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THE PROGRESSIVE ERA'S HEALTH REFORM MOVEMENT
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THE PROGRESSIVE ERA'S HEALTH REFORM MOVEMENT A Historical Dictionary Ruth Clifford Engs
PRAEGER
Westport, Connecticut London
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Engs, Ruth C. The progressive era's health reform movement: a historical dictionary / Ruth Clifford Engs. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-275-97932-6 (alk. paper) 1. Health care reform—United States—History—19th century—Dictionaries. 2. Health care reform—United States—History—20th century—Dictionaries. 3. Progressivism (United States politics)—History—19th century—Dictionaries. 4. Progressivism (United States politics)—History—20th century. I. Title. RA395.A3 E547 2003 362.1'0973'03—dc21 2002028759 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright © 2003 by Ruth Clifford Engs All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2002028759 ISBN: 0-275-97932-6 First published in 2003 Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.praeger.com Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48-1984). 10
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This dictionary is dedicated to the memory of Theodore Alexander Clifford (January 31, 1909-April 12, 1999) my father, who taught me a love of history and to "look it up in the dictionary" and Harold Oscar Franz (May 19, 1925-August 2, 1999) my father-in-law, who enjoyed good conversation and was a "dictionary"
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Contents Preface
ix
Acknowledgments
xix
Abbreviations
xxi
The Dictionary
1
Selected Chronology
371
Index
409
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Preface Historian Arthur Mann (1963, 1), in The Progressive Era: Liberal Renaissance or Liberal Failure, argued that "the foundations of the society we live in today were created between 1880 and 1920 by industrialization, urbanization, and immigration." The broad collection of events during the decades on either side of the turn of the twentieth century, often termed the Progressive era, included profound economic, political, social, legislative, and spiritual initiatives that greatly changed the nation. Most scholars consider the Progressive era as embracing the years from 1890 to 1920. Some suggest an even narrower range of years, while others suggest roots in the post-Civil War era. In addition to social, political, and economic reforms, numerous health crusades were initiated through highly visible campaigns that collectively constituted a Clean Living Movement. This movement resulted in dramatic changes in public policy and legislation that deeply affected American culture. This healthreform movement peaked in the first two decades of the twentieth century. Most but not all health campaigns evolved into national movements. Some emanated from rural areas, while others had their nexus in cities. Many hinged on "moral" behaviors that had health consequences. The goal of these diverse crusades was to "clean up" America and to permanently eliminate destructive behaviors and undesirable conditions in order to bring the country to a golden age free from crime, disease, filth, and poverty. Most health crusades of the Progressive era first emerged around 1880 and dissipated by 1925. During this period Americans witnessed the emergence of national prohibition, pure food and drug laws, mandatory immunizations, eugenic sterilization laws, narcotic controls, a national board of health, higher age of sexual consent,
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and immigration restrictions, as well as antiprostitution and antitobacco measures on the local, state, and/or national levels. During this period emphasis was placed on personal hygiene, exercise, good diet, sexual purity, and the "whole man" embodying physical, mental, and moral fitness. Yet countering antiobscenity and chastity campaigns, crusades emerged for birth control and the elimination of sexually transmitted diseases through open discussion and education. New healing arts arose that clashed with the emerging power of orthodox physicians. Fundamentalism gained a foothold that strove to bring back biblical teachings and family values. Sanitation measures, campaigns against tuberculosis and hookworm, and improvements in medicine increased the lifespan of the American population. However, near the end of this clean-living era, at a time when new health measures held great promise of an America with a bright new future, World War I broke out and the influenza epidemic of 1918 decimated many young Americans. SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS HISTORICAL DICTIONARY AND ADDITIONAL RESOURCES The dictionary brings together in one place major health-reform issues and related topics from the years leading up to the Progressive era through the 1920s. It serves as a clearinghouse of central figures, events, crusades, legislation, publications, and terms that embraced this era. The dictionary is intended for scholars, students, and the educated public interested in health-reform manifestations in the decades on either side of the turn of the twentieth century. Besides factual information on each topic, the dictionary offers reference points for further readings from both the Progressive era and modern times. For those who wish to explore further, including various interpretations and tangential issues surrounding the Progressive era, some general secondary sources are given in the sections. Numerous works have addressed the Progressive era, some focusing on specific health crusades of the period. Historians have presented the Progressive era and health-reform campaigns in many lights. These range from the old-stock "status elite" attempting to maintain power and control over unruly or diseased immigrants, to Christian social action in the aftermath of a religious awakening. Similarly, the reasons for health-reform agitation during the era are diverse and complex. These varying interpretations are still fraught with contradiction, complexity, and scholarly debate. Authors writing at the peak of the era included Samuel John Duncan-Clark, The Progressive Movement: Its Principles and Its Programme ([1913] 1972); B. O. Flower, Progressive Men, Women, and Movements of
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the Past Twenty-Five Years ([1914] 1975); and Benjamin Parke DeWitt, The Progressive Movement ([1915] 1968). These authors discussed events and personalities from a contemporaneous time frame. In the last half of the twentieth century an interest in the Progressive era emerged among historians. General works, in addition to Mann's edited volume mentioned earlier, include Joel A. Carpenter, The Fundamentalist-Modernist Conflict (1988); David R. Colburn and George E. Pozzetta, Reform and Reformers in the Progressive Era (1983); and Lewis L. Gould, The Progressive Era (1974). Richard Hofstadter, The Progressive Movement: 1900-1915 ([1963] 1986) features reprints of essays from the time period. Hofstadter's other works that touch upon the era include The Age of Reform: From Rryan to F.D.R. ([1955] 1959) and Social Darwinism in American Thought ([1944] 1959). Other texts addressing the era include John D. Buenker, Urban Liberalism and Progressive Reform (1973); Eldon J. Eisenach, The Lost Promise of Progressivism (1994); Arthur A. Ekirch, Progressivism in America: A Study of the Era from Theodore Roosevelt to Woodrow Wilson (1974); and George E. Mowry, The Progressive Era, 1900-1920 (1972). William G. McLoughlin, Revivals, Awakenings, and Reform: An Essay on Religion and Social Change in America, 1607-1977 (1978) discusses cycles of religious revival and reform, including the Progressive era. Some historians have focused upon specific health movements and crusades of the Progressive era. James Harvey Young discusses the pure food and drug movement in Pure Food: Securing the Federal Food and Drugs Act of 1906 (1989), as does Peter Temin in Taking Your Medicine: Drug Regulation in the United States (1980). Lorine Swainston Goodwin, The Pure Food, Drink, and Drug Crusaders, 1879-1914 (1999) describes the influence of feminism on this reform movement. James Gordon Burrow, Organized Medicine in the Progressive Era: The Move Toward Monopoly (1977) recounts the rise of power of orthodox physicians and the American Medical Association and its campaign to eliminate other healing arts. David J. Pivar, Purity Crusade: Sexual Morality and Social Control, 18681900 (1973) and Purity and Hygiene: Women, Prostitution, and the "American Plan," 1900-1930 (2002) details the social purity movement and its many subcrusades. Likewise, Mark Thomas Connelly, The Response to Prostitution in the Progressive Era (1980) and Ruth Rosen, The Lost Sisterhood: Prostitution in America, 1900-1918 (1982) discuss the debate concerning control or abatement of prostitution. Donald K. Pickens, Eugenics and the Progressives (1968) gives information about the formation and power of the eugenics movement in passing progressive legislation to eliminate the "unfit" as a social health-reform measure. The eugenics movement is also de-
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tailed in Mark H. Haller, Eugenics: Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought (1963) and Daniel J. Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics (1985). Michael E. Teller details the rise of the tuberculosis movement and the formation of the National Tuberculosis Association in The Tuberculosis Movement: A Public Health Campaign in the Progressive Era (1988). Barbara Bates also describes this important movement in Eargaining for Life: A Social History of Tuberculosis, 1876-1938 (1992). Alfred W. Crosby, Epidemic and Peace, 1918 (1976) recounts the devastating pandemic during World War I. James H. Timberlake, Prohibition and the Progressive Movement, 19001920 (1963) details the many complexities of the temperance and prohibition movements. Accounts of the temperance movement over a broader period are chronicled in Joseph R. Gusfield, Symbolic Crusade: Status Politics and the American Temperance Movement (1986) and Jack Blocker, American Temperance Movements: Cycles of Reform (1989). David Musto, The American Disease: Origins of Narcotic Control ([1973] 1987) discusses the antidrug campaign over the era. Some scholars have examined health-reform crusades before, during, and after the Progressive era. These include John C. Burnham, Ead Habits: Drinking, Smoking, Taking Drugs, Gambling, Sexual Misbehavior, and Swearing in American History (1993); Harvey Green, Fit for America (1986),which details the fitness, personal hygiene, and diet movement; and James C. Whorton, Crusaders for Fitness: The History of American Health Reformers (1982). John Duffy, The Sanitarians: A History of American Public Health (1992) details the public health movement. Ruth Clifford Engs, Clean Living Movements: American Cycles of Health Reform (2000) discusses the Progressive era health-reform movement as part of a recurring cycle. These selected sources are a few of the secondary sources used to compile the dictionary. BACKGROUND INFORMATION CONCERNING THE PROGRESSIVE ERA'S CLEAN LIVING MOVEMENT Sociologists Ralph H. Turner and Lewis M. Killian (1957, 333), in Collective Eehavior, have suggested that all social movements "have two broad directions in which the program and ideology may point. They may point toward changing individuals directly or toward changing social institutions'9 (italics added). These authors, in addition, have contended that the circumstances under which a movement sets about to convert masses of people to something, which may or may not attempt to change social institutions, are not well understood. Within the Progressive era's Clean Living Movement, some crusades were aimed at individual reform, some at societal
