Making babies count The Sheppard-Towner Act and building the modern administrative state Michelle Bezark

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bezark, Michelle, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

United States. Sheppard-Towner Act.

United States.

Maternal and infant welfare--Law and legislation.

Maternal and infant welfare--Government policy.

Infants--Mortality.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Cambridge Cambridge University Press 2026

Summary:

"This book is the first comprehensive account of the triumphs and follies of the Sheppard-Towner Act of 1921-the first federal policy aimed at improving health outcomes for mothers and babies. Michelle Bezark insightfully weaves together the experiences of advocates and federal agents maneuvering around Congress to pass the law; state-level administrators' accounts of implementing its programs at the local level; and individual mothers' and children's experiences of the programs on the ground. This approach reveals the political, technical, and legal challenges of passing and administering early federal social welfare policy, and what this policy provided for-and required of-citizens. In reconstructing the full lifecycle of the law, Bezark tells the untold history of an important federal policy and provides a critical case study for how one group of reformers built out administrative capacity at every level of governance from scratch"-- Cambridge Core

Contents:

More fatal than the trench : infant mortality and the rise of statistical politics

A bill for “better babies” : passing and administering the law

“The hand of the government” : public health on the ground

“A help one another club” : teaching motherhood and citizenship

“Our arithmetic was unique” : trouble with accounting and defunding Sheppard–Towner

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index

Online resource; title from PDF title page (Cambridge Core, viewed March 25, 2026)

Other Format:

Print version Bezark, Michelle Making babies count

ISBN:

9781009634649

100963464X

OCLC:

1550791324

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license