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[CHILDREN DAY CARE IN THE USSR] Iasli v kolkhoze. Lektsiia 10 [i.e. Nursery in Collective Farm. Lecture 10]

Yerman, S.

Item #2499

Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe meditsinskoe izdatel’stvo, 1930. 15 pp. 25×16 cm. In original printed wrappers. Tears of spine, blank corner of back cover lost, small and pale water stain on
back cover, student name written in ink on front cover, otherwise very good. One of 2000 copies. No title page, as issued.

Very rare.
This early Soviet brochure contains one of the lectures sent to students of correspondence advance training of obstetricians. In addition to treating patients, the Soviet state assigned
obstetricians the task of promoting and organizing new socialist institutions such as child care and women’s healthcare centers. In rural areas, they were available for the masses but were opened primarily within collective farms. Thus, crèches became one of the crucial propaganda tools during the collectivisation campaign and the earliest institution of communist education.
The brochure tells students about tips for organization of children day care in the socialist state. The major needs of each child care were premises (“houses of evicted kulaks should be granted to nurseries”), employees (“short-term courses should be organized to train daycare workers from collective farm women”) and funding nurseries from the budget of collective farmers. Other needs of both temporary (summer) and permanent nurseries list a baby changing table, wicker baskets (cradles), bed linen, dishes, a primus, etc. All financial estimates are also published.
Interestingly, the author S. Erman considers permanent child care institutions a precursor to the children’s sectors in houses-communes (with children raising in them instead of living with parents). As homework, students implemented following tasks and sent answers to the Department for Motherhood and Infancy: “Find out how many summer nurseries are in your area”, “Describe conditions of collective farm crèches which you were able to visit (employees and their qualifications, budget, attitude of the population towards nurseries, promotion of them, etc)”, “Inquire if there were mobile crèches in your area”.

Worldcat doesn’t track this edition.

Price: $450.00