Why is the United States one of the few advanced democratic market societies that do not offer child care as a universal public benefit or entitlement? This book-a comprehensive history of child care policy & practices in the United States from the colonial period to the present-shows why the current child care system evolved as it has & places its history within a broad comparative context. Drawing on a full range of archival material, Sonya Michel shows how child care policy in the United States was shaped by changing theories of child development & early childhood education, attitudes toward maternal employment, & conceptions of the proper roles of low-income & minority women. And she argues that the present policy-erratic, inadequate, & stigmatized-is typical of the American way of "doing welfare.".