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reform, and some at both. Most were considered moral issues. Several health-reform crusades resulted in changes in public policy. These included the pure food and drug, narcotics control, antiprostitution, and prohibition movements. On the other hand, diet, exercise, and a single standard of chastity for both men and women were aimed at change in individuals and did not result in public policy. Health-reform crusades have served to "popularize" a perceived health problem. "Health," for the purpose of this dictionary, includes physical, mental, social, or spiritual concerns that affect the wellbeing of an individual or society. At any given period of time, a few individuals have usually been distressed about any given health issue. However, not until the educated public perceives a problem does a movement emerge. John C. Burnham (1984, 190-191) has suggested that the most important institutions for popularizing health have been schools and the press. The media first discusses the issue with the public, which traditionally has been the middle class. When the middle class becomes concerned, the reform phase emerges. Education of schoolchildren and the public to change behaviors then follows. During the surge phase of a health-reform movement, activists have sometimes had an exhilarating sense that society has finally awakened to the issue more so than at any time in history and/ or that profound changes will finally occur, often in hyperbolic fashion. This feeling was common in the Progressive era. For example, Luther Gulick, a physical educator, in an article, "The High Tide of Physical Conscience," in the June 1908 World's Work, noted that the nation was amidst a "physical well-being" movement and that "interest runs higher in this direction than ever before in the history of our civilization." Many health-reform crusades of the Progressive era were singleissue campaigns. An individual or small group of individuals became concerned with a particular health problem. He or she then formed, or became a leader in, a group to champion the cause. This process generally started at the local level. If enough support was forthcoming, the crusade then became a statewide or even a national concern. In some cases an organization embraced many issues. Besides alcohol, Francis Willard, the leader of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), was also concerned with woman suffrage, sexual purity, tobacco, diet, drugs, eugenics, physical activity, and other health reforms. Some movements during this era embraced submovements that focused upon different aspects of an overall health issue. For example, the temperance movement included both the antisaloon and the prohibition movement. The public-health movement incorporated the sanitation, preventive medicine, tuberculosis, and social hygiene movements. A few movements interwove
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or overlapped one another through their leaders. Willard, David Starr Jordan, Charles Eliot, John Harvey Kellogg, S. Adolphus Knopf, and Irving Fisher, in particular, were involved with or leaders of several crusades and movements. Health campaigns often influenced each other in terms of rhetoric, activities, and specific issues. Some perceived health or social problems during the Progressive era were viewed as being associated with each other. The "racial poisons" of alcohol, tobacco, and venereal disease were seen as being connected to the problem of the saloon, alcoholism, crime, poverty, prostitution, and tuberculosis. This perceived association was a major factor in a crusade to close saloons and eliminate alcohol from society. Prostitutes were often viewed as "feebleminded," which led some reformers to advocate segregating these women in state institutions during their childbearing years to prevent venereal disease, prostitution, and "racial degeneracy." Nativism (protraditional, rural, Protestant values) and eugenics (methods for improving human heredity) were underlying factors in some Progressive era health-reform movements. Nativeborn, white Protestant Americans blamed immigrants for disease, crime, pauperism, and other social problems. There was a belief that drunkenness, tuberculosis, and poverty could be passed down to succeeding generations, leading to more poverty and disease among these "undesirables" due to inheritance of acquired genetic characteristics (Lamarckian theory). The desire for healthy offspring and for keeping the "race from being polluted" was a major factor in eugenic reforms. Eugenic anxiety, along with nativism, fostered immigration restrictions and sterilization of criminals, the mentally disabled, and the so-called insane. "Racial improvement" through positive eugenics, such as marriage to a healthy individual, blood tests for syphilis prior to marriage, along with physical exercise and a proper diet were promoted for improving the "race," thus leading to a healthier nation. TERMINOLOGY AND EXPLANATION OF CONTENT This dictionary provides information concerning the most important phenomena that were important to health-reform agitation in the years leading up to the Progressive era and into the 1920s. Although its focus is on 1890 to 1920, reforms that started in the 1880s or that peaked before 1930 have been included. This is because agitation for these health-reforms issues, which led to Progressive legislation, began or ended outside the classic years of the Progressive era. Some terms used in this dictionary and by reformers require explanation. A crusade generally but not always focuses on one is-
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sue and a movement encompasses several crusades or submovements. The Progressive era's Clean Living Movement, by definition in this dictionary, included all crusades and movements related to health in the period from 1880 to the mid 1920s. Movements within the overall surge for health reform embraced subcrusades. For example, the pure food and drug movement encompassed the patent medicine crusade and the campaign against adulterated or unclean foods, meat, and beverages. Some reformers interchangeably used the term crusade and movement regarding agitation for or against a particular issue. The purity movement, sometimes called the "social purity crusade," included the antiobscenity movement in addition to crusades focused on a single standard of sexuality, age of consent, mothers' meetings, child-rearing practices, and antiprostitution. Moreover, reformers sometimes self-described a single-issue campaign as a movement (e.g., the antisaloon and physical education movements). Words and phrases commonly used during the era are used in this dictionary. Some terms that are considered important concepts to a health-reform crusade, such as Fletcherism and muckrakers, are included as entries. Many common words or phrases of the period have fallen out of general use or are not considered "politically correct" today. However, they often give subtle insight into prevalent attitudes or beliefs of the era. For example, feebleminded was a catchall phrase for anyone who had a mental disability or exhibited asocial behaviors. This could have included free-spirited women who engaged in multiple sexual partners. Race generally referred to the human race, but it also referred to what today would be considered national or ethnic identities. Germans, Irish, Italians, and other national groups were considered biologically different races with particular characteristics. Race in some contexts referred to those from Anglo-Saxon or northern European ancestry. Race was also used in phrases such as Negro race, Chinese race, or even her race, referring to gender. An attempt has been made to include major health-reform issues and health reformers of the era, but space constraints preclude entries for all crusades or crusaders. However, health reformers important to the era but now largely forgotten, such as Lucy Page Gaston, the driving force behind the antismoking movement, have been included. At first glance, some entries may not appear to have a connection to health reform, but, in fact, were intimately linked with several issues. For example, the immigration-restriction movement, along with nativism, interwove with the antisaloon, prohibition, antiprostitution, antiobscenity, and eugenics movements. Some reformers discussed in this dictionary are readily found in other works; however, their leadership or involvement in health-reform issues has either been scantily addressed or ignored. This has been par-
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ticularly true of reform issues that in the latter half of the twentieth century were seen as controversial or embarrassing, such as eugenics. Because family background and ancestry were very important to many reformers of the era, this information has been included in biographical entries. In biographies from the turn of the century through the 1930s and in autobiographical writings, detailed descriptions of family pedigree are generally found. Some scholars argue that this pride became reflected in nativistic and eugenic beliefs that emerged in endeavors to control the drinking, drug use, or sexual behaviors of unruly immigrants, minorities, or the genetically "unfit." Likewise, religion was important. Some scholars speculate that spiritual fervor often drove individuals to health reforms as an adjunct of religious beliefs. Most health reformers were members of mainstream or evangelical religions and came from middle-class families with a tradition of public service. Many health reformers, and even reform movements, had their nexus in New York City. This was particularly true of issues that involved diseases and health conditions related to urbanization and immigration. Temperance and prohibition erupted out of more rural regions.
THE STRUCTURE OF THE ENTRIES The structure of the entries was modeled after John D. Buenker and Edward R. Kantowicz, Historical Dictionary of the Progressive Era, 1890-1920 (1988). Each entry begins with a sentence or two describing its place, or importance, in the Progressive era's healthreform movement. For reformers, their ancestry, childhood conditions, education, religion, and career are then briefly sketched. The rest of the entry discusses the importance of the individual to the era and his or her accomplishments. For subject entries, history, importance, function, manifestations, and influences are included. For all topics, if available, articles and books detailing the issue from the era, in addition to modern sources, are given to help the reader explore the topic more fully. Abbreviations for biographical dictionaries are at the end. Volume, year, and page numbers are listed. A list explaining these abbreviations is presented immediately before the beginning of the entries. In some cases little information was found in modern literature and the only sources were from the era. Cross references denoted by an asterisk (*) have been included in each entry so the reader can explore the links between the various issues in the dictionary. The lengths of entries vary, depending on their deemed importance. At the end of the dictionary is a chronology that contains many of the dictionary's entries. Finally, there is a general index.
