Breakers. This is the key that protects your property and you. This is your police department. Next, author marilyn urban hold talks about in large part, to prepare americas children to compete against the communist years. This 50minute talk is sponsored by the archives of kansas city. Holt good evening, and thank you for arranging this, and especially kimberly, thank you for all the work youve done on this. Since he showed up, mark, who is retired from the central plains. I owe him a special thank you. I have done a lot of research at the national archives, and the archivists always seem to know what i was interested in or had suggestions for what i ought to be interested in. Mark, when i was working on cold war kids said, you know, theres this collection you might be interested in. Yes, i was, very much, and it became a chapter in the book, so thank you. Now, for tonights discussion what do school Lunch Programs, the indian adoption project, polio shots, and comic books have in common . Youre going, oh, theres a quiz . Obviously your first guess would , be they all have something to do with the postwar years, but they are also examples of the unprecedented uptick in the federal intervention in childrens lives between 1945 and 1960. When i was writing the book, one of the questions i hope to answer was why this increase occurred. You cannot point to one single event, but i think a good place to start is with the governmentsponsored white house conference on children and youth. On december 3, 1950, 6000 delegates from across the nation converged on washington, d. C. For the white house conference on children and youth. It was also called the mid conference. Participants represented racial, class, religious, age, and regional diversity, producing what truman called a unique demonstration of our democracys concern for children and proof that our american tradition of Free Exchange of fact and opinion is a living, working force. For five days, delegates participated in panels and workshops, discussing the mental, emotional, and spiritual qualities essential to a childs individual happiness and his development as a responsible citizen. Such conferences were not new. They had been held at roughly 10year intervals since president Theodore Roosevelt convened the first one in 1909. The early conferences were mainly concerned with the nations poor and marginalized children, particularly the children of immigrants living in city slums. They went beyond the neediest and most dependent to include children of all socioeconomic and racial backgrounds. I want to emphasize the word all because instead of just talking about the word immigrant, they talked about native American Children africanAmerican Children, the children of migrant farmers. They talked about the middle and upper classes, and that was extremely new, something that had never been done before at these conferences. As importantly, the 1950 conference in its final report concluded that the federal government should play a bigger role in the lives of americas children by initiating new programs, expanding old ones and giving Financial Support to state and local governments to deal with the social and economic problems that were directly affecting children in their particular cities, regions, areas. It may be hard to believe today, but there was a time when the federal government largely ignored the world of kids, and there was a time when the public did not automatically consider government as the obvious appropriate choice when it came to solving large problems. That certainly changed after the war. Both truman and eisenhower along with congress began to talk about children and teenagers as a distinct segment of the american population. One reason was the increasing number of children. Almost 60 million were born 1946 and 1960, and when you add in the number of adolescents and teenagers, which in 1950 stood at 2 million, it was obvious that the countrys health care system, schools, welfare, and juvenile delinquency programs were either being overhauled or about to be. Local and state governments often felt unable to handle the overload and began to turn to the federal government for more assistance, creating a shift in the state to federal balance of power. Policy makers also spent more time talking about teenagers and baby boomers as one big group because america was in a cold war. The soviet union tested its first atomic bomb in 1949. In the months preceding the 1950 white house conference on children and youth, ethel and Julius Rosenberg were accused of being soviet spies and arrested. The next year, they were will arrested. Executed. In 1950, Joseph Mccarthy was making his accusations of communist sympathizers in and out of government, and just days before this white house conference convened, the chinese communists launched a surprise counteroffensive in korea, driving you and forces including u. S. Troops, into retreat. The korean conflict was not to be over by christmas, as general Douglas Macarthur had previously, very confidently predicted. Americas youth were part of the Nations Defense in the cold war against communism. Time and again, the rhetoric about what was good for kids in the country was couched in cold war terms. Young people had to be better educated, mentally prepared, healthy, and physically fit to ensure that america remains democratic, economically sound and secure against its enemies. Federal legislation using cold war language appears in several places, but the first one comes from the truman administration. The National SchoolLunch Program, sometimes called a hot Lunch Program in 1946, this was established and championed by georgia democrat richard russell, a conservative considered to be one of the most powerful men in the senate. He championed the program because it would