Before I became a policy wonk focused on early care and education (ECE), I was a History major. I took classes on the medieval period, American postwar political structures, and–my favorite–Soviet Russia. But whatever the topic, my days were consumed with reading about men and the power structures they built.
Women’s contributions and experiences are not well represented in the record books, but it is just as rich and worth celebrating. Ours is a tale of community, resilience, and connection to one another, and it is inextricably linked with care work.
In American women’s history, and in the history of ECE in particular, many starring characters are women of color. We have early 20th-century leaders like Anna Evans Murray and Haydee B. Campbell, who played essential roles in securing public kindergarten for Black children. These women persisted in the face of racial and gender injustices, overcoming barriers to education, employment, and leadership as Black women. My research center, the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment, is building a chronicle of untold stories like these through the Early Childhood History, Organizing, Ethos, and Strategy (ECHOES) project.
ECHOES also aims to connect today’s injustices to educators to their historical roots. While women (and workers) have more rights and protections than they did 100 years ago, many early educators today are women of color, just like their predecessors. They experience a mismatch between their value to society and the status of their profession. (Even in the 21st century, advocates sometimes call for “professionalizing” ECE–as if millions of women are not already part of a thriving profession and therefore worthy of being taken seriously.)
We see this disregard for their skills in our survey data, too. For instance, when we asked hundreds of California early educators in 2023 about whether they felt respected for their work, only half of them agreed it was “very often” the case. But at the same time, early educators know their job matters: more than eight in ten “very often” could see they were making a difference in the life of a child.
Another way we can see early educators devalued is in their pay: despite the well-documented benefits to society (and yes, the economy), caring for young children means earning a near-minimum wage. This disconnect between impact and compensation spurred the Compensation Movement of the 1970s to 1990s. The period saw a flurry of organizing and network-building, and educators began talking openly about the unaffordability of typical ECE pay. The wins during this era were small, but they signaled a change: early educators were going to fight for “Rights, Raises, and Respect.”
The arc of history continues to unfold, and I hope future generations will look back at this moment in social history as the one where women were at the forefront: how we made universal ECE a reality, empowering economic mobility for women everywhere. The next wave of achievements should lead with equitable pay for the early educators who make it all possible.
