Hall argued that childhood was a distinct phase of human development, which meant that children needed to act like children in order to become healthy adults. Rather than being forced to work, a child required nourishment and education. The “work” of young children was to play. Children became the driver of America’s future, making the 1900s the “Century of the Child”—the calling of the Progressive Era, whose reformers pushed to end child labor and tackle child poverty.
