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Several years ago, Regina G. Kunzel presented a provocative examination of the Florence Crittenton maternity homes between 1915 and 1945. Her goal was to trace “the history of the transformation from evangelical to professional work with unmarried mothers.” Kunzel's thesis is that in the early twentieth century the control and treatment of unmarried mothers shifted dramatically: from evangelical women “who understood their work in terms of the ‘feminine’ virtues of piety and sympathy” to social work professionals “who claimed expertise based on training in the scientific method.” Evangelical women wanted to redeem “fallen women” in need of salvation—which they regarded as “a moral problem to be solved by sisterhood.” In contrast, social workers viewed unmarried mothers as “social units” requiring scientific treatment and “adjustment.” These differing viewpoints had practical consequences when it came to treating unwed mothers. Evangelical women were committed to keeping mother and illegitimate child together—a principle Kunzel describes as “the cornerstone of womanly benevolence in maternity homes.” In contrast—and this point is at the heart of Kunzel's thesis—social workers were militant proponents of separating mother and child because they believed that the majority of unmarried mothers “were unfit and would be better off giving their babies up for adoption.”

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of the do-it-all dad, who has multiple identities and obligations to provide for, love, and help raise children and then be ready to let them to go.It is worth mentioning what the book does not do. It does not connect issues of fatherhood to broader political concerns of the day. It is no criticism to point out that the work fits into the history of the sentiments and emotions more than it relates to the currently popular trends that try to extend gender scholarship far beyond home and family. This approach may help explain the relatively friendly way Johansen treats his subjects. He knows them through their words-he does not try to decode the words to understand how these same people were doing little to address the problems of, for example, young women in textile mills, or distant slaves, or forgotten Native Americans. The author deals with issues of power, but his focus centers on tensions about the nature of power within the household, not the extension of patriarchy beyond it.

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