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REFERENCES Bates, Barbara. (1992). Bargaining for Life: A Social History of Tuberculosis, 1876-1938. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Blocker, Jack S., Jr. (1989). American Temperance Movements: Cycles of Reform. Boston: Twayne. Buenker, John D. (1973). Urban Liberalism and Progressive Reform. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Buenker, John D., and Kantowicz, Edward R. (1988). Historical Dictionary of the Progressive Era, 1890-1920. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. Burnham, John C. (1993). Bad Habits: Drinking, Smoking, Taking Drugs, Gambling, Sexual Misbehavior, and Swearing in American History. New York: New York University Press. . (1984). Change in the Popularization of Health in the United States. Bulletin of the History of Medicine 58 (1984): 183-197. Burrow, James Gordon. (1977). Organized Medicine in the Progressive Era: The Move Toward Monopoly. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press. Carpenter, Joel A. (1988). The Fundamentalist-Modernist Conflict: Opposing Views on Three Major Issues. New York: Garland. Colburn, David R., and Pozzetta, George E. (1983). Reform and Reformers in the Progressive Era. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. Connelly, Mark Thomas. (1980). The Response to Prostitution in the Progressive Era. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Crosby, Alfred W. (1976). Epidemic and Peace, 1918. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. DeWitt, Benjamin Parke. (1915, 1968). The Progressive Movement New York: Macmillan. Duffy, John. (1992). The Sanitarians. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Duncan-Clark, Samuel John. (1913, 1972). The Progressive Movement: Its Principles and Its Programme. New York: AMS Press. Eisenach, Eldon J. (1994). The Last Promise of Progressivism. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press. Ekirch, Arthur A. (1974). Progressivism in America: A Study of the Era from Theodore Roosevelt to Woodrow Wilson. New York: New Viewpoints. Engs, Ruth Clifford. (2000). Clean Living Movements: American Cycles of Health Reform. Westport, Conn.: Praeger. Flower, B.O. (1914, 1975). Progressive Men, Women, and Movements of the Past Twenty-Five Years. Westport, Conn.: Hyperion. Goodwin, Lorine Swainston. (1999). The Pure Food, Drink, and Drug Crusaders, 1879-1914. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland. Gould, Lewis L., ed. (1974). The Progressive Era. Syracuse, N.Y: Syracuse University Press. Green, Harvey. (1986). Fit for America. New York: Pantheon Books. Gulick, Luther H. (1908). "The High Tide of Physical Conscience." World's Work 16 (1908): 10383-10386. Gusfield, Joseph R. (1986). Symbolic Crusade: Status Politics and the American Temperance Movement. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
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Haller, Mark H. (1963). Eugenics: Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press. Hofstadter, Richard. (1955,1959). The Age of Reform: From Bryan to F.D.R. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. . (1944, 1959). Social Darwinism in American Thought. New York: George Braziller. Hofstadter, Richard, ed. (1963, 1986). The Progressive Movement: 19001915. New York: Simon and Schuster. Kevles, Daniel J. (1985). In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Mann, Arthur, ed. (1963). The Progressive Era: Liberal Renaissance or Liberal Failure? New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. McLoughlin, William G. (1978). Revivals, Awakenings, and Reform: An Essay on Religion and Social Change in America, 1607-1977. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Mowry, George E. (1972). The Progressive Era, 1900-1920: The Reform Persuasion. Washington, D.C.: American Historical Association. Musto, David. (1973, 1987). The American Disease: Origins of Narcotic Control. New York: Oxford University Press. Pickens, Donald. (1968). Eugenics and the Progressives. Nashville, Tenn.: Vanderbilt University Press. Pivar, David J. (1973). Purity Crusade: Sexual Morality and Social Control, 1868-1900. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. . (2002). Purity and Hygiene: Women, Prostitution, and the "American Plan," 1900-1930. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. Rosen, Ruth. (1982). The Lost Sisterhood: Prostitution in America, 19001918. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press. Teller, Michael E. (1988). The Tuberculosis Movement: A Public Health Campaign in the Progressive Era. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. Temin, Peter. (1980). Taking Your Medicine: Drug Regulation in the United States. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Timberlake, James H. (1963). Prohibition and the Progressive Movement, 1900-1920. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Turner, Ralph H., and Lewis M. Killian. (1957). Collective Behavior. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. Whorton, James C. (1982). Crusaders for Fitness: The History of American Health Reformers. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Young, James Harvey. (1989). Pure Food: Securing the Federal Food and Drugs Act of 1906. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Acknowledgments This dictionary could not have been accomplished without a host of individuals and institutions that provided material, time, and effort. Most of the material for this work was found within the immense Indiana University library system. This included the Special Collections Section of the Medical School Library in Indianapolis and the Lilly Library in Bloomington, Indiana. Many useful items were also found in the Kinsey Institute Library and in the vast holdings of the Main Library, also located in Bloomington. Librarians who have been most helpful include Ada Pennington and Patricia Vahey of the School of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation; and Ann Bristow and her staff from the reference department, including Mark Day, David Frasier, Anne Graham, Anne Haynes, Jian Liu, Frank Quinn, Gabriel Swift, Celestina Wroth, Tom Glastras, Dave Gonsoroski, Aaron Wyckoff, and Matt Dilworth. Patricia Steele and Randy Lent and their staff at the circulation department, including John Pate, Janice Clinch, Keith Welch, and Dustin Lewen, were also very helpful. I am indebted to Rita Rogers and Ron Luedemann of the interlibrary loan department for finding obscure material. I would also like to thank Diana Hanson from the microfilm department and librarians Anne Haines and Rita Barsun for providing "snacks" and emotional support. I am appreciative of the information supplied by the librarians and Web sites of the Westerville, Ohio, temperance collection, the Cold Spring Harbor, New York, eugenics collection, and the Albany, New York, historical library's collections. I would also like to thank the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, and Recreation, the American School Health Association, the American Lung Association, and the YMCA for material. I am most grateful for the review of the entire manuscript by Eugene Weinberg
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and James C. Whorton. Special thanks to David J. Hanson, David J. Pivar, and Damon Freeman for their detailed review and most useful suggestions concerning certain subject areas of the dictionary. The help of Robert W. Baird and "Aunt Bridged," who critiqued details of the manuscript, was most beneficial. The main "footwork" for this dictionary was done by my many student assistants, who spent countless hours attempting to hunt down materials, copy sources, and other tasks. These have included Ronald C. A. Glass, Eric D. Nichols, Carolina Maria Guzman-Glass, and Jennifer E. Susoreny, who spent numerous hours on this project. Also Rebecca Naegle Nichols, Jenica Weiss Schultz, Ericka D. Ligon, Sherry A. Williams, Steven E. Porter, Doris Jean Burton, and Katharine M. Graf were most helpful. I would also like to thank my academic unit, the Department of Applied Health Science, for funding in support of this project and for granting me a year's sabbatical for its completion. Thanks are also due to Cynthia Harris, my editor at Greenwood Press. I am especially indebted to Jeffrey Graf, who not only critiqued the entire manuscript, but who also compiled the chronology and patiently listened to detailed descriptions of my latest findings for the work. Last but not least, I would like to thank my husband, Jeff Franz, for his help and constant support.
Abbreviations The following is a list of abbreviations for standard biographical references and newspapers AA AMS ANB AR ASL BiCAW BiDSocW BioMem CA CoAG CurBio DAA DAB DAMB DARB DATB DSB EncAB ESR NatCAB No AW NYT
American Authors 1600-1900 American Men of Science: A Biographical Dictionary American National Biography American Reformers American Social Leaders Biographical Cyclopaedia of American Women Biographical Dictionary of Social Welfare Biographical Memoirs Contemporary Authors: New Revision Series Cyclopedia of American Government Current Biography Dictionary of American Authors Dictionary of American Biography Dictionary of American Medical Biography Dictionary of American Religious Biography (2d ed.) Dictionary of American Temperance Biography Dictionary of Scientific Biography Encyclopedia of American Biography Encyclopedia of Social Reform National Cyclopedia of American Biography Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary New York Times
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PIH SEAP TCDNA WhAm WhNAA WhW WWWA
Abbreviations People in History Standard Encyclopedia of the Alcohol Problem Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans Who Was Who in America Who Was Who Among North American Authors, 1921-1939 Who's Who in the West Woman's Who's Who of America, 1914-1915
A acquired characteristics, inheritance of Lamarckian theory, proposed by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829) in the early nineteenth century, suggested the inheritability of "acquired characters." These environmentally spawned characteristics ranged from athletic ability to pauperism.* This theory was widely accepted throughout the nineteenth century and into the first decade of the twentieth century. In the late 1880s and early 1890s, August Weismann (18341914), a German biologist, theorized that acquired characteristics were not inherited and that genetic material, what he called "germ plasm," passed from generation to generation unaltered. However, because this theory ran counter to accepted thought, most educated individuals rejected it outright. In 1900 the mid-nineteenth-century work of Gregor Mendel (1822-1884), who observed what became known as the Mendelian Theory of Inheritance,* was rediscovered. This rediscovery supported Weismann. By the end of the first decade of the century, the acceptance of acquired characteristics, such as a child being born with a scar on his face if the father was scarred, was rejected. But many scientists still accepted the notion into the late 1920s that damage to "germ cells"—ovum and sperm—could be caused by certain environmental factors. Racial poisons* such as tobacco,* alcohol,* venereal diseases,* and other items were thought to directly damage this genetic material, which in turn could be passed down to offspring and lead to race degeneracy.* References: Haller, Mark H., Eugenics: Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought (1963); Kevles, Daniel J., In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity (1985); Pickens, Donald, Eugenics and the Progressives (1968).
