Created by a 1912 act of Congress, the United States Children’s Bureau was charged “to investigate and report. . . upon all matters pertaining to the welfare of children and child life among all classes of our people.” The Children’s Bureau emerged from concerns of the early 20th century over the health and welfare of America’s children. Social reformers feared that future generations were endangered because many children were forced to work at an early age, lived in unsanitary conditions, did not receive an education, and were malnourished. Led by Lillian Wald, founder of Henry Street Settlement House in New York City, and Florence Kelley, head of the National Consumer League, a group of reformers developed the idea of a federal agency that would promote the health and welfare of children. Lillian Wald recounted how, after reading about a government official investigating the damage done by the boll weevil, she wondered why the U. S. government could not have a “bureau to look after the Nation’s crop of children?” She and other reformers believed that a federal agency was necessary, because the welfare of children was a nationwide concern and a federal agency could collect data on child welfare throughout the country.
Wald, Kelley, and other reformers undertook a nationwide campaign to mobilize public opinion for the Children’s Bureau. In 1909 their cause was boosted significantly when President Theodore Roosevelt came out in support of the idea. Between 1906 and 1912, however, 11 bills failed to make it through Congress, largely due to reservations about expanding the powers of federal government. The challenge of the Progressive Party at the polls in 1912 compelled lawmakers to pass some progressive measures. The campaign finally succeeded with the passage of the act creating the Children’s Bureau in 1912. President William Howard Taet signed the bill into law on April 9, 1912. Congress granted the first appropriation of $25,640 later that year. The Children’s Bureau was originally in the Department of Commerce and Labor. It was transferred to the newly created Department of Labor in 1913. Julia Lathrop became the first woman to head a federal bureau when she was confirmed by the Senate as chief of the Children’s Bureau.
Initially the bureau did not have any administrative power. Its purpose was to research issues that affected children. Among the issues initially suggested for investigation were infant mortality, the birth rate, juvenile delinquency, orphanages, child labor, diseases of children, and sanitation. The Children’s Bureau’s first big project was to attack the infant mortality problem. It did this by studying the problem and publishing advice pamphlets. The bureau distributed 30,000 copies in six months of its first pamphlet, Prenatal Care. Between 1914 and 1921, it distributed nearly a million and a half copies of its second pamphlet on prenatal and infant care. In addition to its efforts with the public, the Children’s Bureau also lobbied lawmakers on behalf of issues pertaining to children.
The Children’s Bureau assumed new responsibilities in 1921 with the passage of the Maternity and Infancy Act. Popularly known as the Sheppard-Towner Act, this act authorized the federal government to allocate $1,200,000 each year to the states to promote health service for children, infants, and pregnant women. The Children’s Bureau was made the administrator of these funds. This position established the bureau as the liaison between the states and the federal government, which increased its power over child welfare policy nationwide. Although state organizations were not under any legal control of the Children’s Bureau, they acted as its subsidiaries because of its preeminence in the field of child welfare policy. The Children’s Bureau’s position allowed it to shape the chartering of child welfare programs in the states, including mothers’
PENSIONS. The leaders of the Children’s Bureau favored public child welfare agencies over private. Women such as Julia Lathrop believed that social reform needed to be professionalized, and she used her position as head of the Children’s Bureau to support state agencies that employed professional methods of social work. Her power came from her control of the Sheppard-Towner funds.
The Children’s Bureau’s role diminished in the late 1920s due to fighting between it and the Public Health Service, another federal agency concerned with health and welfare issues. Congress allowed the Maternity and Infancy Act to lapse in 1929 and transferred the health and medical functions of the Children’s Bureau to the Public Health Service. The Children’s Bureau remained a strong advocate for children after 1930, but it never again enjoyed the power that it had in the 1920s.
See also EDUCATION; YOUTH.
Further reading: Kristie Lindenmeyer, “A Right to Childhood”: The United States Children’s Bureau and Child Welfare, 1912—1946 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997).
—Michael Hartman
World History
