"Save 100,000 Babies": The 1918 Children's Year and Its Legacy.

Abstract

In April 1918, President Woodrow Wilson, alarmed at the high draftee rejection rate, proclaimed the second year of American engagement in World War I as "Children's Year." The motto of the nationwide program was to "Save 100,000 Babies." Children's Year represented a multipronged child welfare campaign aimed at gathering data on best practices regarding maternal and child health promotion, documenting the effects of poverty on ill health, reducing the school drop-out rate, ensuring safe play spaces for children, and addressing the unique needs of targeted populations such as orphans and delinquents. Thousands of communities across the country participated in Children's Year, which was overseen by the Children's Bureau and the Woman's Committee of the Council of National Defense. The 1919 White House Conference on Children's Health synthesized all of the Children's Year findings into concrete recommendations. But in an effort to minimize conflict with organized medicine and those who feared governmental intrusion into family life, stakeholders accepted a series of compromises. By so doing, they inadvertently helped enshrine the means-tested, class-based, fragmented approach to child well-being in the United States that persists to this day.