Leaflet promoting The Sheppard-Towner Bill for the Protection of Maternity and Infancy (National Maternity and Infancy Protection Act)

Washington DC, 1920. Leaflet. Very good. The Sheppard Towner Bill would allow for the first federal law to federally-fund a social welfare program, specically providing federal funds to women and children, drafted by Julia Lathrop and introduced into Congress by Juliette Rankin, the first woman elected to Congress, though it wasn't until the next session when the act was accepted to be voted on. Funded from 1921 til 1929, the purpose of the Act was "to reduce maternal and infant mortality." The legislation was supported by progressives, social reformers, and feminists including Grace Abbott, supported by AAUW, General Federation of Women's Clubs, National League of Women's Voters, Council of Jewish Women, and many others. The Sheppard-Towner Act provided for federal matching funds for such programs as health clinics for women and children, hiring physicians and nurses to educate and care for pregnant women and mothers and their children, Visiting nurses to educate and care for pregnant and new mothers, Midwife training and Distribution of nutrition and hygiene information. The AMA criticized it as socialist, opposing it's passage and funding, with pressure from this and other national groups essentially killing funding by 1929. The Pediatric branch of the AMA encouraged the program's continuance, breaking to form American Pediatric Assoc. in the wake of it's failure.