Public Health and Progressive Era Child Welfare

Transcript

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Hello and welcome to Attis Kit Tat podcast. I apologize for not being around for a bit, but I've been really busy with writing my conference paper for American Folklore Society Conference that's happening in just a a few short weeks in October in Atlanta, Georgia. I've been kind of in a rut and stuck with writing, so I went ahead and recorded kind of my thoughts here and I thought it would make a great podcast episode. I'm titling it to public health and Progressive Era Child Welfare, and it's essentially my introduction to my paper where I talk about the kind of the contexts. And public health history during the progressive era in the United States. And it sets up what I will be discussing in my paper where I discuss, artifacts that I found that contain nursery rhymes and other pieces of children's literature to help promote health and hygiene. And this is based on a lot of new. Health theories at the time. This is the turn of the, the 20th century. So germ theory was relatively new. And so let's go ahead, and take a, listen at me just rambling on about the context of United States progressive era public health and child welfare. The United States progressive era a period between around 1890 to 1920 saw a number of changes in regards to public health initiatives. One very important part of this was changing the lives of children and mothers for the better. At the time, the children's mortality rate was particularly high in the United States. For a number of reasons, including urbanization, crowding in cities, which led to poor housing and increased disease spreading. And, and speaking of diseases, there were a number of diseases that just ran rampant through both the rich and the poor and killed a lot of children. And this include cholera, yellow fever, the flu, influenza, tuberculosis, diptheria, and a number of others. The public health initiatives. That rose from the progressive era really focused on bettering these children's lives. And there was a number of these initiatives run by a number of people. And that gave way to many different types of literature aimed at children to teach them better health and hygiene. A number of us or US presidents were, and other I important people in the United States were very interested in this. Specifically, or particularly Theodore Roosevelt was a huge advocate for social change and social action and bettering the lives of women and children in a speech. That he gave in April of 1899 in Chicago called The Strenuous Life. He says that in the last analysis, a healthy state can exist only when the men and women who make it up can lead clean, vigorous healthy lives. When the children are so trained that they shall endeavor, not to shrink difficulties, but to overcome them, not to seek ease, but to know how to rest triumph from toil and risk the man. Must be glad to do a man's work to dare and endure into labor, to keep himself and those dependent on him. The women must be the housewife, the help meet in the of the homemaker, the wise and the fearless mother of many healthy children. Roosevelt was very. Outspoken about children's health and creating better lives for childhood. He was a big proponent on childhood play and created a number of laws to help this. And in fact, the Children's Bureau was one such organization that came from this. It was formally created in 1912 under President William Howard Taft. He signed into law a bill creating the new federal government organization. The stated purpose of this organization can be found on the social security website under the Children's Bureau, and the report says that the purpose of the Children's Bureau was quote to upon all matters pertaining to the welfare of children in child life among all classes of our people. This article under the government's website says that the signing of this law culminated a grassroots process started in 1903 by two early social reformers, Lillian Lillian Wald of New York's Henry Street, settlement House, and Florence Kelly of the National Consumers League. Along the way, their efforts picked up support by President Theodore Roosevelt, among other prominent supporters, before finally becoming law. Nine years after they launched initiatives. Roosevelt's and Taft were not the only presidents interested in bettering children's lives, which were Wilson at the End of World War I declared. I. 1918 to be children's year and in a speech. He said that the goal was to save 100,000 babies from an article of. Public health then and now called Save 100,000 babies. The the 1918 children's year and its legacy. It says that in 1918, the US Children's Bureau in the Child Welfare Department of Women's Committee of the Council of National Defense together announced that the second year of American engagement in World War I would be marked by a determined NA nationwide effort on behalf of childhood shocked by the extraordinarily high. Draftee rejection rate for what were considered preventable health conditions. Civic leaders united behind the issue of child wellbeing. They proclaim 1918 of the children's year. They pro, they proclaimed 1918, the children's year with the goal of saving 100,000 babies. And in the language of former president, Theodore Roosevelt called for a quote square deal for children. Knowing that most people were aware of the high rates of war-related morbidity and mortality, local leaders used the conflict to enhance concern about infant mortality and build support for children's year. As the Chicago Illinois Health Commissioner observed, quote, the number of men killed in war is not so serious an index of loss. It is at a high, as is the high infant death rate. President Woodrow Wilson offered concrete support for the children's year by supplementing the US. Cb appropriation with$150,000 from his war emergency fund. So the progressive era saw these three presidents Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson coming together to really promote children's health and focusing on infant mortality rate. But we also saw a rise of literature that was being promoted in the school to help this as well. Furthermore, from an article from the Public Health then and now published in 2014, author Freda p Pereira. I wrote an article called Science as an Early Driver of Policy, child Labor Reform in the early progressive era, 1817 to 1900. She begins her article by saying, child labor reform in late 19th century represents an early milestone in the use of scientific arguments along the moral and eco economic arguments to support