By the mid-1800s, concern about the growing ranks of these “street urchins” (Bullen, 1991,
p. 140) was prevalent. In addition to concern for street children, a new group of children was
becoming the focus of public attention: those who had parents and a home but were thought to be
victims of inadequate parental care and mistreatment. The children of these families became the
focus of a group of middle class reformers—known as the child savers—who sought to establish
agencies, services, and legislation designed specifically for needy children. As Peikoff and Brickey
(1991) note, the period from the mid nineteenth to the early twentieth century marked a time when
social reformers “devoted more energy to children than at any other period in history” (p. 29).