The centerpiece of the Sheppard–Towner Act, which was signed into law in 1921, was a matching grant program that funded infant and maternity programs. Sparked both by substantive concerns about high rates of infant and maternal mortality in the United States and uncertainty about the political implications of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, the Sheppard–Towner Act originally received strong bipartisan support in both houses of Congress. By the time the law came up for reauthorization a few years later, however, its political prospects were considerably more tenuous. It lacked a strong coalition of supporters, and a more powerful and mobilized group of opponents insisted that national government financial support for the services that it provided was no longer necessary. After a lengthy congressional debate, a “compromise” was reached that extended the Sheppard–Towner Act for two years but automatically repealed it on June 30, 1929, less than eight years after its adoption.