adulterated food
2
adulterated food Unlabeled additives to foods and beverages, or items sold as being something else, were considered adulterated foods in the Progressive era. Common foods that were "fraudulently prepared" included butter, wine, beer,* coffee, honey, flour, and canned meat. About 10 percent of additives were harmful to health. The pure food and drug movement* that emerged in the late 1880s strove for honest labeling of food products. Oleomargine was often sold as butter or mixed with it, alum was mixed with flour, corn syrup was added to honey and chicory to coffee. Many items were not actually what they portrayed; for example, "imported Russian sturgeon caviare" was actually from local fish, and "pure imported olive oil" was domestic cottonseed oil. After passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906,* all products were required by law to be accurately labeled. In addition, the new law declared a food adulterated or unfit for consumption if it was mixed or packed with another substance so as to reduce its quality; if it had been colored, powdered, coated, or stained to conceal damage or inferiority; if poisonous substances had been added; or if it contained putrid or decomposed material or was a product of a diseased animal. References: "How our common foods are adulterated," The World's Work 7 (January 1904), 43774378; Goodwin, Lorine Swainston, The Pure Food, Drink, and Drug Crusaders, 1897-1914 (1999); Young, James Harvey, Pure Food: Securing the Federal Food and Drugs Act of 1906 (1989). African Americans Native-born Americans with sub-Saharan African ancestry were generally referred to as "Negroes" or "colored" in the Progressive era. Most African Americans at this time lived in the South and were either former slaves or descendants of slaves. Most worked as farmers, laborers, or domestic servants. In many ways they were socially "invisible" or ignored unless a health or social problem threatened to spill out of their community into the dominant AngloAmerican* culture. Blacks who lived in urban areas worked as maids, servants, and low-paid laborers. At the turn of the twentieth century more than 80 percent of blacks lived in southern rural areas. However, during the first two decades of the century many African Americans migrated to the cities for better job opportunities. Statistics of the era reflected poor living and health conditions, especially for blacks in urban areas. In 1900 the major killers of African Americans were tuberculosis,* pneumonia, neural diseases, diarrhea, and heart disease. The death rate in 1890 from tuberculosis for non-whites in New York city was twice that of whites. In 1900 the death rate from tuberculosis among blacks was 485 per 100,000 compared to 173 for whites. W.E.B. Du Bois,* a black sociologist, reported in The Philadelphia Negro (1899) that few blacks
3
age of consent
in the city had access to toilets and that 30 percent of black families lacked "elementary accommodations necessary to health and decency." Back alleys were used for sanitary purposes, which in turn led to unsanitary conditions and the spread of infectious diseases.* Overall, health was better among blacks living in rural settings and similar to whites. Eugenicists concluded that northern urban life was detrimental to blacks because they were "unfit racially to flourish above the latitude of Mason and Dixon's line" and needed access to the sun and "wide spaces under the vault of heaven." Lack of vitamin D from little sunlight was found to cause rickets among 90 percent of children in northern urban areas. A factor in nativist* antipathy toward African Americans was fear of disease and social problems emanating from their communities. Two diseases likely brought to the South by African slaves were malaria and hookworm,* which thrived in the warm climate. Cocaine use among blacks was portrayed by muckraking* journalists as inciting brutal crime and rape of white women. These largely untrue stories helped facilitate passage of the Harrison Narcotics Act* of 1914 in an effort to curtail illicit drug use among blacks. Likewise, in some southern states prohibition* forces linked the consumption of alcohol to this type of crime* among blacks as a reason to pass antialcohol laws. During the Progressive era, however, reformers, including black educator Booker T. Washington,* pushed for better education, including instruction in personal hygiene* in efforts to improve health conditions among the black population. Due to increases in social and educational advantages in the latter decades of the twentieth century, many African Americans over the course of the century became part of America's middle-class. As their socioeconomic status increased, so did their health status. References: Du Bois, W.E.B., The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study{1899), The Health and Physique of the Negro American (1906); Jones, Eugene Kinckle, "The Negro's struggle for health," National Conference of Social Work (October 1923), 68-72; Ross, Mary, "The health hazards of beingaNegro," The Survey 50 (September 15,1923), 617-619; Musto, David F., The American Disease: Origins of Narcotic Control (1987); Taylor, J. Madison, "The Negro and his health problems," Medical Record (September 21, 1912); Willcox, Walter F., "Census statistics of the Negro," Yale Review 13 (November 1904), 274-286. age of consent The legal age at which a girl could consent to "carnal relations with the other sex" was termed age of consent. For girls under this designated age, any sexual activity was legally considered rape. The age of consent also included activities such as "seduction, abduction for immoral purposes, and procuring." Until
age of consent
4
1885, under common law, the age of consent was ten in over half the states; in Delaware it was seven. Raising the legal age for sexual activities was a major facet of the purity movement.* Age of consent agitation was intended to provide for time in a child's life to be a child. Interwoven with this movement were concerns about child labor laws, child-rearing practices, and play and recreation for children. The successful outcome in changing laws was achieved through a public campaign of political action and pressure politics. American age-of-consent laws gained attention in 1885 when a sensational British report by William Stead on forced prostitution resulted in the age of consent being raised in that country. Reformers in the United States realized that the relatively low age for sexual consent found in most states was a persistent threat to morality and purity.* This awareness led to the New York Committee for the Prevention of State Regulation of Vice,* under the leadership of Aaron Powell,* initiating a petition campaign on both the state and federal levels to raise the age. White Cross Societies* also took up the cause, as did the Woman's Christian Temperance Union* (WCTU). The union, in particular, was most influential in the crusade to change existing laws. In 1886 the WCTU organized the Department of Work for the Promotion of Purity. In 1887 the organization published an expose of young girls forced into prostitution* in Michigan lumber camps and called members to action. Under the guidance of Frances Willard,* WCTU representatives in each state, federal territory, or district, petitioned their legislators to secure laws for the protection of young girls. They received support from churches and began a letter-writing campaign. As a result of this public pressure, many states between 1887 and 1893 raised their age of consent from ten to at least fourteen years of age; Congress in 1889 passed legislation raising the age from ten to sixteen years in Washington, D.C. In 1894, when some states threatened to decrease their age of consent, Powell, now leader of the National Purity Alliance, regrouped purity forces for a renewed campaign. Articles in the WCTU's Union Signal* helped mobilize women for a rekindled effort. In addition, Arena,* under the editorship of B. O. Flower,* strove to educate the public in a series of articles, broadening the base of support for the campaign. By 1900, thirty-two states had raised the age of consent to sixteen or eighteen. It was noted in 1895 that the two states, Wyoming and Kansas, where woman suffrage* had also been enacted had the highest age of consent, eighteen. Age-of-consent agitation spanned more than fifteen years and initiated a mass public debate on sexuality issues. It influenced the social hygiene movement* and the campaign for sex education.* It interwove with crusades to eliminate a perceived double standard in sexuality, to outlaw prostitu-
5
alcoholism
tion, and to eradicate venereal diseases.* References: Flower, B. O., "The shame of America—The age of consent laws in the United States," Arena 11 (January 1895), 192-215; "Some causes of present day immorality and suggestions as to practical remedies," in Powell, Aaron Macy, The National Purity Congress, 1896 (1976), 311-312; Hirshman, Linda R., and Larson, Jane E., Hard Bargains: The Politics of Sex (1998); Pivar, David J., Purity Crusade: Sexual Morality and Social Control, 1868-1900 (1973); Purity and Hygiene: Women, Prostitution, and the "American Plan" (2002). alcohol Beverage alcohol has been used by most cultures throughout history in one form or another. Distilled spirits, beer,* wine, mead, and cider were the most common forms in the United States. Drinking preferences, attitudes, and behaviors accompanied immigrant* groups when they entered the new world. Alcohol consumption reached a maximum of 7.1 gallons per person per year of absolute alcohol in 1830. Afterward, its use fell precipitously. Production and use rose again after the Civil War and more or less leveled off until the end of the century, when it fluctuated between 1 and 1.5 gallons per person per year. After 1900, per-capita consumption increased to about 2.6 gallons per person until 1910, then began to decline, as a result of state and local-option prohibition before passage of the Eighteenth Amendment.* Temperance reformers* viewed distilled spirits* in particular as the root of most health and social problems, including crime,* prostitution,* poverty,* tuberculosis,* venereal diseases,* and family and race degeneration.* When the anti-saloon movement* evolved into a prohibition movement,* all alcoholic beverages were demonized and branded as evil. References: Blocker, Jack S., Jr., American Temperance Movements: Cycles of Reform (1989); Engs, Ruth Clifford, Clean Living Movements: American Cycles of Health Reform (2000); Levine, Harry Gene, "The alcohol problem in America: From temperance to alcoholism," British Journal of Addiction 79 (1984), 109-119; Rorabaugh, William J., The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition (1979); "Estimated U.S. alcoholic beverage consumption, 1790-1860," Journal of Studies on Alcohol 37 (March 1976), 360-361. alcoholism By the turn of the twentieth century, chronic use of alcohol was considered a disease. Alcoholism was regarded as an inherited condition transmitted from one generation to the next. Health and social reformers viewed it as the root cause of crime,* insanity, pauperism and poverty,* prostitution,* race degeneracy,* venereal diseases,* and most other societal problems. Reformers argued that if alcohol* and the saloons* could be eliminated once and for all,
American Association for the Advancement of Science
6