do two things first of all, it would boost american agriculture by giving subsidies to farmers for their surplus product. Things like raisins, nuts, rice, cheese. Secondly, it would guarantee a hot, balanced school lunch that in turn would safeguard the health and wellbeing of children. A well fed child was a better student, but a subtext to the arguments for this program was that a wellnourished child became a more physically fit adult and less likely to be rejected for military service. Should world war iii happen and many at the upper levels of government including truman and secretary of defense marshall believed it was a very real possibility the u. S. Would need physically ready combatants. Another example of cold war rhetoric is the debate or the 1958 National Defense education act. Notice the word defense . After the soviets launched sputnik, the country went a little nuts. How did the soviets get ahead of the United States . It was unthinkable. Ike told the public that there was no reason to get hysterical, but there was an uproar, and many people claim schools were not doing their jobs. In their defense, one spokesman for the National Education association asked how any nation that paid its teachers and average salary of 4200 a year could expect to be the first into space. Lawmakers responded to sputnik with the National Defense education act, which put millions of dollars into training teachers, Funding College scholarships, putting modern equipment into classrooms, and expanding science and math curricula. Gallup polls at the time show that a majority of americans believed that it was up to students to work harder and to compete against their soviet counterparts at all grade levels. In retrospect, jim rice, who was elected to congress in 1954 and when eventually become speaker of the house, wrote in his autobiography, the cold war dominated and in some ways distorted our whole national outlook. The most common argument for passage of the National Defense education act was not the need to improve learning opportunities for the sake of our kids, but the fear that the russian schools were doing a better job than ours in preparing their youth for the space age. Baby boomers and teenagers whether they knew it or not, were not just cold war kids they were preparing to be the next generation of cold war fighters. Although i cannot imagine that my brother with his Davy Crockett hat or me with my Hopalong Cassidy six shooters were what adults meant when they talked about defending democracy and the american way of life but that message was implicit. Little did we know at the time that the postwar generation would be fighting communists but not along the iron curtain as many would have expected, but in vietnam. Im a baby boomer, but this is not a book of my reminiscences. You wont read about the eightyearold me who got to be on television with my two sisters and my brother. We were part of the peanut gallery on the local television stations version of howdy doody. We had our 15 minutes of name real early. I did not use that, but i did use other kids voices who talked about their memories and experience is. Experiences. When they talked about the atomic bomb and their fear of it, they talked about home bomb shelters, the thrill of a television in their living room, rock n roll, and more homework after sputnik. But the main goal was to look at the federal response to the postwar generation and how that , may have differed from the governments very limited role before the war. What i found that the governments role did increase, and not necessarily because congress and the president always thought that it should, but because local and state governments, as well as the general public, believed and sometimes demanded that the federal government had to be more active. At the 1950 white house conference on children and youth and the one that followed in 1960, the conclusion was that the federal government must become a more effective partner in efforts to improve the lives of americas young people. That does not mean that every program was approved. For example, proposals for governmentfunded day care similar to that provided to women working in defense plants during world war ii went nowhere despite lobbying efforts from private organizations and from the federal u. S. Childrens bureau and the u. S. Womens bureau. Still, both truman and eisenhower, one dedicated to expanding the programs begun under the new deal and the other a fiscal conservative determined to balance the budget, both supported programs that reach a broader spectrum of americas young than any that had come before. I would interpret eisenhower as more in line with the early 20th century progressives when it came to child issues. That might sound like a stretch, but the progressive reformers and activists of the early 20th century, people like jane addams, grace abbott, Teddy Roosevelt they thought local, state, and federal government should do more, not less, for children. Ike does not seem like a very good candidate to put in that company, especially if you are talking about him seeing a reformer, but i would argue that he had the instincts of a progressive when it came to children, and the polio vaccine is a good example. In 1955, it was announced that the vaccine was safe and ineffective. To head off the possibility that this vaccine would in dublin the black market and send prices skyrocketing, the government took control of production and distribution. Eisenhower insisted that the polio vaccine be made available to all free of charge. This was not without some controversy within his administration. The head of the newly created department of Health Education and welfare opposed federal funding. She considered it to be socialized medicine, but according to Surgeon General linette