8/19/25, 7:57 AM Opinion | Boy Crisis of 2025, Meet the ‘Boy Problem’ of the 1900s - The New York Times
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Boy Crisis of 2025, Meet the
‘Boy Problem’ of the 1900s
Derek Brahney
Listen to this article · 18:36 min
By Robert D. Putnam and Richard V. Reeves
The authors are social theorists who have long studied the roots and consequences of inequality.
Aug. 15, 2025
In the early years of the 20th century, America had a “boy
problem.” Boys on the street, making trouble. Boys becoming truants. Boys getting caught up in crime. The problem spread across the United States alongside the disruptions of technological change, immigration and growing socioeconomic inequality.
8/19/25, 7:57 AM Opinion | Boy Crisis of 2025, Meet the ‘Boy Problem’ of the 1900s - The New York Times Policymakers stepped in — with universal public schooling, for
example. But it was the civic response that was truly