The second account of a change in attitude towards children's rights was the parallel evolution of women's rights. Before that time, women and children were considered unimportant by law, while the father was given almost total control over all matters concerning his wife and children. If a father was abusive or neglectful, society simply turned its back on him. In the second half of the 19th century, laws relating to the family system began to change. A new law recognized equal rights between fathers and mothers, with the mother's rights reigning over fathers regarding children. Furthermore, the legal system began to consider children important to the future of society, therefore “appropriate objects of the courts' protection” (Popple and Leighninger, 2011). Unfortunately, due to the Great Depression of the 1930s, non-governmental child protection societies declined. These organizations relied heavily on charitable contributions, and when the economy collapsed, the contributions stopped. In the 1940s, most child protection societies merged with other organizations or closed completely. The last era of child welfare began in 1962. Myers says the 1960s began a period where people actually paid more attention to child abuse, thanks to doctors. Before then, doctors had little to no training or information about child abuse. A pediatric radiologist named John Caffey saw six children with multiple fractures and subdural hematomas (a collection of blood outside the brain due to head trauma). In his report, Caffey did not outright explain the injuries from the abuse, but alluded to it. Since his article, a steady stream of doctors have called attention to the fact that abuse is a... middle of the article... the child welfare system works. Retrieved from https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/factsheets/cpswork.cfm Myers, John. (2008). A Brief History of Child Protection in America. Family Law Quarterly, 42(3), 449-463. Pecora, Peter., Whittaker, James., and Maluccio, Anthony. (2012). The challenge of child welfare: Policy, practice and research. Aldine Transaction.Popple, Philip and Lighninger, Leslie. (2011). The policy-based profession: An introduction to social welfare policy analysis for social workers. Boston: Pearson Education, Inc. Sribnick, Ethan. (2011). The origins of modern child welfare. The newspaper of political history. 23(2), 150-176.Wulczyn, Fred., Barth, Richard., Yuan, Ying-Ying., Harden,Brenda. and Landsverk, John. (2005). Beyond common sense: Child welfare, child welfare, and evidence for policy reform. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.