Mar 9, 2022
March 9, 1947: Some 100 mothers and children from Brooklyn’s 97 day care centers protested against Governor Thomas E. Dewey’s plan to close them. Led by a wagon filled with children, they paraded up 2nd Avenue to 96th St. Josephine Casillo, in photo above, said she must work because her husband, a former longshoreman, had a foot injury and could only work occasionally. She earned $40 a week and could not afford to send her 3-year old daughter to a private nursery school. And if the city turned the day care centers over to the Department of Welfare, as proposed, she wouldn’t qualify for relief.
Photo: Brooklyn Daily Eagle via Brooklyn Library/Brooklyn History Instagram