Maria M. Love: the life and legacy of a social work pioneer. Buffalo: Western New York Heritage Institute. Lubeck, S. (1989) A World of Difference: American child care policy in cross-national perspective, Educational Policy, 3(4), pp. 331-354. Lubeck, S. (1996) Policy Issues in the Development of Child Care and Early Education Systems: the need for cross-national comparison, in J.A. Hatch (Ed.) Qualitative Research in Early Childhood Settings, pp. 79-98. Westport: Greenwood Press. Luc, J.N. (1989) A trois ans, l’enfant devient intéressant ... La découverte médicale de la seconde enfance 1750-1900, Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, 36(1), pp. 83-112. Luc, J.N. (1997) L’invention du jeune enfant au XIXe siècle. Paris: Belin. Marbeau, E. (1885) Rapport sur la question des crèches: Présenté au Congrès. Chaumont : Impr. et Lithographie Cavaniol. Marbeau, J.B.F. (1845) Des crèches; ou, moyen de diminuer la misère en augmentant la population. Paris: Comptoir des Imprimeurs-Unis [Microfiche. Paris, Microéditions Hachette, 1971]. Marbeau, J.B.F. (1994) The Crèche or a Way to Reduce Poverty by Increasing the Population (V. Nicolai, trans.) Available from L Prochner, Department of Elementary Education, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2G5, Canada (Original work published 1845). Maxwell, J. (1998) Foreword to Kathy O’Hara, Comparative Family Policy: eight countries’ stories. Ottawa: Canadian Policy Research Networks. Melhuish, E.C. & Moss, P. (Eds) (1991) Day Care for Young Children: international perspectives. London: Routledge. Mencken, H.L. (1921) The American Language: an inquiry into the development of English in the United States, 2nd edn. New York: Knopf. Merrow, J. (Executive Producer) (2001) The Promise of Preschool with John Merrow [Video]. New York: Learning Matters. Michel, S. (1999) Children’s Interests/Mothers’ Rights: the shaping of America’s child care policy. New Haven: Yale University Press. Moss, P. (2001) Beyond Early Childhood Education and Care, paper presented at Starting Strong: Early Childhood Education and Care, a conference co-organized by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Ministry of Education and Science in Sweden and the Swedish National Agency for Education, Stockholm, 13-15 June. O’Hara, K. (1998) Comparative Family Policy: eight countries’ stories. Ottawa: Canadian Policy Research Networks. Olmsted, P.P. & Weikart, D.P. (1989) How Nations Serve Young Children: profiles of child care and education in 14 countries. Ypsilanti: High/Scope Press. Olmsted, P.P., & Weikart, D.P. (1994) Families Speak: early childhood care and education in 11 countries. Ypsilanti: High/Scope Press.

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