Julia Bowes, "Every Man's Home a Castle: Parental Rights and the Makings of Modern Conservatism" (Princeton UP, 2026)

About this episode

Dr. Julia Bowes discusses the historical origins of the modern parental rights movement and its implications for contemporary conservatism.

“Parental rights” is a rallying cry for today’s American conservatives, signaling opposition to mandatory vaccination and “woke” public school curricula. In Every Man's Home a Castle: Parental Rights and the Makings of Modern Conservatism (Princeton UP, 2026), Dr. Julia Bowes traces the origins of the modern parental rights movement to the nineteenth century, when the introduction of compulsory schooling laws, child labor regulations, and vaccine requirements provoked a resistance rooted in the presumed right of white men to govern their homes. A wide-ranging coalition—including Irish Catholic immigrants in Illinois, Mormon enclaves in Utah, and Protestant clergy in Virginia—believed that the state had usurped the “natural rights” of parents and “invaded the home.”Dr. Bowes shows how, by the turn of the century, those disparate voices had coalesced into national conservative movements. Anti-vaccinationists, alternative medical practitioners, and parents who opposed compulsory school medical exams joined forces to form the National League for Medical Freedom. Deciding a case brought by conservative Catholic lawyers, the Supreme Court declared parental rights a “fundamental…

People in this episode

Host: Marshall Poe

Guest: Julia Bowes

Topics covered

• parental rights
• modern conservatism
• history of education
• child labor
• vaccination
• political movements

Keywords

• parental rights
• modern conservatism
• compulsory schooling
• child labor
• vaccination
• Supreme Court
• fundamental liberty

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Princeton UP

Places: Illinois, Utah, Virginia

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