public policy to protect the health and well-being of children. So in this article, she talks about the history of child labor laws. In how they came to be. Specifically, she quotes the, the importance of the New York State labor law that was enacted in 1886. That was kind of the founding law that helped to put child labor laws on the map. And she says that by 18 99, 44 states and territories had some type of child labor law. The New York State Labor law of 1886 in the increasing stringent laws that quickly followed represent an important step in the development of the field of children's environmental health, a major branch of public health today. She also says that the quote, inter intertwining of scientific expertise with the socioeconomic and moral arguments in the cause of child labor reform is illustrated by the active collaboration of trained professionals, educated female reformers. Society, philanthropists and union leaders. So we have an important emphasis in the United States progressive era on infant mortality rates, child labor laws, just the betterment, its children's health in general. In a 2010 article in the public health then and now author. Amy Fairchild, David Rosner, James Colegrove, Ronald Bear and Linda Freed, writes the exodus of public health, what history can tell us about the future, and really does a really great job talking about a. Public health and progressive era reform, especially when it comes to children. They say that a call to action, it says, quote, the mission of public health has its roots in the mid 19th century when physicians, housing reformers, advocates for the poor and scientists trained in new techniques of chemistry and civil engineering came together to fight problems growing out of the urbanization, industrialization in large scale immigration. This coalition transformed the nation's economy and environment and its turn, and in turn, its health high. Death rates in pestilence had long affected, rich and poor communities alike. So again, it's this idea that in the mid to late 19th century, we have this really interesting collaboration between all sorts of experts, not only doctors and physicians, but also housing reformers. We have suffragists, abolitionists, advocates all coming together to kind of. Promote healthy living and really a focus of this was on children. So this article continues to set epidemic diseases such as smallpox, cholera, typhoid, yellow fever, and a host of intestine. Intestinal ailments became powerful symbols of uncontainable, social decline, and were often blamed on any immigrant poor. And this was, again, a common argument that the poor were really the cause of the disease, and this was often a rallying cry for better health in housing. To help stop this further, they say quote in Chicago social reformers in the hall house, which. In Chicago, social reformers in Hall House focus on living conditions as the reason for declining health and wellbeing of workers, women and children. And the hall house was actually a really foundational progressive movement that helped change and create a lot of laws when it came to illness and housing. The article continues to talk about early health reform in form of specialized or specialists like abolitionists and suffragists suffragists. We specifically see a lot of this with tuberculosis. A lot of the tuberculosis leagues promoted and created a lot of literature, and you'll see that in the artifacts talked about in this particular paper. And they were very loud in propagandizing their. Goals, which while public health was part of that, they also were large proponents of abstinence with. Nicotine and alcohol. So you have this very interesting mix during this time that public health performers were not only promoting public health from a scientific stand standpoint, but also using their own platforms as a way to get their message messages across. And these authors talk about that in this article. By saying that quote, they defined their mission as much immoral as the secular terms and believe that illnesses, filth, class, and disorder were intrinsically related. Individual transgression in social decay were equally at fault for poor health. And we see this again and again in the literature that poor health is intrinsically connected to morality, which I think is quite interesting. But this is something that, again, came up in the progressive era as far as. Public health laws in children. However, we you know, at the, at the end of the 18 hundreds, we saw a new model and the authors talk about this of following germ theory. So we have really important discoveries from people like Lewis pe, Joseph Le Leister, and Robert Co. That really pushed these new theories to the front and. Now we have these specialists promoting things like pasteurization and milk, as well as an understanding of germ theory. And we see this in literature as well. So what I think is interesting is that these authors really hit the nail on the head when they talk about that, you see this interesting intersection between these strong. Programs for specialized arguments like against tuberculosis, against drinking, et cetera, but also intertwined with the scientific community. And they say quote for a time, however, sanitarian. Dictums mesh well with the new bacteriological discoveries. United by moral certainty regarding the need to act sanitarians, epidemiologists and bacteriologists. The old and new sciences of public health were marshaled to achieve radical reform. Although the movement could and often did, focus on the moral characteristics of those who succumbed to disease, it was none. Nonetheless, allied with social and labor reformers seeking to transform housing in work conditions for city dwellers at at the turn of the century. So you have this really interesting intersection between morality and disease here, but it all comes from a place of public health reform, housing reform, et cetera. And all of this reform came with this idea that, public health came first. These authors continue to say, quote, perhaps most remarkable was the degree to which public health served as both an organizing and a unifying concept. For example, throughout the country, health officials sought to control the tuberculosis. Bcis, but they did so with an eye to the individual in his or her social context. And this is really where folklore comes in, is that social context was such an important part of public health reform that you see the social consciousness and folklore of society that build, build and change toward these public health initiatives. And it's just a very interesting intersection. Okay.