The Children in the Shadow

# Catalog Note: The Children in the Shadow

Ernest K. Coulter's 1913 social study The Children in the Shadow documents juvenile delinquency through the lens of New York's Children's Court. Coulter, formerly Clerk of the Children's Court and founder of the Big Brother Movement, presents case histories and observational chapters examining poverty, neglect, and delinquency among urban children. The work argues that children, parents, and communities share responsibility for juvenile crime. With introduction by Jacob Riis, the fourteen-chapter text addresses tenement conditions, parental abandonment, factory labor, immigration pressures, and mental disability. Coulter advocates neighborly intervention and environmental reform over punishment. Illustrated with photographs of street life and tenement conditions, the book draws on Coulter's observations of approximately 100,000 children who passed through the court during his tenure. Opening case study depicts two brothers who deliberately stage a fight to be arrested, preferring institutional placement to homelessness.