shealy, ike gave marching orders to get the job done. Congress approved the funding with no fuss. This was an entirely different scenario from trumans attempt to enact National Health insurance, which met with fierce and steady resistance. In hindsight, truman may have gotten congress to agree to Health Insurance for all children. That proposal was actually on his desk, but he went for the whole package. Kids and adults alike. And he lost. That is what was remembered. What is not remembered is that during trumans time in office the federal government put 75 million into state grants for Hospital Construction project that included community hospitals, nonprofit hospitals for the chronically ill, rehabilitation centers, and nursing homes. In addition, the federal government funded more research into tuberculosis and into finding cures for cancer. He also approved federal legislation that made grant money available for training Mental Health workers and for clinical psychiatric research. Earlier, i mentioned the indian adoption project. Remember back with the what do all these things have in common . The indian adoption project was initiated by the bureau of Indian Affairs in 1958. It was intended to stimulate adoption of indian children who were in the care of state agencies. The project was not too successful or well received, especially in the native american community, but it was created within the framework of societys new interest in and acceptance of adoption. During the 1950s, the number of adoption petitions filed in u. S. Court averaged between 90000 and 95,000 a year. Adoption by a step parent or relative made up about half of this. The remaining were adoption by nonrelatives. Included were international adoptions, something that had become a phenomenon and something that had never been seen before in the United States. Following world war ii, the displaced persons act of 1948 allowed European Children orphaned and displaced by war to come to america as adoptees. I should add that a youngster could not just be an orphan, as if that was not enough. The child had to also be displaced. For example, a family in the United States wanted to adopt a child relative in greece. The girls father had died in a labor camp. Her mother died when the nazis firebombed a church. Clearly, she was an orphan, but since she still lived in her home village, she was not displaced and their or did not qualify under the displaced persons act. A happier outcome was a parent and a letter a latvian boy he wrote to president truman from his new home in michigan. Thank you so much for the nice things you have done, wrote the boy. My life has changed like magic. Im beginning to forget the bad things that happened to me in the war. Admission was widened in 1952 to include chinese, japanese, and korean orphans. It went without saying that these children faced higher, even lifethreatening situations, yet even in the humanitarian language, giving children a chance at a Stable Family life, there was a cold war subtext. Youngsters displaced from countries in Eastern Europe were actually lucky. They would not have to live under the thumb of the soviet union, and it was the communists who made the Korean Children orphans and the victims of war. At home, the government was engaged in another kind of war a war against juvenile delinquency. This was not a new problem, but in the postwar years, it seemed to be reaching epidemic proportions. During the war, juvenile crime spiked. In fact, it was expected to spike because that is what had happened during world war i. Thats actually what happened during the civil war. So people who paid attention to these things social workers childcare advocates, reformers like jane addams they expected this to happen. Increased delinquency was a national function of war. You might want to check out on the internet ive seen it on youtube its a movie short called as the twig is bent, in this was made during the war years to show the delinquency on the homefront front and advise parents of what they could do to protect their children. Many expected that when peace came, delinquency would drop, as it had in the past. Instead, the number of adolescents and older teenagers brought before judges more than doubled between 1948 and 1956. Partly, this was a result of stricter enforcement of juvenile laws, but it was also emblematic of social change. Delinquency was generally believed to occur among the lower social economic classes, to occur in poor immigrant urban communities, squalor tenements but suddenly it seemed delinquency had moved into the middle class and the upper class. Youve all seen the movie Rebel Without a cause . The characters in that movie are all part of the financially comfortable white middleclass. But that was the new reality. There had to be a way to curb delinquency were ever it was occurring and to eliminate the circumstances that created it, but what exactly caused juvenile delinquency . No one seemed to be able to put their finger on one cause or a cluster you could identify. Was it poverty in bad neighborhoods . A lack of spiritual leadership . Rock and roll . A lot of people thought rock n roll. Or was it just poor parenting . Whatever it was, senator Robert Henderson announced that not even the communist conspiracy could devise a more effective way to demoralize, confuse, and destroy the United States. In 1953, hendrickson initiated the subcommittee to investigate juvenile delinquency, and for the next three years, they heard testimony about community and eight intervention programs, statistics on crime, School Dropout rates, underage drinking, underage use of drugs, the ethnic and racial makeup of gangs, the influence of mass media including television, and receiving particular attention was the influence of comic books. Im not talking