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The Dark History of American Orphanhood / Kristen Martin

Mar 4
Episode 1819: The Dark History of American Orphanhood / Kristen Martin
Orphans

So the federal government got involved with child welfare really late. Our social welfare system is relatively new in the United States. We only really had of true social safety net since the New Deal in the 1930's. So it's like less than a hundred years old. And that's around the time when the federal government out really started getting involved with child welfare, period. Before that, it was all left up to many religious charities. Obviously the charities that existed then were religious and as the federal government started to get involved, we've always had private/public partnerships in child welfare. The religious organizations that existed in the 1800's and the early 1900's didn't just say 'Oh, the federal government is getting involved in the 1930's. Our job is done.' No. Of course they wanted to continue their involvement in the system and their control over families and children.

Journalist and cultural critic Kristen Martin joins “This Is Hell!” to talk about her new book, "The Sun Won’t Come Out Tomorrow: The Dark History of American Orphanhood”, published by the Bold Type Books.

Visit Kristen’s website: https://www.kristenmartin.net/

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Kristen Martin

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Kristen martin
Guest

Kristen Martin

@kwistent

Kristen Martin is a writer and cultural critic. Her writing has been published in The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, NPR, Lapham’s Quarterly, The Believer, The Baffler, and elsewhere. Kristen is a member of the National Book Critics Circle and the Freelance Solidarity Project.

Kristen has received an MFA in nonfiction writing from Columbia University, and is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the Università degli Scienze Gastronomiche in Italy, where she was a Fulbright-Casten Family Scholar. Her work has been supported by residencies at Yaddo and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Kristen has also taught writing at the University of Pennsylvania, New York University, Columbia University, and CUNY Baruch College, as well as for the Philadelphia literary community Blue Stoop.