Bosses and Workers > Baby Week
In May 1914, Mayor John Purroy Mitchel requested that the Chamber of Commerce support one of his many reform initiatives, Baby Week.
The City’s infant mortality rate had been falling steadily, from 135.8 deaths out of 1,000 births in the years 1906-1910, down to 101.9 in 1913. This latest score, according to the Babies’ Welfare Association, was one with which “those engaged in caring for the health of infants had every reason to be gratified.” And the Mayor was sanguine that “a much lower death rate than that of 1913 is believed to be attainable.”
A “Baby Week” to be held in the deadly summer months would call attention to the crisis in infant health. The campaign aimed at educating working-class mothers in the latest hygienic practices. To this end, an electric sign over Broadway announced “Greater New York Baby Week, June 20 to Jun 26,” while billboards and posters chided negligent mothers with the slogan, “Better babies, better mothers, better city.”
A few disgruntled critics raised questions about the effort. “Does it show a distorted sense of humor,” asked one feminist, “to be amused over the fact that the first three organizations invited by Mayor Mitchel to confer about plans for ‘baby week’ are the Chamber of Commerce, the Merchants’ Association and the Advertising Men’s League?” And, no doubt, many mothers would have welcomed better housing and working conditions in lieu of a condescending publicity campaign.
But, all such sore-headedness was forgotten in the pageantry of Baby Week, when on the penultimate day, the City’s blue-ribbon baby – “she is two years and four months old and ranks 100 percent in physical perfection” – marshaled a grand parade of 1,000 toddlers, 50 autos, 12 buses, and a marching band up Fifth Avenue.