most of society's problems would disappear. References: "Inebriety— a disease," Harper's Weekly41 (November 1897), 1160; "How to deal with the liquor traffic: A symposium," Arena 9 (May 1899), 827844; Mines, John Flavel, "Drunkenness is curable," North American Review 153 (October 1891), 442-449. American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) (1848-present) The AAAS was founded in 1848 as an American professional association representing all fields of science. A significant organization of the Progressive era, it actively promoted public health reform. Its objectives included facilitating cooperation and communication among scientists and improving the effectiveness of science in promoting human welfare. The AAAS took the position that many health problems of society could be conquered through science. This powerful scientific group claimed members who were leaders of numerous health-reform movements: eugenics,* public health,* diet and nutrition,* temperance,* pure food and drug,* physical education,* social hygiene,* and others. Leading health reformers who were members of the association included Irving Fisher,* Eugene Fisk,* Horace Fletcher,* David Starr Jordan,* Russell Chittenden,* and William Snow.* At the dawn of the Progressive era, the magazine Science was established by a New York journalist. It was then sold to inventor Alexander Graham Bell* and his wealthy father-in-law in 1882. When it continued to struggle, Bell sold it in 1894 to James McKeen Cattell (1860-1944), a Columbia University psychology professor. Cattell marshaled the publication to success, and in 1900 it became the official organ of the AAAS. Cattell became the dominant figure in the AAAS and under his independent editorship Science became a prestigious forum for all aspects of science, including health and medicine. The primary role of the society in terms of health reform was its leadership in the public health movement,* which was reported in the journal. In 1907 Fisher, who was involved with many health issues, was appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt* to address issues of "health conservation." That same year the AAAS officially organized the Committee of One Hundred for National Health,* with Fisher as chair, to push toward a national health department. Although the AAAS and its committee were unsuccessful in bringing about a national department of health, largely due to political factors, their agitation led to the expansion of the Marine Hospital Services, which was subsequently renamed the U.S. Public Health Service.* The AAAS and Science continue today as premier scholarly entities. References: Hirshbein, Laura Davidow, "Irving Fisher and the Life Extension Institute, 1914-31," Canadian
7
American Birth Control League
Bulletin of Medical History 16 (January 1999), 89-124; Kohlstedt, Sally Gregory, Sokal, Michael M., and Lewenstein, Bruce V., The Establishment of Science in America: 150 Years of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1999). American Birth Control League (ABCL) (1921-1939; Planned Parenthood Federation of America, 1942-present)This national organization was the main educational and lobbying body of the birth-control movement. The American Brith Control League had links with the eugenics,* immigration restriction,* and social hygiene* movements. In December 1916 Margaret Sanger,* principal leader of the birthcontrol movement,* formed the Birth Control League of New York in the wake of her October arrest for opening the Brownsville Clinic, the nation's first birth-control clinic, to raise funds for her legal defense. The following year the Birth Control Review* was founded. A desire for a national organization led Sanger and her supporters to organize a league embodying a broad-based platform of education, research, and legislative reform. The efforts were in direct competition with Mary Ware Dennett's* Voluntary Parenthood League, which in 1918 emerged from the National Birth Control League, organized by Dennett while Sanger was in Europe. On November 10, 1921, on the eve of the First American Birth Control Conference,* held in New York city and organized by Sanger, she announced the formation of the ABCL. The league's stated aims were "to enlighten and educate all sections of the American public in the various aspects of the dangers of uncontrolled procreation and the imperative necessity of a world program of Birth Control." Much of the staff and board of directors of the newly formed league had been involved with the Review, which in 1923 became the league's official journal. In 1923 the first legal birth-control clinic in the nation, the Clinical Research Bureau,* was opened under the league's auspices. By 1926 the league's membership exceeded 37,000. It operated with the support of a national council composed of physicians, scientists, and prominent New York society women. Board members included Clarence C. Little,* Adolf Meyer,* Lothrop Stoddard,* Hannah M. Stone,* and Lydia De Vilbiss (b. 1882), an organizer of the better babies campaign.* The league was largely funded by Sanger's husband, James Noah Henry Slee (1860-1943), heir of the Three-in-One Oil Company. The typical member of the ABCL was a mainline Protestant,* Anglo-American,* upper-middle-class, married, educated woman who had fewer than three children. Under Sanger in the 1920s, the league focused on disseminating birth-control information to professionals and targeted women. It fostered the development of state and local birth-control leagues and
American Breeders Association
8
clinics and lobbied at the state and national level for birth-control legislation. It also organized conferences and public meetings on birth control, including the Sixth International Neo-Malthusian/Birth Control Conference in 1925. Sanger led the league until June 12, 1928, when clashes with the board forced her to resign. The following year Slee terminated his financial support of the league. Without Sanger's notoriety and Slee's money, the league lost its stature in the 1930s. After her resignation, Sanger assumed full control of the Clinical Research Bureau, renaming it the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau,* and severed all legal ties with the league. In 1937 the Birth Control Council of America was founded. It focused on coordinating the league's work and Sanger's bureau. In 1939 the two organizations merged under the presidency of a medical doctor to form the Birth Control Federation of America, which in 1942 changed its name to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Well into the early twenty-first century, this organization has proven to be a major community force in reproductive health services. Similar to the earlier organizations, Planned Parenthood was embroiled in controversies in the late twentieth century when some clinics began to offer pregnancy-termination services in addition to reproductive and venereal disease* treatment and education, health examinations, and birth control. References: "The American Birth Control League," (viewed October 22, 2001); "The American Birth Control League," Birth Control Review 5 (December 1921), 18; Chesler, Ellen, Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America (1992); Kennedy, David M., Birth Control in America: The Career of Margaret Sanger (1970); Reed, W. James, From Private Vice to Public Virtue: The Birth Control Movement and American Society since 1830 (1978). American Breeders Association (1903-1913; American Genetics Association, 1914-present)Created during the first decade of the twentieth century, the American Breeders' Association (ABA) was the first professional society focused on the scientific study of heredity in the United States. Its eugenics committee influenced the burgeoning eugenics movement. The ABA was founded December 29, 1903, as a spinoff of the Association of American Agriculture Colleges, meeting in St. Louis. The aim of the new organization was to further the practical side of heredity, based upon newly rediscovered scientific study on Mendelian inheritance.* The Committee on Eugenics was formed in 1906 at the association's second meeting to "investigate and report on heredity in the human race." Many pioneering personalities in the eugenics movement* were members of
9
American Breeders Association Eugenics Section
this committee. The committee was upgraded to the American Breeders Association Eugenics Section* in 1910. Reflecting the fact that many members were not livestock breeders and reflecting the growth of eugenics, the association voted November 15,1913, at a meeting in Washington, D.C., to change its name to the American Genetics Association, and its journal became the Journal of Heredity Paul Popenoe,* who later became involved with the Human Betterment Foundation,* was editor. Research into the inheritability of certain human behaviors, such as pauperism,* "wanderlust," and crime,* began to be investigated and published in the journal. However, these complex behaviors were not found to be the result of simple Mendelian inheritance principles. In fact, the research results began to weaken the very underpinnings of the eugenics movement. By the 1930s the association and its journal shifted away from eugenics to genetic research. Today it is still involved with genetic research. References: American Breeders Magazine 1— 4, 1910-1914; Haller, Mark H., Eugenics: Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought (1963); Kevles, Daniel J., In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity (1985); Paul, Diane B., Controlling Human Heredity, 1865 to the Present (1995); Pickens, Donald, Eugenics and the Progressives (1968); Reilly, Philip R., The Surgical Solution: A History of Involuntary Sterilization in the United States (1991). American Breeders Association Eugenics Section (1910-c. 1939) This section of the American Breeders Association* greatly influenced the direction of the eugenics movement. The eugenics section had overlapping membership with many eugenic and nativist groups and was the administrative board of the Eugenics Record Office (ERO).* The American Breeders Association Eugenics Section emerged out of its eugenics committee, formed in 1906. The committee was upgraded to a section in 1910. David Starr Jordan* was its chairman and Charles B. Davenport* its secretary. Other influential members included Alexander Graham Bell,* Luther Burbank,* Roswell H. Johnson,* Charles R. Henderson (1848-1915), a social reformer; William E. Castle (1878-1963), a Harvard University geneticist; and Vernon Kellogg, a Stanford University biologist. The section's stated purpose was improvement of the "race" by "a better selection of marriage mates and the control of the reproduction of the defective classes." It recommended eugenical laws,* including segregation and sterilization of the "weak and criminals." The section was also the governing board of Davenport's newly endowed Eugenic Record Office.* In conjunction with the ERO, the
American Eugenics Society
10
section sought and obtained records of family characteristics believed to be inherited, including health, ability, and temperament. The eugenics section also advocated eugenic measures to eliminate racial poisons.* It admonished educated men to avoid venereal diseases,* alcohol,* and other agencies that "decreased their value as parents" and supported "licensing only the fit to marry." The Eugenics Section appointed subcommittees comprised of respected individuals to investigate disabilities thought to be inherited. These included the feeble-minded, insanity, criminality, deaf mutism, inherited epilepsy, and immigration committees. Due to new scientific discoveries regarding genetics, by the late 1920s environmental influences were seen as a major player in human behavior. In response to the research, the ABA shifted to genetic investigations in the 1930s and by 1939 the eugenics section had lost influence. References: American Breeders Magazine 1-4, 1910-1914; Haller, Mark H., Eugenics: Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought (1963); Kevles, Daniel J., In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity (1985); Paul, Diane B., Controlling Human Heredity, 1865 to the Present (1995); Pickens, Donald, Eugenics and the Progressives (1968); Reilly, Philip R., The Surgical Solution: A History of Involuntary Sterilization in the United States (1991). American Eugenics Society (AES) (1922-1972; Society for the Study of Social Biology, 1973-present)The American Eugenics Society was a highly respected organization in the 1920s and early 1930s. During its most influential tenure, notable scientists, health reformers, and wealthy individuals were actively involved with the group. The society was founded to educate the American public about eugenics, as opposed to performing research in the field. Like the eugenics movement, this organization emerged near the end of the Progressive era, peaked in influence in the late 1920s and early 1930s, and declined in power by the early 1940s. The society emerged from the Second International Eugenics Congress,* held in New York city in the fall of 1921. Conference president Henry Fairfield Osborn* appointed an ad interim committee to guide and promote American eugenics education. Irving Fisher* was appointed chairman and important American eugenicists served on the committee. This committee became the Eugenics Committee of the United States of America in 1922, which in turn became the Eugenics Society of the United States of America, shortened on October 31, 1925, to the American Eugenics Society, Inc. It was officially incorporated January 30,1926, by Barnard College evolutionary biologist Henry Crampton (1875-1956), Irving Fisher, Madison
