ABSTRACT
During the Second World War, there was much public wailing about the plight of America’s neglected “latchkey children.” In truth, working parents—mothers especially—devised a variety of solutions to meet their child day care needs. It is past time to do full justice to America’s mothers who helped to defend their country by working in the nation’s shipyards and factories, and who did not neglect their children in the process, and to see what lessons we can leam. This article shows that the war was a time of successes in the provision of child day care and examines (1) the child day care arrangements made by families themselves during the war, (2) the Lanham Act child day care centers, (3) the child day care centers operated by private businesses, and (4) the hugely successful, but largely forgotten, Extended School Services.
