Child hygiene / by S. Josephine Baker.

  • Sara Josephine Baker
Date:
[1925]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Child hygiene / by S. Josephine Baker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the provisions of the act, twelve by legislative enactment and thirty through the approval of the governor pending the next regular meeting of the state legislature. Of the six states not co-operating in 1922, and during the first half of the fiscal year 1923, the legislatures of Louisiana, Massa¬ chusetts, and Rhode Island met and did not accept. During the second fiscal year ending June 30, 1923, forty states accepted the terms of the act. The eight states that are still not co-operating and have not accepted any federal funds are Connecticut, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Massa¬ chusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont. The benefits of the act were extended to Hawaii on March 10, 1924. The administration of the provisions of this act in the states has been mainly dependent upon the size of the appropriation and the extent of the territory to be covered. It is interesting to note in this connection that while the act makes no mention of any discrimination in the expendi¬ ture of the allotted funds, there has been a tendency through¬ out the country to concentrate upon rural problems in the care of mothers and children rather than to make expendi¬ tures in the larger cities. Such a course meets a hitherto unfilled need, for practically all of the larger cities are now carrying on some form of maternal and infant welfare work by virtue of their own appropriations. The county as a unit for this health work is being adopted by an increasing number of states. In many states the federal and state funds are used in matching county appropriations, the money being usually applied for the furtherance of county public- health nursing. The Sheppard-Towner bill also marks an epoch in child- welfare legislation in the United States. Unlike the child- labor legislation, it has been held to be constitutional. In 1922 an action was brought before the Supreme Court by the State of Massachusetts upon the premise that the act was “an incursion into the field of the local police power reserved to the states by the Tenth Amendment to the Con¬ stitution.” Massachusetts further claimed that as the money
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