Rhode Island

One of the original 13 states in the Union, the first Europeans who arrived in Rhode Island were with the Italian navigator Giovanni de Verrazzano in 1524. Some settlers arrived in 1636 after they had been expelled from Massachusetts, and it was not long before small townships were established. In the early days, these operated with the help from friends and neighbors, as settlers there often had no extended family members. Gradually, however, through intermarriage, wider social networks were formed. Women were primarily homemakers, as there was not much work they could do except as domestics and low-paid producers of piece goods.

In the late 18th and early 19th century, the industrialist Samuel Slater (1768–1835) established a cotton industry in Rhode Island, and his mill aimed to employ many women and children. However, he found that the distances to and from his mill made it awkward for women to combine working with bringing up families, and his initial hopes to hire them as a labor force failed. He had later success when he established tenant farms around his mill to help attract the wives of the newly settled farmers.

Along with some of the mothers in Rhode Island gradually able to combine working with childrearing, a system of denominational and government schools was established for all the children in the state. Compulsory education was introduced in 1883 for all children between the ages of 6–16. The size of Rhode Island—the smallest state in the Union—and the fact that it is one of the most industrialized, has allowed the state government to organize its health services efficiently in what had been known as the first American “city state.”

Brown University and the University of Rhode Island have conducted much research into maternity and pediatric problems. Births to teen mothers is at 9.7 percent. The state's birth rate is 11.6, with a fertility rate of 1.72 children per woman, the second lowest in the United States—only Vermont has a lower fertility rate.