about the archie comic books or even the war comic books because even though they depicted violence, it was violence in battle for a worthy cause. No, what they were primarily concerned with where the horror and crime comics, things that had titles like uncanny tales and voodoo. The subcommittee pored through piles. The most vocal crusader was psychologist Fredric Wertham who claimed that his studies clearly demonstrated a link to between delinquency and comic books. At the conclusion of its investigation, the Committee Said it was not convinced that comics contributed to delinquency, and it would not condone censorship. However, some states began to ban certain, books. Some towns began to ban certain, books, and so the industry decided that perhaps at some point in time, the federal government might step in to control comic books. So they began to self censor. The result, said the New York Times was that comic book heroines would be wearing more clothes, and the violence would be toned down. Eisenhower had encouraged the congressional hearings on juvenile delinquency. He addressed delinquency in a state of the union message, and he linked it to illegal use of drugs in that message. He may have been the first leader of a country to publicly address illegal drugs, transportation thereof into the country. He twice proposed that there be federal funding for preventive programs. Congress refused to fund any programs that were linked to preventing juvenile delinquency, but in 1951, partly because of pressure from the 1960 white house conference on children and youth, and partly because there was a change in Administration Congress approved 10 million a year in federal grants for pilot projects and Training Programs aimed at reducing delinquency. Over the years, we proudly become accustomed to and maybe a little jaded by politicians proclamations of caring about their nations children, but with both truman and eisenhower, you get the sense that there is very little, if any, political posturing and what they say about americas young. They both expressed concern with what they saw happening in america children who were disadvantaged, children who were falling into delinquency children who needed medical care. They both expressed concern for the children of their country, and they also expressed faith in the next generation. To quote ike, children with the nations hope for the future. Ike said this many times, but he had received a letter from one of his nieces. The niece was a teenager. It was kind of like, well uncle ike, you think all of us are just a bunch of beatniks . The letter back was he did not really know what a beatnik was [laughter] holt but he would certainly not say anything negative about americas teenagers because he did have great faith in americas youth and did believe that they were the nations hope. This was something on which both he and truman agreed, and intended or not, both were responsible, along with congress, and certainly some particular congressman like richard russell, who had great power, and expanding the governments role in shaping the lives of americas children. Thank you. [applause] do you have any questions . Would you please raise your hands, and i will come around to you. I see one over here. What sort of record groups or special files did you find, and where did you find them that helped you with your research . Holt a large part of the material i used came from the white house conference on children and youth. Its records are at the eisenhower president ial library, including the ones from 1950. Evidently what happened was there are film records all the way back to 1909, so you have the continuation of all the white house conferences. 1909, 1919, 1930, 1940, 1950 1960. Those records seem to have just traveled along until they got to eisenhower, and then they just stayed in the eisenhower files so everything is there including the truman material. Of course, i did have to go to the truman president ial library for research, and there in particular, i found some i never realized until i started looking through the truman material how sure truman was that there really was going to be world war iii and pretty quick. That just stunned me. Looking back, we know that did not happen, but at the time, no one was sure. When you look at what was happening in the world the berlin airlift, the iron curtain, korea all these things buzzing around. What was happening in the middle east. So it was understandable. Truman, eisenhower, record groups what i used here, you may have guessed, from the displaced persons was part of the orphanage file that mark helped me get my hands on, and i might as well tell you before my husband asks because he is sitting over there and i know hes just dying to tell you how i looked at those records the records were not open, so i had to file a freedom of information request, and the records were actually under the state department, which was real fun. They did respond very well, but they did not know why they had the records. By that time, i had so much information i could even give them the executive order number on when they got them and why they had them. Eventually, i got about 300 pages, and lots of it was redacted you know, crossed through. Names of people, primarily because its dealing with children coming to the u. S. To be adopted, and there are letters from prospective adoptive parents, officials investigating children investigating parents, back and forth. Then they had a whole section where nothing was cut out, and it was not only the letters of the parents in the United States who were adopting these kids in germany or austria when i say displaced, they were in germany or austria, but they may have come from poland, latvia czechoslovakia. They are there, but thats not where they are