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Alexandra Minna Stern Better Babies Contests at the Indiana State Fair Child Health, Scientific Motherhood, and Eugenics in the Midwest, 1920–35 By 8:00 A.M. on the morning of 3 September 1929, dozens of mothers were lined up in front of the Better Babies Contest Building at the Indiana State Fair, eagerly waiting for the doors to open.1 Since 1920, and in increasing numbers, babies from nearly every Indiana county had been weighed, measured, and tested by physicians and psychologists af‹liated with the State Board of Health’s Division of Infant and Child Hygiene. During the 1920s, this division launched a multifaceted plan of “child saving” and maternal education, which included radio talks, mothers’ classes, hygiene ‹lms, consultation clinics, and statistical inquiries and reports. The Better Babies Contest, however, was by far the division’s most spectacular and beloved event, drawing hundreds of young entrants and thousands of curious onlookers to the state fairgrounds during the week of Labor Day. Each year, more and more Hoosiers—as Indianans liked to refer to themselves—crowded into the Better Babies facilities. They watched nurses demonstrate proper infant feeding techniques, collected free pamphlets such as the Indiana Mothers ’ Baby Book, or perused displays about nutrition and the virtues of sterilized and sparkling bathrooms and kitchens. While individual girls and boys, twins, and triplets competed for blue ribbons and monetary prizes, tired mothers could ‹nd refuge at the rest tent and noncontestant children could either romp in the playground or nap peacefully in the nursery. According to many physicians, local newspapers, and promotional literature, the Better Babies Contest was one of Indiana’s most anticipated yearly happenings.2 At the helm of the better babies program was Dr. Ada E. Schweitzer. Over the course of little more than a decade, Schweitzer, 121  appointed director of the newly created Division of Infant and Child Hygiene for the state of Indiana in 1919, assembled one of the most vibrant public health agencies in the nation. Before the division disbanded in 1933, Schweitzer counted four physicians, four nurses, and ‹ve assistants on her core staff.3 During her fourteen-year reign, Schweitzer worked sedulously to lower infant and maternal death rates and to convince Indianans of the importance of scienti‹c motherhood and child rearing. She lectured to hundreds of neighborhood and civic associations , wrote voluminous articles and poems, assessed the physical condition of babies in every one of the state’s ninety-two counties, and fastidiously managed the affairs of her organization. Seemingly unfazed by a taxing travel schedule, Schweitzer could frequently be found adding miles to the division’s child hygiene-mobile, which had been equipped with a generator to project movies and lantern slides in remote towns and villages. She was even known to take to the air in a two-seater airplane to arrive punctually at speaking engagements.4 While Schweitzer was in charge of the division, Indiana’s infant mortality dropped by onethird , from 8.2 percent in 1920 to 5.7 percent in 1930.5 In this chapter, I explore not only Schweitzer’s better babies crusade but also the particular circumstances that gave rise to such a dynamic child welfare project in Indiana from 1919 to 1933. On the one hand, this work ›ourished because of the state’s ample concern with public health and race betterment. By 1907, for example, Indiana had a pure food statute and a vital statistics act on the books and, furthermore , had passed the country’s ‹rst eugenic sterilization law. In 1915, the Indiana State Board of Health was ranked sixth nationwide by the AMA in terms of effectiveness.6 During this period, many of its health reformers, including Schweitzer, frightened by what they perceived to be an escalating menace of the feebleminded, joined the Indiana State Mental Hygiene Association.7 Through legal and educational means, Indiana Progressives sought to control procreation and further only the birth of the “best” and most salubrious babies. For many Hoosiers, born and raised as farmers, breeding superior children was just a step away from producing heartier corn, pigs, and cattle.8 On the other hand, the activities of the Division of Infant and Child Hygiene multiplied markedly in the 1920s due to the resources made available by the federal Sheppard-Towner Act, passed in 1921. Administered by the U.S. Children’s Bureau, this act provided matching funds to states that approved “enabling legislation” and established agencies devoted to infant and maternal welfare...

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