The Children's Bureau: Fifty Years of Public Responsibility for Action in Behalf of Children

Eliot, Martha M.

doi:10.2105/ajph.52.4.576

Cited by 7 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…However, vigorous opposition by the U.S. Public Health Service, the Catholic Church, and especially the American Medical Association-each of which had a vested interest in providing health services and counseling to mothers and children-prompted Congress to terminate the program in 1929. 65 In administering the Keating-Owen and Sheppard-Towner acts, Bureau officials helped define the relationship between the national and state governments in matters of social policy. Aside from public education, there was little precedent for truly federal social programs.…”

Section: From Mother's Pensions To Adcmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sowing the Seeds of “Welfare”: The Transformation of Mothers' Pensions, 1900–1940

Howard¹

1992

J. Policy Hist.

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Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) had come to symbolize everything that is wrong with the American welfare state. Benefit levels have always varied significantly from state to state and seldom have been adequate anywhere to move recipients above the poverty line. Until the 1960s some local administrators discriminated against certain categories of recipients, particularly blacks and unwed mothers. Overt discrimination is now rare; instead, potential beneficiaries must negotiate a series of seemingly neutral administrative hurdles whose cumulative effect is to discourage many of those eligible from applying. Conservatives claim that AFDC subsidizes a broad range of socially-undesirable behaviors, from idleness and a lack of civic obligation to out-of-wedlock births and permanent dependence on public assistance. Liberals dispute these claims but cannot or will not make an affirmative case for the program. Program administrators at the national and local levels have never been strong champions. Opinion polls consistently show that most Americans favor “helping the poor” but not “welfare,” which they equate with AFDC. Finally, beneficiaries view receipt of AFDC as stigmatizing and degrading. Low benefit levels and the lack of decent-paying jobs create a moral climate in which many single mothers receiving AFDC must lie to the Internal Revenue Service and their case workers about working on the side in order to make ends meet.

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Section: From Mother's Pensions To Adcmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sowing the Seeds of “Welfare”: The Transformation of Mothers' Pensions, 1900–1940

Howard¹

1992

J. Policy Hist.

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“…Over the next half century the Children's Bureau carried out its dual role of children's advocate and program administrator in a remarkably effective manner (Eliot, 1962), especially so in consid eration of the meager resources at its command. Throughout this period it successfully resisted repeated efforts aimed at its dismem berment.…”

Section: Developments In the United Statesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Federal Legislation on Maternal and Child Health Services in the United States

Schlesinger¹

1974

The Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly. Health and Society

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The reciprocal relationships between developments in maternal and child health legislation at the federal level and those at state and local levels are examined critically. The paper traces the sources of preventive health ser vices in maternity and infant care, school health services, and sick-child care in France, Germany, and England, respectively, and suggests that these three streams have remained largely independent of each other over the years in the United States. It examines the historical backgrounds and sig nificance for the future of recent changes in the organizational structure of maternal and child health services within the federal government. The current scene in maternal and child health is assessed. Recommendations are made to help insure (1) that the developmental needs of children are met within the evolving forms of comprehensive health services for all ages; (2) that the health needs of children are not overlooked as part of early child hood care or ancillary to education at all levels; and (3) that health concerns receive adequate consideration in social measures for mothers and children.

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Slaughter of the Innocents: A Study of the Battered Child Phenomenon

Bakan

2001

Journal of Social Distress and the Homeless

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The Children's Bureau: Fifty Years of Public Responsibility for Action in Behalf of Children

Cited by 7 publications

References 0 publications

Sowing the Seeds of “Welfare”: The Transformation of Mothers' Pensions, 1900–1940

Sowing the Seeds of “Welfare”: The Transformation of Mothers' Pensions, 1900–1940

The Impact of Federal Legislation on Maternal and Child Health Services in the United States

Slaughter of the Innocents: A Study of the Battered Child Phenomenon

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