11
American Eugenics Society
Grant,* Harry H. Laughlin,* and Henry Fairfield Osborn. Charles Davenport* was vice president and Henry P. Fairchild (1880-1956), son-in-law of Alexander Graham Bell,* was secretary-treasurer. The purpose of this nonprofit organization was to discover eugenic principles and apply them to the "improvement of the human race through education and legislation." It advocated sterilization laws and segregation of the mentally ill and disabled, changes in marriage laws, immigration restrictions, a higher birth rate among the middle class, and widespread use of birth-control* methods among poorer people. Its primary activity was to sponsor "fitter family"* contests at agricultural fairs in the Midwest and eugenic sermon contests. During its peak years it published Eugenics* as its official journal. Fisher's involvement resulted in the society's office being relocated to New Haven, Connecticut, from 1926 until 1938, when it was moved back to New York city. By 1931, conflicting opinions within the AES leadership regarding sterilization, birth control, and race due to new scientific discoveries regarding genetics spawned conflict within the society. Embarrassment to the society and some of its scientific members occurred in 1934 when Leon F. Whitney (1894-1973), the acting executive director, published a pamphlet supporting the Nazi sterilization program. The organization began to disassociate itself from nativistic elements of the eugenics movement, replaced board members with scientists whom they felt had a more "balanced" view, and advocated environmental reform programs to raise the socioeconomic level of the poor. In the late 1930s it forged alliances with the Birth Control League,* the American Statistical Association, the Population Association of America, and the American Social Hygiene Association.* In response to political and scientific developments, the organization changed its name in 1973 to the Society for the Study of Social Biology and continues today as a professional association. References: "News and notes," Eugenics 3 (September 1930), 349; Allen, Garland E., "The Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor, 1910-1940," Osiris, 2d ser., 2 (1986), 225-264; Bigelow, Maurice A., "Brief history of the American Eugenics Society," Eugenical News 31 (December 1946), 49-51; Haller, Mark H., Eugenics: Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought (1963); Laughlin, Harry H., "The progress of eugenics," Eugenics 2 (February 1929), 3-16; Osborn, Frederick, "History of the American Eugenics Society," Social Biology 21 (Summer 1974), 115-126; "Society for the Study of Social Biology," Journal of Social Biology 20 (March 1973), 1; Whitney, Leon F., "The American Eugenics Society: A survey of its work," Eugenics 3 (July 1930), 253-258.
American Federation for Sex Hygiene
12
American Federation for Sex Hygiene (1910-1913) This short-lived venereal-disease* education and prevention group was formed by the amalgamation of the American Society for Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis with similar organizations. Three years after its formation, it merged with the American Vigilance Association* to create the American Social Hygiene Association.* The federation had ties to the purity,* eugenics,* and the public health movements.* In the late 1890s a movement to overcome venereal disease emerged. Physicians and health workers began to call for more open discussion and education to prevent syphilis and gonorrhea, which were not discussed in polite company during this era. In 1905 the Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis* was organized in New York city by Prince Morrow,* a physician, to prevent venereal disease. Through its educational efforts, the society distributed pamphlets, worked to get sex education* incorporated into school curricula, and promoted abstinence for both men and women as the best preventive method against venereal infection. By 1907 Morrow recognized the need for a national organization that could coordinate and intensify the educational and lobbying activities of hygiene societies and began to refer to his group as the American Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis. His proposal in 1907 for the formation of a national association, however, found little interest. Two years later he repeated his call for a federation that would serve as a coordinating agency but allow each society to preserve its autonomy. Delcevare King (1874?-1964), president of the New England Watch and Ward Society, a Boston vigilance association, aided Morrow in the creation of the national organization. He proposed raising funds from subscriptions. Grace Hoadly Dodge,* instrumental in the founding of the National Vigilance Committee,* was one of the founding contributors, along with eugenics leader Arthur Estabrook,* and Albert Johnson,* a sponsor of immigration restrictions. An organizational meeting for the new federation was held in St. Louis on June 6,1910. The American Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis joined with several other state venereal disease organizations and federated under the name of American Federation of Sex Hygiene, with Morrow as its president and Charles Eliot* as honorary president. It was headquartered in New York city. The aim of the new organization included advocacy of the single standard of sexuality, public education on the dangers of venereal disease, parental education, introduction of sex hygiene in schools and colleges, and development of teacher-preparation courses for sex instruction. Morrow enlisted John D. Rockefeller, Jr.* to finance several printings of educational information. Pamphlets with titles such as "The young man's problem," "Instruction in the physiology and hygiene of sex for teachers," and "Health and the hygiene of sex for
13
The American
Issue
college students" were printed for the society in 1911-1912 and distributed by the federation. The federation organized a corps of lecturers and distributed the educational literature through the YMCA,* settlement houses, trade unions, and other organizations. The federation lobbied for premarital medical certification and registration of individuals with venereal diseases. Their objectives also included a study of prostitution and cooperation with other agencies in the suppression of both prostitution* and the white slave trade.* By 1913 the federation was preparing to expand operations. However, Morrow, its major force, was becoming increasingly ill with nephritis and died in March. Fear arose that Morrow's group and the social hygiene movement would also die without his strong leadership. Since the federation shared similar concerns with the American Vigilance Association, Dodge, who was involved with both groups, helped facilitate a merger of the federation and the association to become the American Social Hygiene Association.* References: Clark, Charles Walter, Taboo: The Story of the Pioneers of Social Hygiene (1961); Connelly, Mark Thomas, The Response to Prostitution in the Progressive Era (1980); Gardner, James F., Microbes and Morality: The Social Hygiene Crusade in New York City, 18921917 (1973); Pivar, David J., Purity and Hygiene: Women, Prostitution, and the "American Plan," 1900-1930 (2002). The American Issue (1896-1969) This widely distributed magazine was the primary journal of the Anti-Saloon League of America* in its effort to eliminate alcohol* and the saloon* from society. The American Issue and other periodicals, printed by the American Issue Publishing Company, helped popularize the temperance* and prohibition* causes. It was first published and edited by Howard Russell,* beginning in November 1893, as a monthly called AntiSaloon for his Ohio Anti-Saloon League; in 1896 it became The American Issue. In the autumn of 1907 the periodical was moved from Columbus, Ohio, to Chicago and made the official organ of the Anti-Saloon League of America. State editions began to merge with it in 1908. It was edited by John Collins Jackson (1848-1909), a physician, until his death in 1909. Ernest Cherrington* was named editor and retained that position until 1942. As the league grew, it needed larger publishing quarters. Consequently, citizens in Westerville, Ohio, a dry town about twelve miles north of Columbus, offered a site for a printing plant. The American Issue Publishing Company was incorporated June 13, 1909, as the league's holding company. The league's national headquarters, along with many of its officers, moved to Westerville. This relocation and increased production of materials marked the symbolic beginning of the prohibition movement.* Numerous books, pamphlets, post-
American Medical Association
14
ers, leaflets, and other materials addressing alcohol and temperance were subsequently published by this press. It published literature for the Scientific Temperance Federation* and Lincoln-Lee League's pledges.* Westerville became synonymous with prohibition and temperance publications. Cherrington was named editor-in-chief of the new publishing company and by 1910 was also appointed general manager. In 1917 The American Patriot (1912-1916), a monthly; The NewBepublic (1913-1916), a weekly; and The National Daily(19151916) were absorbed into The American Issue. By 1920 circulation had reached 1.7 million. The Issue contained cartoons and articles to encourage political activity, spotlighted heros of "the battle against the saloon," and discussed the problems caused by alcohol. It was published in both national and state editions. After the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment,* the Issue had little influence and changed hands as various organizations of the temperance movement consolidated. It continued to be published by the American Council on Alcohol Problems until 1969. References: "The Anti-Saloon League (1893-1933)," (visited September 28, 2001); Cherrington, Ernest Hurst, History of the AntiSaloon League (1913); Twenty Eventful Years: Being a Beport of the Work of the American Issue Publishing Company for the Twenty Years Prior to January 1st 1930 (1930); Williams, David E., "The drive for prohibition: A transition from social reform to legislative reform, 1880-1920," Southern Communication Journal 61 (Spring 1996), 185-187; SEAP1 (1925), 175-186. American Medical Association (AMA) (1847-present) This professional organization for physicians became a powerful lobbying force for health reform over the course of the Progressive era. It raised the quality of medical education and championed public health,* preventive medicine, and pure food and drug laws. In the mid-nineteenth century competing medical philosophies abounded. Since "regular" or "orthodox" physicians often harmed their patients through excessive purging, bleeding, or use of poisonous drugs, alternative practices were popular and competed with those of orthodox physicians. Founded in 1847, the AMA was an organization of regular physicians formed to protect their interests. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, based upon new discoveries, regular medicine slowly developed into a scholarly discipline, based upon biomedical sciences. The voice of the AMA, Journal of the American Medical Association, was founded in 1882 to disseminate new information; over the next forty years it developed into an authoritative and respected journal. The AMA reorganized in 1901 and became an influential force. Out of a growing concern about the poor quality of
