Sheppard–Towner Act

The Sheppard–Towner Maternity and Infancy Protection Act of 1921 was a U.S. Act of Congress providing federal funding for maternity and child care. It was sponsored by Senator Morris Sheppard (D) of Texas and Representative Horace Mann Towner (R) of Iowa, and signed by President Warren G. Harding on November 23, 1921.

The act provided for federally-financed instruction in maternal and infant health care and gave 50-50 matching funds to individual US states to build women’s health care clinics. It was one of the most significant achievements of Progressive-era maternalist reformers.

Reasons for the act's passage

The act was a response to the lack of adequate medical care for women and children, including reports that at least 80% of all pregnant women did not receive adequate pre-natal care.^{[citation needed]} The deficit became especially noticeable during World War I, when many potential recruits were rejected for military service due to the sequellae of childhood diseases.^{[citation needed]} It was the last major Progressive legislative success before business conservatism^{[clarification needed]} took over in the 1920s.

Achievements

The Sheppard–Towner Act led to the creation of 3,000 child and maternal health care centers, many of these in rural areas, during the eight years it was in effect.^{[citation needed]} The United States Children's Bureau worked extensively with state-level departments of health to advise them on how to use Sheppard-Towner funding.

End of the act

Congress allowed the act's funding to lapse in 1929 after successful opposition by the American Medical Association, which saw the act as a socialist threat to its professional autonomy.^{[clarification needed]} This opposition was in spite of the fact that the Pediatric Section of the AMA House of Delegates had endorsed the renewal of the act. The rebuking of the Pediatric Section by the full House of Delegates led to the members of the Pediatric Section establishing the American Academy of Pediatrics.^[1]

Notes

1. ^ Siegel, Benjamin S.; Alpert, Joel J. (2006). "The profession of pediatrics". In Kliegman, Robert M.; Marcdante, Karen J.; Jenson, Hal B.; Behrman, Richard E. (eds.). Nelson essentials of pediatrics (5th ed.). Philadelphia: Elsevier Saunders. pp. 1–14. ISBN 141600159X. http://books.google.com/books?id=BkVtT9ZyyJsC&q=Sheppard-Towner%20Act. 

References

• . (1999). "Sheppard-Towner Act". In Carson, Thomas; Bonk, Mary (eds.). Gale encyclopedia of U.S. economic history, vol. 2. Detroit: Gale Cengage. p. 915. ISBN 0787638889. 
• Trani, Eugene (ed.) (2009). "Harding signs Sheppard-Towner Act–November 23, 1921". Charlottesville: Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia. http://millercenter.org/academic/americanpresident/events/11_23. 

Further reading

• U.S. Congress (1919). Hygiene of maternity and infancy. Hearings before the Committee on Labor, U.S. House of Representatives, 65th Congress, 3rd session, on H.R. 12634, a bill to encourage instruction in the hygiene of maternity and infancy, and to extend proper care for maternity and infancy; to provide for cooperation with the states in the promotion of such instruction and care in rural districts; to appropriate money and regulate its expenditure, and for other purposes, on January 15 and 28, 1919. Washington, D.C.: U.S. G.P.O. OCLC 6756554. 
• U.S. Congress (1921). Protection of maternity: hearing before the Committee on Education and Labor, U.S. Senate, 67th Congress, 1st session, on S.1039, a bill for the public protection of maternity and infancy, on April 25, 1921. Washington, D.C.: U.S. G.P.O. OCLC 40658009. 
• U.S. Congress (1921). Public protection of maternity and infancy: hearings before the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, U.S. House of Representatives, 67th Congress, 1st session, on H.R. 2366, on July 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, and 23, 1921. Washington, D.C.: U.S. G.P.O. OCLC 13768477. 
• U.S. Congress (1921). Congressional Record: proceedings and debates of the 1st session of the 67th Congress of the U.S.A., Vol. 61, Part 8 (pages 7611-8208). Washington, D.C.: U.S. G.P.O. pp. 7978–8014, 8034–8039, 8052–8053, 8087, 8115, 8154, 8178. ISSN 0363-7239. http://books.google.com/books?id=upxJAAAAYAAJ. 
• U.S. Children's Bureau (1921). Promotion of the welfare and hygiene of maternity and infancy. Text of Act of November 23, 1921 and maximum amounts available to the states. Bureau publication no. 95. Washington, D.C.: U.S. G.P.O. OCLC 14777549. http://www.mchlibrary.info/history/chbu/20517-1921.pdf. 
• Lemons, J. Stanley (March 1969). "The Sheppard-Towner Act: progressivism in the 1920s". Journal of American History 55 (4): 776–786. JSTOR 1900152. PMID 19591257. 
• Wertz, Richard W.; Wertz, Dorothy C. (1989). "Government involvement". Lying-in: a history of childbirth in America (expanded ed.). New Haven: Yale University Press. pp. 201–233. ISBN 0300040881. 
• Ladd-Taylor, Molly (1992). "Federal help for mothers: the rise and fall of the Sheppard-Towner Act in the 1920s". In Helly, Dorothy O.; Reverby, Susan M. (eds.). Gendered domains: rethinking public and private in women's history. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. pp. 217–227. ISBN 0801424445. 
• Loudon, Irvine (1992). "The geography and politics of maternal care in the USA: introduction". Death in childbirth: an international study of maternal care and maternal mortality, 1800–1950. Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 274–280. ISBN 0198229976. 
• Skocpol, Theda (1992). "Statebuilding for mothers and babies: the Children's Bureau and the Sheppard-Towner Act". Protecting soldiers and mothers: the political origins of social policy in the United States. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. pp. 480–524. ISBN 0674717651. 
• Ladd-Taylor, Molly (1994). "'We mothers are so glad the day has come': mothers' work and the Sheppard-Towner Act". Mother-work: women, child welfare, and the state, 1890–1930. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. pp. 167–196. ISBN 0252020448. 
• Reisch, Michael; Andrews, Janice (2001). "The spider web conspiracy and the death of progressivism (The red scare and the Sheppard-Towner Act)". The road not taken: a history of radical social work in the United States. Philadelphia: Brunner-Routledge. pp. 39–60. ISBN 1583910255. 
• Johnson, Kimberly S. (2007). "From healthy babies to the welfare state: the Sheppard-Towner Act of 1921". Governing the American state: Congress and the new federalism, 1877–1929. Princeton: Princeton University Press. pp. 136–155. ISBN 0691119740. 
• Wilson, Jan Doolittle (2007). "The lobby for the Sheppard-Towner bill, 1921", "Opposition to the state campaign for Sheppard-Towner, 1921–23", "The struggle to save the Sheppard-Towner Act". The Women's Joint Congressional Committee and the politics of maternalism, 1920–30. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. pp. 27–49, 50–65, 133–147. ISBN 0252031679.