Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T08:42:06.905Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Political Economy of Saving Mothers and Babies: The Politics of State Participation in the Sheppard-Towner Program

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2012

CAROLYN M. MOEHLING  and
MELISSA A. THOMASSON
CAROLYN M. MOEHLING*
Affiliation:
Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08854; and NBER. E-mail: [email protected].
MELISSA A. THOMASSON*
Affiliation:
Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Miami University, Oxford, OH 45056; and NBER. E-mail: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Enacted in 1922 and repealed in 1929, the Sheppard-Towner program gave federal matching money to states to provide public health education to mothers. We examine variation in state participation in the program, and find that the timing of women's suffrage had an important impact. However, we find that the effect of suffrage was short-lived and did not influence public health spending after the program's repeal. We also find no evidence of a “demonstration effect.” On average, the states that continued activities after Sheppard-Towner ended were those that had sizable public health budgets before the program had even begun.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 72 , Issue 1 , 12 March 2012 , pp. 75 - 103
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Burrow, James G.AMA: Voice of American Medicine. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1963.Google Scholar
Chepaitis, Joseph B.“Federal Social Welfare Progressivism in the 1920s.” Social Service Review 46, no. 2 (1972): 213–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chicago Daily Tribune. 1 May 1923, 22 April 1923, 25 April 1923.Google Scholar
Fishback, Price V., and Everett Kantor, Shawn. “The Political Economy of Workers’ Compensation Benefit Levels, 1910–1930.” Explorations in Economic History 35, no. 2 (1998):109–39.Google Scholar
Haines, Michael R., and the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research. Historical, Demographic, Economic, and Social Data: The United States, 1790–2000 [Computer file]. ICPSR02896-v2. Hamilton, NY: Colgate University/Ann Arbor: MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [producers]. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2004.Google Scholar
Johnson, Kimberley S.Governing the American State: Congress and the New Federalism, 1877–1929. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Journal of the American Medical Association. “Federal Care of Maternity and Infancy: The Sheppard-Towner Bill.” [editorial]. Journal of the American Medical Association 76, no. 6 (February 5, 1921): 383.Google Scholar
Kelly, Roy Willmarth. Training Industrial Workers. New York: The Ronald Press Company, 1920.Google Scholar
Kuznets, Simon, and Thomas, Dorothy Swain. Population Redistribution and Economic Growth: United States, 1870–1950. Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1957.Google Scholar
Ladd-Taylor, Molly. Mother-Work: Women, Child Welfare, and the State, 1890–1930. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Lemons, J. Stanley. “The Sheppard-Towner Act: Progressivism in the 1920s.” Journal of American History 55, no. 4 (1969): 776–86.Google Scholar
Lemons, J. Stanley. The Woman Citizen: Social Feminism in the 1920s. Charlottesville and London: The University Press of Virginia, 1990.Google Scholar
Lindemeyer, Kriste. A Right to Childhood: The U.S. Children's Bureau and Child Welfare, 1912–1946. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Lott, John R. Jr., and Lawrence, W. Kenny. “Did Women's Suffrage Change the Size and Scope of Government?” Journal of Political Economy 107, no. 6 (1999): 1163–98.Google Scholar
Meckel, Richard A.Save the Babies: American Public Health Reform and the Prevention of Infant Mortality, 1850–1929. Baltimore, MD and London: TheJohns Hopkins University Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Miller, Grant. “Women's Suffrage, Political Responsiveness, and Child Survival in American History.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 123, no. 3 (2008): 1287–1327.Google Scholar
Moore, Harry H.Public Health in the United States: An Outline with Statistical Data. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1923.Google Scholar
New Jersey Department of Health. Annual Report. Trenton: State of New Jersey, various years. New York Times, 8 March 1922.Google Scholar
Putnam, William Lowell Mrs.. “The Sheppard-Towner Bill.” [Letter to the Editor]. Journal of the American Medical Association 76, no. 18 (April 30, 1921): 1264–65.Google Scholar
Rankin, W.S. to West, Olin. 8 December, 1921. Health Services Record Group. North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh, NC.Google Scholar
Rude, Anna E.“Status of State Bureaus of Child Hygiene.” American Journal of Public Health 10, no. 10 (1920): 772–79.Google Scholar
Selden, C.A.“The Most Powerful Lobby in Washington.” Ladies Home Journal 39 (April 1922): 95.Google Scholar
Skocpol, Theda. Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States. Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1992.Google Scholar
True, Alfred Charles. A History of Agricultural Extension Work in the United States, 1785–1923. Washington, DC: GPO, 1928; reprint, New York: Arno Press and The New York Times, 1969 [page references are to the reprint edition].Google Scholar
U.S. Census Bureau. Financial Statistics of the States, 1915 (1916–1919, 1923–1931). Washington, DC: GPO, 1916–1920, 1924–1932.Google Scholar
U.S. Census Bureau. Fourteenth Census of the United States taken in the Year 1920. Volume III: Population 1920. Washington, DC: GPO, 1922.Google Scholar
U.S. Census Bureau. Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930. Unemployment: Volume I. Washington, DC: GPO, 1931.Google Scholar
U.S. Children's Bureau. The Promotion of the Welfare and Hygiene of Maternity and Infancy. Bureau Publication 137. Washington, DC: GPO, 1924.Google Scholar
U.S. Children's Bureau The Promotion of the Welfare and Hygiene of Maternity and Infancy. Bureau Publication 146. Washington, DC: GPO, 1925.Google Scholar
U.S. Children's Bureau The Promotion of the Welfare and Hygiene of Maternity and Infancy. Bureau Publication 203. Washington, DC: GPO, 1931.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Commerce. State Personal Income, 1929–93. Washington, DC: GPO, 1995.Google Scholar
Washington Post, 24 July 1921.Google Scholar
West, Olin to Rankin, W.S.. 12 December, 1921. Health Services Record Group. North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh, NC.Google Scholar
White House Conference on Child Health and Protection. Section II: Public Health Service and Administration New York: The Century Co., 1932.Google Scholar