Horace Mann Towner
| Horace Mann Towner | |
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| Governor of Puerto Rico | |
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In office April 1, 1923 – September 29, 1929 |
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| President |
Calvin Coolidge Herbert Hoover |
| Preceded by | Juan Bernardo Huyke |
| Succeeded by | James R. Beverly |
| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Iowa's 8th district |
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In office March 4, 1911 – April 1, 1923 |
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| Preceded by | William Darius Jamieson |
| Succeeded by | Hiram Kinsman Evans |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
October 23, 1855 Belvidere, Illinois |
| Died | November 23, 1937 (aged 82) Corning, Iowa |
| Political party | Republican |
Horace Mann Towner (October 23, 1855 – November 23, 1937) served over six terms as a Republican United States Representative from Iowa's 8th congressional district, and six years as the appointed Governor of Puerto Rico. In an era in which the federal government's role in health and education was small, he was an early leader of efforts to expand that role.
Towner was born in Belvidere, Illinois, the son of John and Keziah Towner. He was educated in the public schools at Belvidere, at the University of Chicago, and at the Union College of Law, while also teaching school. He was admitted to the bar in 1877, and initially practiced law in Prescott, Iowa, in Adams County. In 1880, he was elected county superintendent of schools at Corning, Iowa, in which capacity he served until 1884. He resumed the practice of law in Corning. In 1887 he married Harriet Elizabeth Cole, at Corning. They had three children, Leta, Horace, and Constance.
In 1890, he was elected as a judge of the third judicial district of Iowa. He also served as a lecturer on constitutional law at the University of Iowa from 1902 to 1911.
He was also a pianist and a composer, who set to music "Iowa, Beautiful Land," once Iowa's official song.
In 1910 Towner ran successfully as a Republican to succeed retiring Democrat William Darius Jamieson representing Iowa's 8th congressional district in the U.S. House. He was re-elected five times. From 1919 to 1923, he was served as the House Republican Conference Chairman.
He was the co-author (with Texas Senator Morris Sheppard) of the first federal law to offer matching federal funds for social welfare or to offer grants-in-aid to states for health purposes. That law, known as the Sheppard-Towner Act or the Maternity and Infant Act, was designed to lower the United States' relatively high rates of infant mortality, and established maternal and child health services in each state. First offered in 1919, it passed in 1921. Although the program it created was chronically underfunded after passage and was allowed to expire in 1929, it paved the way for many similar state-federal social welfare programs in the New Deal era and thereafter.
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