from. Theres a whole section where none of the names are redacted. Not only are the names not redacted, but somehow, the actual court papers are there, the judges approval of the adoption. The little latvian boy, if i wanted to, i could try to look him up because i not only know who adopted him, i know what their street address was. That was not cut out, and i have no idea why. Meanwhile, there are other letters where just everything is gone. But it was a wonderful addition. Also at the truman president ial library, the photographs of the displaced persons camp. There were so many photographs i wanted to use, and i can only use a couple, but those were just stunning. And also the number of photographs where it showed wacs giving parties to these kids, just trying to lighten their day. Any other questions, comments . What were the main reasons for universal health care not being implemented . Holt people did believe it was socialized medicine, and the ama came out very strongly against it, and once the ama came out against it, a lot of congressmen who might have supported it backed off. They didnt think it was socialized medicine. They were looking at what england and other western European Countries were doing, and they thought that was a little bit bolshevik. It is sort of trod on the american rugged individualism. Really, the argument was it was really a place that the federal government should not be. It should be up to the individual. What i said about truman, the Childrens Bureau had come out with a bill that would give Health Insurance to all children i think it was, like, 16 and under. That report and recommendation had gone to the bureau of the budget, and the bureau of budget came back and said it is very doable. They said to truman, but its your political decision. If you ask for this, then you probably will not get the National Health insurance past which would cover adults and children, and truman decided to go with the whole package. He may very well have gotten the children covered, but his goal was to cover everybody. Based on what you learned and the insight you have gained in your study of what happened between 1945 and 1960, could you comment about how you feel with whats going on in those areas today with the government and our children . Holt one of the things i realized was that first of all there are some problems that are never going to go away. You have to remain vigilant. For example, juvenile delinquency its never going to go away. Youre not going to find a magic formula. It has been a social problem forever. But just saying, oh, well, its a social problem. Were never going to fix it and ignore it is the wrong course, i think. I think thats what people realize, that you have to keep trying to control it even if it is in small ways. As a former teacher and i did teach in middle school and high school, and that was a long time ago, back in the 1970s if i had all the restrictions as a teacher then, i would not have stayed. I did not stay anyway, but i would have left even sooner. I felt even at that time in the 1970s that we had too much paperwork, too much outside the classroom that had nothing to do with teaching, and i wanted to teach. I know there were other people that felt the same way, that we just you know, so many forums and so many meetings that it got in the way. I do volunteer at an elementary school, not as a teacher. Im a picture person. It was second and third graders. I see what those teachers have to do, and im convinced i could not do it. Yes . If youll just wait for a moment so i can get there. Holt she has to get the microphone to you. Other than being a baby boomer yourself, was there anything about this particular era that major decide to write about it . Holt i decided to write about it not because i was a baby boomer, because i thought that would actually be a problem. It did not turn out to be, but i was afraid when i started out that i would try to superimpose my own experiences on top of this. I found that that did not happen, but since i do write childhood history, one of the things that i noticed in current literature, both in articles and books that are being published is that when they they talk about Child Welfare or anything that the government has done for children of the United States, you have a little bit with the new deal for example, the Social Security act you have a little bit of the new deal and then theres this arc that goes to johnson in the 1960s. Nobody was writing about what happened in the 1940s and 1950s. As a matter of fact, when they did discuss it, one person said it was just a stagnant era. No, it wasnt. Thats how i really got interested in it, was trying to disprove that because i knew that some of these things had happened. Others i was not aware of the cousin even if you lived during that time, i was a kid. What did i know . What was happening at a higher level i would not have been aware of. The typical parents during this time were they wanting to relinquish their duty as parents and even to the federal government, or were they being told, so to speak, that they need to buy the federal government and academia and politicians and all that stuff . Holt i would not say the federal government, but i would certainly say experts. Even before the war years came what you find in childrens history is that people are beginning to trust the expert. The expert in child rearing for the 1950s is dr. Spock. Maybe they are not necessarily turning to the government, but they are looking to experts expert doctors, expert pediatricians, expert psychologists, people who can give them direction in raising their children because there seems to be so much invested in this generation. I think that is true any time immediately after a war. People come home, and they have been to war or they have