Making America Booming with Babies
May 26, 2026
The editors of The Wall Street Journal have long argued that there is no public policy that might raise marriage and birth rates. They have focused special ire on the current Child Tax Credit. In her fine book on the mothers of large families, Hannah’s Children, Catherine Ruth Pakaluk agrees: “There is no historical example of a policy that meaningfully increased birth rates.” I dissent. And a look back at the history of federal family policy explains why.
Following an intense lobbying campaign by women’s groups across the land, the U.S. Congress created the Children’s Bureau in 1912. Housed within the Department of Commerce and Labor, the Bureau’s Chief was Julia Lathrop of Rockford, Illinois (my home for the last 45 years). As a veteran of Settlement Work with immigrants at Chicago’s Hull House, Lathrop described her new task as “baby-saving.” More specifically, Lathrop said that the “power to maintain a decent family living standard” was “the primary essential of child welfare.” This required, in turn, “a living wage and wholesome working life for the men” and “a good and skillful mother at home to keep the house and comfort all within it.” She added, “Society can afford no less and no exceptions. This is a universal need.” So began the 60-year-long federal campaign to secure the Breadwinner/Homemaker family model for all American children.
