July 18-19, 2026: Early Childhood Advocates: Ilene Railton

[On July 14^th, 1946, Dr. Benjamin Spock published the first edition of The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care. In that book and throughout his career Spock was one of our most vocal & vital early childhood educators and advocates, so this week I’ve AmericanStudied him and a handful of other such advocates, leading up to this special weekend post on my favorite early childhood educator!]

First, I wanted to highlight a handful of the many prior posts where I’ve highlighted Mom (along with her Guest Post on Margaret Wise Brown, about which I wrote yesterday), many of which have focused on her work as an early childhood educator and advocate:

This August 2011 post on vital early childhood programs like the one for which she worked for a decade, Bright Stars;

This December 2013 post on her retirement from that program and all that was next;

This February 2021 Valentine’s series tribute to her short stories, many of which have been directly inspired by her educational work;

And this December 2021 wish for the AMST Elves about her mystery novel in progress, a fascinating complement to those short stories.

Second, I wanted to add one more thing, which most especially follows up that August 2011 post. One of the most enraging things the Trump administration has done over the last couple years (an incredibly competitive list) has been to attack day care providers and other early childhood educators (many of them immigrants) in Minnesota, baselessly accusing them of fraud and causing aggressive assholes to target them for harassment. It really shouldn’t take any further contexts to make clear how despicable that is; but if you need one, I point you to the amazing life and work of Ilene Railton, and how much she and it model the vital roles that early childhood education and communities play in our society, for every single one of us.

Next series starts Monday,

Ben

PS. What do you think?

PPS. Adding another early childhood advocate to the series, at the suggestion of my Bluesky connection Shamira Gelbman: Sadie Dashew Ginsberg! And also on Bluesky, C. McGuinn Freeman highlights the Francis Parker School in response to my Dewey post.