Maternal and Child Health Bureau: Roots

Abstract

The Maternal and Child Health Bureau has roots that go back over 80 years to the creation of the United States Children's Bureau on April 9, 1912, when President William Howard Taft approved an Act of Congress that created the Children's Bureau and directed it "to investigate and report on all matters pertaining to the welfare of children and child life among all classes of our people." This was the federal government's first recognition that it has a responsibility to promote the welfare of our nation's children. The Bureau's Chief was to be appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. Originally placed in the Department of Commerce and Labor, it was transferred to the newly formed Department of Labor in March, 1913. The Children's Bureau was a logical sequel to several child-oriented social and public health activities of the late 19th century: the establishment of milk stations; concern with the spread of communicable disease after compulsory school attendance laws were passed; the movement to outlaw child labor; and, the opening of Settlement Houses. Lillian Wald, organizer of public health nursing, an ardent fighter against child labor, and the founder of the Henry Street Settlement in New York City, was the person who first suggested a federal Children's Bureau. A bill, with the support of President Theodore Roosevelt, was introduced in both houses of Congress in 1906 and annually during the next 6 years. It met with fierce opposition both from states which felt that the federal government was usurping their responsibility for the welfare of children and from those who feared that it would give federal employees the right to enter and regulate the homes of private citizens.