Deaths of Children under 1 Year of Age per 1,000 Live Births, by Quinquennial Periods from 1901 to 1910, and also for the Single Calendar Years 1909 to 1910.[[10]]
COUNTRY.1901 to 19051906 to 191019091910
Chile306315315313
Russia (European)([[11]])
Austria215
Hungary212204212194
Prussia190168164157
Jamaica174191174188
Spain173
Ceylon171189202176
Italy168 155
Japan154 166
Servia149
Belgium148 137
Bulgaria148
France139 120
England and Wales138117109105
The Netherlands13611499108
Switzerland134 115
Finland131117111118
Scotland120 108
Denmark119 98
Province of Ontario114127131123
Ireland98949296
Australian Commonwealth97787275
Sweden91 72
Norway81 72
New Zealand75706268

[10]. From the Seventy-third Annual Report of the Registrar General of Births, Deaths, and Marriages in England and Wales (1910). London, 1912.

[11]. Available only for the period from 1896 to 1900, when it was 261.

When it had been decided by the Children’s Bureau to make infant mortality the subject of its first field study and to include all babies born in a given calendar year, regardless of whether they lived or died during their first year, advice and cooperation were enlisted of mothers, physicians, nurses, and others experienced in the care of children, and also of trained investigators and statisticians, in the preparation of a schedule which was submitted to them for criticism.

With its limited force and funds it was not possible for the Children’s Bureau to extend its inquiries throughout the entire United States. It was therefore decided to make intensive studies of babies born in a single calendar year in each of a number of typical areas throughout the country that offered contrasts in climate and in economic and social conditions, the results to be eventually combined and correlated. It was necessary to restrict the choice of the first area to a place of such size as could be covered thoroughly within a reasonable time by the few agents available for the work.

Johnstown, Pa., was the first place selected. It is in a State where birth registration prevails, and hence a record of practically all babies could be secured; it is of such size that the work could be done by a small force within a reasonable period, and it seemed to present conditions that could with interest be contrasted with conditions typical of other communities. Moreover, the State commissioner of health and the State registrar of vital statistics were both working zealously to enforce birth-registration laws; both were actively interested in reducing infant mortality, and they welcomed a study of the subject in their State. In Johnstown the mayor, the president of the board of health, the health officer, and other local officials all showed the same spirit of hearty cooperation and interest.

Inasmuch as the study was confined to babies born in a single calendar year and work was begun in January, 1913, the latest year in which the babies could have been born and still have attained at least one full year of life was 1911.

Work was begun on January 15, 1913, with the transcription from the original records at Harrisburg of the names and other essential facts entered on the birth certificates of babies born in 1911, and, if the baby had died during its first year of life, items on the death certificate were also copied.

In the meantime the people of Johnstown through the press, and through the clergy in the foreign sections, had been informed of the purpose and plan of the investigation. Without the friendly spirit thus aroused and the interest manifested by the Civic Club and other organizations the work could not have been brought to a successful issue. The investigation was absolutely democratic; every mother of a baby born in 1911, rich or poor, native or foreign, was sought, and it is interesting to note refusals were met with in but two cases.

The original plan was to limit the investigation to those babies born in the calendar year selected whose births had been registered, the purpose being to secure facts concerning a definite group and not to measure the completeness of birth registration. Shortly after beginning the work, however, agents of this bureau were told that the Serbian women in Johnstown seldom had either a midwife or a physician at childbirth; that they called in a neighbor or depended upon their husbands for help at such times, or that they managed alone for themselves, and that therefore their babies usually escaped registration. The omission of these babies meant the exclusion of a number of mothers in a group that was too important racially to be omitted from an investigation embracing all races and classes. Accordingly a list of babies christened in the Serbian Church and born in the year 1911 was secured and an attempt made to locate them. In addition an agent called at each house in the principal Serbian quarter to inquire concerning births in 1911. A number of unregistered babies of Serbian mothers were thus found and included in the investigation.