Caring for Rosie's Children: Federal Child Care Policies in the World War II Era

Wartime child care policy, like other federal programs associated with women, was shaped by a pervasive gendered ideology that, this article argues, consisted of the customary expectations of male and female behavior, prevailing notions of the appropriately public and private, and an intense desire to limit the potential impact of wartime disruptions in traditional sex roles. This ideology, the author concludes, explains why the federal government funded child care during World War II and immediately terminated such funding at war's end.