been on the home front. I started to say national and state. Im not sure its a national instinct, but somehow people want to come together and create a family life and have all these kids. I started to say national instinct. If youre going to invest all of your energies in these children, you want to make them the best the smartest, the most talented whatever. So it is a time when people really do turn to the expert except for my mother. [laughter] holt because she told me once im the oldest of five kids she told me that she started out with dr. Spock, and she said after about two months, she just threw the book out. [laughter] weve got a couple more questions. One of the more humorous in retrospect things with the cold war and children is the cover your head and get under your desk kind of thing. Was that part of the federal defense informational thing . Holt i dont know how many of you have seen the movie short duck and cover that was part of the federal syllabus then. If you have not seen it, its the same instructions you give if a tornado is coming. You get under your desk, you cover your head or you get in a hallway, cover your head, and that was federal. Those kinds of informational pieces were put out, but there was some discussion about the federal government funding individuals private home bomb shelters, and that did not go anywhere because, again, a lot of people felt that it invaded a persons rugged individualism to look out for themselves. Just like if a tornado was coming, you got your own basement. Well, the bomb is coming. You better have your own shelter because the government simply would not fund that. We have another question right here. With all this concentration on children after the war by the federal government, by the parents, you stop at 1960, but we all have experienced in our lifetime the 1960s rebellious generation. What is the psychology behind that . What is the general opinion . Was this caused by the concentration, putting all the emphasis on these kids, and suddenly, they just sort of go off the deep end . We have not recovered from that yet. Holt no, we havent. Yes, there has actually been some relatively new studies of this, but i dont think you really need studies to have an intuition of one of the things you find in the 1950s is its this conflict. You want all the kids i mean, the basic idea is you want all the kids to conform in terms of being respectful of their country, patriotic. Everybody, you know, like this. At the same time, theres this huge emphasis on cultivating individuality and creativity. Actually, the 1960 white house conference on children and youth, all these conferences always had a subtitle, and the one for 1960 i cannot remember exactly what the exact name was, but it was Something Like finding your individual self. So i think you get a pretty good idea of the direction were going here. I think certainly that emphasis in the 1950s led to that. Part of it is, too, you are told that you live in the greatest country in the world, and it can do no wrong, and then you begin to question that. One of the interesting things i found with the juvenile delinquency, the psychologist was writing it in terms of juvenile delinquency, but it actually is more applicable to the 1960s and what happened then because he said hes talking about the middle class kids who have become juvenile delinquents, and his warning is that eventually, if we let these middleclass and upperclass kids get away with what they are doing now, they will eventually form their gangs and upset the social order, which i thought was so prophetic. He meant it one way, but it actually turned out another. I have a few more questions. Back here. Didnt the social order need to be addressed, a change . Holt thats not for me to say. [laughter] one more back here. How did the rise of suburbia during this time affect education and this whole gamut . Holt certainly, the creation of suburbia we already had suburbs and subdivisions, but when you get into the whole mass production of suburbia, one of the things you begin to have is you may have had a separation of races before, but you certainly do with suburbia. Places like levittown did not let blacks, latinos, sometimes even catholics or jews buy into those neighborhoods, so you have a very select group, and that shapes your worldview. You also have with these new suburbs new school districts. Those turned out to be like the one on long island turned out having one of the highestpaid teacher salary quotients for the United States. So it does make a huge difference. One of the things i found in the 1950 and 1960 white house conferences try to talk as much as they could about rural children, but there are fewer and fewer kids who live in rural areas, so they are kind of pushed to the background because you have not only city children, but you have the new suburbs. Got anything else . Thank you, marilyn. [applause] i know we have a lot of baby boomers in the room. I will share an interesting statistic i heard the other day. In 2017 three years from now the shift begins to happen where the millennial generation begins to take over even more. Where they are really starting to take over is in the economic market, and it is in 2017. That is what i heard the other day. Three or four years and it starts to really shift for baby boomers. Thank you for being with us. Marilyn will be out in the hallway signing copies of her book that are available for purchase, so please feel free to chat with her. Thanks for being here tonight. Holt thank you. [applause] next week, while congress is out for the july 4 holiday break, primetime speeches features a different history topic. Monday, the manhattan project. Tuesday, a symposium on the 1955 debate between james baldwin, a National Review founder William F Buckley junior