Includes bibliographical references and index

Introduction: The waning of child mortality and the new expectations of parenthood -- PART I: "The desolation of that empty cradle" -- 1. Postmortem poetry and comfort books : literary echoes of child mortality -- 2. "Ma'am, have you ever lost a child?" : child death in Civil War America -- PART II: "The birth of a great and new idea" -- 3. "We might rather wonder that any survive" : mortality, miasmas, and mother's milk -- 4. "Each has a right to live" : educating mothers and keeping babies alive -- 5. "The plague among children" : diphtheria and the doctors -- 6. "Most dreaded of all the diseases" : scarlet fever, strep, and antibiotics -- PART III: "What marvellous days" -- 7. "Strides of modern medical science" : preventing polio, treating tuberculosis -- 8. The incubator show : life and death in the delivery room and the nursery -- 9. "Something children always have" : measles and chicken pox -- 10. "Safe to sleep" : postwar parents, postwar pediatricians -- Conclusion: The promise of safety. Conclusion: The promise of safety

Only one hundred years ago, even in the world's wealthiest nations, children died in great numbers--of diarrhea, diphtheria and measles, of scarlet fever and meningitis. Culture was shaped by these deaths; diaries and letters recorded them, poets and writers wrote about and lamented them. Not even the high and mighty could escape: presidents and titans of industry lost their children, the poor and powerless lost theirs even more frequently.The near-conquest of infant and child mortality is one of our greatest human achievements. Perri Klass pulls the story together for the first time, paying tribute to scientists, public health advocates and groundbreaking women doctors who brought new scientific ideas about sanitation and vaccination to families. Thanks to their work, early death is now the exception, bringing about a massive transformation in society and freeing parents to worry a lot more about a lot less. --