15
American Medical Association
medical education and many substandard medical schools, the association in 1904 established a Council on Medical Education. Over the next few years it inspected medical schools, rated them, and campaigned to raise educational requirements for medical education. By 1910 America's 166 medical schools had been reduced to 126. That same year the Flexner Report,* funded by the Carnegie Foundation and supported by the AMA, discussed the results of its inspection of medical schools. The report identified schools with substandard training and helped expand the movement to upgrade medical education and decrease the number of medical schools, some of which had become mere "diploma mills." By 1920, only 85 medical schools existed. The AMA's rating of medical schools was accepted by the Federation of State Medical Boards in 1912. This put the association in control of medical education, accreditation, treatment, and licensing, and in the view of alternative sects, made them into a monopoly. Public health was a primary concern of the AMA. In 1870 it recommended that Congress authorize a national system of quarantine regulations. In 1899 it expanded its public health activities and began to study methods to control, prevent, and treat tuberculosis* and the advisability of establishing national and state sanatoriums.* It urged local boards of health to adopt laws requiring compulsory smallpox vaccination and formed a council on exhibits to promote public health education. The association was a major supporter of the pure food and drug movement.* In 1905 it set standards for drug manufacturing and advertising, fought against the patent medicine* trade, and supported passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.* However, many physicians did not support the social hygiene* and purity* movements' crusade to abolish prostitution. Most physicians tended to favor state regulation. In 1914, after numerous investigative reports of red-light districts in urban America and their relationship to venereal disease* and other problems, the medical profession united against state regulation. As a foe of alternative medicine, the AMA lobbied for passage of laws that would curtail the activities of unorthodox healers who practiced homeopathy, chiropractic,* osteopathy,* and mind cure* sects such as Christian Science.* Threatened restrictions, along with mandatory preventive medicine procedures such as immunizations,* resulted in a counter public health crusade. It was led by B. O. Flower,* who in 1910 founded the National League for Medical Freedom* to campaign against a perceived AMA monopoly. In reaction, the AMA expanded its campaign against "irregular" physicians and cures. In 1913 it established a propaganda department, which changed its name to the bureau of investigations in 1925, to gather
American Physical Education Association
16
and disseminate information concerning health fraud and "quackery," their term for alternative medical philosophies. The AMA published Nostrums and Quackery (1911, 1921, 1937), a three-volume expose of supposed cures. Over the twentieth century the AMA continued to increase in power and prestige, and remains one of the most dominant professional health organizations in the United States. References: Burrow, James G., Organized Medicine in the Progressive Era: The Move toward Monopoly (1977); Fishbein, Morris, A History of the American Medical Association, 1847 to 1947 (1947); Flower, B. O., Progressive Men, Women and Movements of the Past Twenty-Five Years (1914); Goodwin, Lorine Swainston, The Pure Food, Drink, and Drug Crusaders, 1897-1914 (1999); Haller, John S., Jr., American Medicine in Transition, 1840-1910 (1981); Pivar, David J., Purity and Hygiene: Women, Prostitution, and the "American Plan," 1900-1930 (2002); Young, James Harvey, American Health Quackery: Collected Essays (1992). American Physical Education Association (APEA) (1885-present; from 1974, American Alliance for Health, Physical Education and Dance) Founded during the upsurge of the physical education movement, this professional organization helped launch physical education as an integral aspect of the school curriculum. It had links with the temperance,* eugenics,* diet and nutrition,* and personal hygiene* movements. William Gilbert Anderson (1860-1947), an instructor of physical training at Adelphi Academy in Brooklyn, met with Dudley Sargent,* Edward Hitchcock,* and others who taught "gymnastics" or supported muscular Christianity* to discuss the promotion of physical training in schools and colleges. Absent from this first meeting, however, were German Americans* in large cities who had been teaching gymnastics in turner societies within their own communities. The Association for the Advancement of Physical Education was founded November 27, 1885, with Hitchock its first president and Sargent a vice president. The purpose of the new association was to promote physical education in the schools, to discuss methods of physical education instruction, and to support the development of equipment. New members of the organization were mostly college or private school teachers, gym owners, or YMCA* directors. Women physical education teachers were also included in membership. The following year, at the next meeting, the association changed its name to American Association for the Advancement of Physical Education. In its early years it became involved in a popular debate over the relative values of the German and Swedish systems of physical education that became know as the "battle of the systems." In the
17
American Public Health Association
mid-1890s, reflecting growing professionalism, other fields of study were included, such as statistics, anthropometry, and personal hygiene. To meet the demands for teachers of physical education, Luther Gulick* promoted teacher preparation in the "normal" or teacher training schools. In 1896 the association began publishing a quarterly, American Physical Education Beview. During the first decade of the twentieth century a rise of interest in athletics and dancing led the association to recommend other forms of exercise in education. In 1903 it changed its name to the American Physical Education Association. Some members of the association, such as Sargent, advocated physical education as a eugenic tool for fostering a healthy and fit population. Personal hygiene education in the second decade of the century became increasingly linked to physical education. Reflecting changes in the field, the association combined with school health and recreation groups in 1938 to become the American Association for Health Physical Education and Recreation. In 1974 it again changed its name, substituting "alliance" for "association." The alliance is now the largest professional organization of its kind for school professionals involved with promoting a healthy lifestyle, and is headquartered in Reston, Virginia. References: "A time of gymnastics and measurement. Part 1:1885-1900," Journal of Health, Physical Education and Becreation (April I960), 26-33; "A time of athletics and dancing. Part II: 1900 to 1915," Journal of Health, Physical Education and Becreation (April 1960), 38-46; Anderson, William, "The making of a perfect man," Munsey Magazine 24 (1901), 94-101; Sargent, Dudley Allen, "The future of physical education," Putnam's Magazine 7 (October 1909), 14. American Public Health Association (APHA) (1872-present) This influential professional organization was linked with many healthreform movements of the Progressive era, including eugenics,* preventive medicine,* pure food and drug,* school hygiene education,* and sanitary science* education. As it developed, it helped shape and direct the public health movement.* On April 18, 1872, nine physicians and one architect met in New York city to discuss establishment of a national sanitary association. On September 12 of that same year the American Public Health Association was formally organized at Long Branch, New Jersey. Stephen Smith (1823-1922), a New York physician, was elected its first president. Members were physicians and scientists involved with public health. The association's goals included the advancement of sanitary science and the promotion of organizations and procedures for the "practical application of public hygiene." It also strove for implementation of public health boards in more communities and on the state and national
American Purity Alliance
18
level. In 1879 the association successfully lobbied for a national board of health. However, due to a political power struggle, Congress terminated its funding in 1883. In that year, APHA first published a professional magazine that evolved into the Journal of Public Health in 1911. It its early years the association focused on communicable diseases, such as yellow fever. In the last two decades of the century, sewage, garbage disposal, and ventilation became major interests. By the turn of the twentieth century the association concentrated on promoting procedures for clean milk and water, the treatment and isolation of persons with infectious diseases,* teaching sanitary science in schools, recommending antitoxins and immunizations* for childhood diseases such as diphtheria, and the registration of individuals with infectious diseases such as tuberculosis.* APHA became linked with the tuberculosis, sanatorium,* and pure food and drug movements. In the second decade, eugenics education, venereal disease* detection, prevention, and treatment, support of prohibition,* and elimination of the drug habit* were advanced. After years of agitation for a national board of health, the U.S. Public Health Service* was spawned out of existing institutions. The association continued to grow and added other issues linked to public health during the twentieth century, becoming one of the largest professional health organizations in the world. References: Duffy, John, The Sanitarians: A History of American Public Health (1992); Garrison, Fielding H.John Shaw Billings; A Memoir (1915); Winslow, C , The Life of Herman M. Biggs: Physician and Statesman of the Public Health, (1999). American Purity Alliance (APA) (1895-1915) This national group, composed of different factions of the purity movement,* promoted a single standard of sexuality for men and women, protection for working women, rescuing prostitutes,* legislating the age of consent,* and other related activities over the last decades of the nineteenth and first decade of the twentieth century. The alliance had roots in the antislavery movements of the nineteenth century, although it also had British influences. It reached its peak of power at the turn of the twentieth century and helped prevent state-regulated prostitution from gaining a foothold in the United States. It paved the way for a more scientific look at venereal disease,* prostitution, and human sexuality and the formation of the American Social Hygiene Association* near the end of the Progressive era. In the 1870s moral education societies, promoting single standards of sexuality for both men and women, and abolition societies that considered prostitution "white slavery,"* began to emerge from a
