Child Saving Movement:
Child Saving Movement:  By the end of the ninetieth century, cities were experiencing the effects of 
three major things: industrialization, urbanization, and immigration. Industrialization refers to the 
shift in work from agricultural jobs to more manufacturing work. This led to a greater number of people 
moving from the country to the cities, and the cities increasing exponentially in population without the 
infrastructure to support the increase.  Immigration refers to the internal migration of people in America 
and the external movement of people from other countries.  Within America, people were moving from 
the southern states (remember, this is not long after the end of the Civil War, which ended in 1865) and 
immigrating from European countries such as Ireland (the potato famine lasted from 1845-1854 and killed 
an estimated 1.5 million people). Millions of Germans and Asians also immigrated to America during this 
time lured by Midwest farmlands and the California Goldrush. 
10 
The influx of people into cities weakened the cohesiveness of communities and the abilities of 
communities and families to socialize and control children effectively. 
11 Nonetheless, the child-saving 
movement emerged during this time in an effort to change the way the state was dealing with dependent, 
neglected, and delinquent children. The child savers were women from middle and upper-class 
backgrounds. 
There is some debate as to the motives of the child savers. The traditional view is that they were 
progressive reformers who sought to solve problems of urban life, while others contend that they used 
their station and resources as an effort to preserve their middle-class white way of life by overseeing the 
treatment of the immigrant children. Regardless of their motives, it is safe to say that child-savers were 
prominent, influential, philanthropic women, who were “generally well educated, widely traveled, and had 
access to political and financial resources.” 
12 
Creation of the Juvenile Court 
The juvenile court was created in Cook County, Illinois in 1899. The Illinois Juvenile Court Act of 
1899 was the first statutory provision in the United States to provide for an entirely separate system of 
juvenile justice. The court was created to have jurisdiction over all matters pertaining to youth- dependent, 
neglected, and delinquent youth. 
A 1905 Pennsylvania Supreme Court case, Commonwealth v. Fisher 
13Commonwealth v. Fisher, 213 
Pennsylvania 48 (1905) 
14, conveyed the legal authority of the new juvenile court under parens patriae: 
"To save a child from becoming a criminal, or from continuing in a career of crime, . . . the 
legislatures surely may provide for the salvation of such a child, if its parents or guardians be unable or 
unwilling to do so, by bringing it into one of the courts of the state without any process at all, for the 
purpose of subjecting it to the state's guardianship and protection." 
In this case, a juvenile was given a seven-year sentence for a minor crime which would have received a 
10. History (n.d.). US immigration before 1965.  https://www.history.com/topics/u-s-immigration-before-1965 
11. Feld, B.C. (1999). Bad Kids: Race and the Transformation of the Juvenile Court. New York: Oxford University Press. 
12. Platt, A. (1977). The Child Savers: The Invention of Delinquency (2nd ed., pp.83). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 
13. 
14. 
ALISON S. BURKE, DAVID CARTER, BRIAN FEDOREK, TIFFANY MOREY, LORE RUTZ-BURRI, AND SHANELL
SANCHEZ
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