Professor Michael Grossberg Presents Third Marshall-Wythe Lecture in Legal History
Child Protection
Professor Grossberg's scholarship focuses on the intersection of law and the family. Professor William E. Nelson of New York University Law School presented the inaugural Marshall-Wythe Lecture in Legal History in February 2018. Professor Catharine MacMillan of King's College London presented the second Lecture in November 2018.
Photo by David F. Morrill
On March 13th, Grossberg, the Sally M. Reahard Professor of History and Professor of Law at Indiana University, delivered an hour-long talk on "The Politics of Childhood: Law and Child Protection in Modern America.” The following day, he engaged further with law students and faculty during a workshop he presented titled “Keeping It from the Kids: Censorship and Childhood in Modern America.”
Both the lecture and workshop touched on research Grossberg is conducting for an upcoming book on the history of child protection from the 1870s to today. In his lecture, he highlighted key moments that have shaped American society’s view of and response to child abuse: from Mary Ellen Wilson, whose abuse led to the creation of the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in 1874, to two-time Olympian Aly Raisman and hundreds of other athletes who in recent years testified about their abuse by a former team doctor.
Grossberg detailed society’s path to recognizing the public’s role in protecting children. By the late 19th century, every state had passed laws making child abuse a crime. Over the course of the 20th century, child protective services became the main way to investigate child abuse, and parents of missing children also became key voices in the national conversation about protection.
“Since the late nineteenth century, the struggle to keep other children from sharing the fate of Mary Ellen has made protection key in our political and legal culture,” Grossberg said.
Grossberg’s scholarship primarily focuses on the intersection of law and the family and he is the author of numerous books and articles. His book Governing the Hearth: Law and the Family in Nineteenth-Century America won the American Historical Association’s Littleton-Griswold Prize in the History of Law and Society in America.
Professor William E. Nelson, the Judge Edward Weinfeld Professor of Law at New York University Law School, presented the inaugural Marshall-Wythe Lecture in Legal History in February 2018. Professor Catharine MacMillan presented the second Lecture in November 2018. She holds the Chair in Private Law at the Dickson Poon School of Law at King’s College London.
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