19
American Purity Alliance
nascent religious-social movement in several cities. In the summer of 1876 Aaron Powell* and others organized the New York Committee for Prevention of State Regulation of Vice with Abby Hopper Gibbons (1801-1903), a Quaker reformer, as president. This committee was dedicated to fighting legislation calling for state regulation of prostitution after British reformers warned that these laws caused further problems. This "new abolition" committee lobbied against state regulation and began to link with other organizations. In 1876 the WCTU* gave support in the struggle against prostitution by initiating rescue work. The committee lobbied the American Medical Association* and the American Public Health Association* against the support of state regulation. They also opposed creation of a national board of health on grounds this would provide a backdoor to regulation. Their efforts, along with political maneuvering by John Hamilton,* the surgeon general, resulted in eventual elimination of the board. Powell published a book opposing regulation, State Begulation of Vice (1878), and in 1879 launched the American Bulletin, a monthly report on American antiregulation and social purity* activities. In 1886 this bulletin was expanded into the Philanthropist. The publication became the official American social purity journal when moral-education societies and new abolition groups began to merge in the mid-1880s. In 1885 the Washington, D.C., White Cross Society,* former members of the Moral Education Society, and the Washington WCTU formed a social purity alliance. In Philadelphia, religious leaders and former moral-education leaders formed an alliance in 1887. These associations combined moral education, antiprostitution sentiment, suppression of impure literature, mothers' meetings,* child rearing, and a host of other reforms under one broad umbrella. By the mid-1890s these concerns had melded into a national movement. The American Purity Alliance was incorporated in 1895 out of a merger of the New York Committee for Prevention of State Regulation of Vice and the Social Purity Alliance, with support from White Cross, White Shield, and other moral-education groups. This represented the high watermark of a consolidating process involving various organizations. Powell became its president and the group convened the National Purity Congress* in Baltimore, drawing participants from many health reform areas. The alliance's objectives were "the repression of vice, the prevention of its regulation by the State, the better protection of the young, the rescue of the fallen, the extension of the White Cross among men, and to maintain the law of purity as equally binding upon men and women." Under Powell's leadership, from 1895 to 1900 the alliance professionalized. Similar
American School Hygiene Association
20
to the Anti-Saloon League,* and later the National Tuberculosis Association,* it transformed from being an organization of volunteers to reliance on professional expertise and administration. In addition, physicians became more involved with the movement. Simultaneously, B. S. Steadwell (1871-1947) formed the World Purity Federation in La Crosse, Wisconsin. He published the bimonthly Light from 1897 to 1937. Upon Powell's death in 1899, O. Edward Janney* became president of the alliance and was financially supported by Grace Dodge* to carry out its activities. The APA began negotiating to affiliate with the World Purity Federation and other organizations. However, the organization, focused on state regulation of vice in combination with Janney's weak leadership, experienced declining membership. Following a visit by British reformers in 1906, some chapters and members of the American Purity Alliance reorganized into the National Vigilance Committee* in an effort to revitalize the organization. The goal of the new committee was the elimination of the "traffic in girls." This symbolized a convergence of social purity and social hygiene interests inasmuch as its membership was comprised of professionals in the health-reform and social welfare fields. The committee soon overtook the alliance in influence. As time passed and social and medical science learned more about the problem of venereal diseases* and sexuality, the alliance's limited agenda failed to enlist financial support. In 1915 it voted to go out of business and turn its resources over to the American Social Hygiene Association. References: Clark, Charles Walter, Taboo: The Story of the Pioneers of Social Hygiene (1961); Powell, Aaron Macy, The National Purity Congress: Its Papers, Addresses, Portraits ([1896] 1976); Pivar, David J., Purity Crusade: Sexual Morality and Social Control, 1868-1900 (1973), Purity and Hygiene: Women, Prostitution, and the "American Plan/' 1900-1930 (2002); "American Purity Alliance," ESB (1897), 52. American School Hygiene Association (ASCHA) (1906-1921; American School Health Association, 1926-present) This association emerged out of concern for the health problems of children. It promoted a comprehensive school health program that included a healthy school environment, school health instruction, and school health services. In the third decade of the twentieth century some board members of the association formed a separate organization for physicians, which would become the American School Health Association. The American School Hygiene Association was formed at a New York city meeting December 3, 1906, comprised of physicians, dentists, nurses, administrators, and others concerned with the health of school-age children.
21
American School Hygiene Association
The objectives of the association were "to stimulate research and to promote discussion of the problem of school hygiene" and "to take an active part in movements wisely aiming to improve the hygienic conditions surrounding children during school life." The association's stated goal was "that in every city and town adequate provision should be made, both for sanitary inspection of schools and for medical inspection, the latter to include not only inspection for contagious diseases, but also of eyes, ears, teeth, throat, and nose, and of general physical condition That all schools having courses for the training of teachers should give instruction in (a) personal and school hygiene, and (b) the principles and practice of physical training, and that each of these subjects should be given as much time as the major subjects in the course." Founding members of this organization included Hermann Biggs,* Irving Fisher,* Henry Goddard,* Luther Gulick,* and Adolf Meyer.* President Theodore Roosevelt* was honorary president in 1907 and 1908. By 1915 members of the association included other notables, such as Charles Eliot,* Homer Folks,* John Harvey Kellogg,* Dudley Sargent,* and William Snow.* In 1909 President Theodore Roosevelt convened the first White House Conference on the Care of Dependent Children. Elements of the comprehensive school health program were discussed. This led to joint committees on the health problems of children, made up of members of the American Medical Association* and the National Educational Association. In 1912 ASCHA began to work with the AMA to implement "teaching of practical physiology and hygiene in pubic and private schools." During its tenure the ASCHA presented papers at annual conferences that encouraged programs focusing upon a healthy school environment, including proper sanitation, the screening of children for health problems, and adequate health instruction. Its conference proceedings helped shape the developing school hygiene education movement.* However, many school districts did not adopt these comprehensive recommendations, and focused instead on physical education. * The thirteenth and last congress and published proceedings of the ASCHA were in 1921. A high incidence of physically unfit draftees found during World War I* suggested that physical education alone did not create healthy young people. In the postwar era, meetings of physicians with overlapping membership in the ASCHA, the AMA, and the American Public Health Association* discussed such concerns. At an APHA annual meeting in 1926, four ASCHA directors, including William Howe (1862-1940), the state medical inspector of the New York Department of Education, and other physicians, formed the American Association of School Physicians. Although this new organization was not a direct descendent, or new name, for the ASCHA, it
American Social Hygiene Association
22
had similar goals and interests. Unlike the ASCHA, it restricted membership solely to physicians. In 1936 the organization changed its name to the American School Health Association and granted membership to any professional concerned about the health of school-age children; the association moved its headquarters to Kent, Ohio. Its publication, The School Physician's Bulletin (1930-1936), became the Journal of School Health. The association continued into the twenty-first century as an active professional organization focused on a comprehensive school health program. References: American School Health Association, "History of the American School Health Association" (c. 1970); American School Hygiene Association, Proceedings of the First, Second, and Third Congresses of the American School Hygiene Association (1910,1915,1921); Proceedings of the Eighth Congress of the American School Hygiene Association (1915); Proceedings of the Thirteenth Congress of the American School Hygiene Association (1921); DeWeese, A. O., "William A. Howe, M.D. and the American School Health Association," Journal of School Health 20 (January 1950), 86-89; Means, Richard K., A History of Health Education in the United States (1962). American Social Hygiene Association (1913-1960; American Social Health Association, 1960-present) This association was a merger between vigilance, medical, and purity-oriented societies dealing with various aspects of prostitution* and venereal disease.* The American Social Hygiene Association brought together many persons dedicated to the growing belief that sex education, rather than prudery and secrecy, could best prepare young persons for life. They argued that if individuals were satisfied in marriage, prostitution* and the double standard would not be necessary. Instrumental in the formation of this association was Grace Dodge,* who was able to bring together various organizations devoted to sex education,* a single standard of sex for both men and women, the elimination of prostitution, and the reduction of venereal diseases* to combine to form the association. In October 1913 leaders of the American Federation for Sex Hygiene* and the American Vigilance Association,* including Charles Eliot,* John D. Rockefeller, Jr.,* William Snow,* and James Bronson Reynolds,* met in Buffalo, New York, to effect a merger of the two agencies. After some political infighting, the merger became legally binding in March 1914. However, not all groups, including the World Purity Federation in Wisconsin, agreed with the approach taken by the newly formed organization. This new professional organization was focused on "promoting public health and morality." Snow often referred to it as "a clearinghouse for information." Eliot was elected the group's first president.
23
American Vigilance Association
After much political conflict between the purity and hygiene factions, Snow was appointed full-time general secretary and Reynolds counsel. However, the association became an uneasy alliance. Members of the vigilance group were primarily social workers and clergymen, while members of the federation were physicians and other health workers. In 1915 the remaining members of the American Purity Alliance* were assimilated into the group. Rockefeller and his Bureau of Social Hygiene* maintained a close working relationship with the new association and helped underwrite it financially, as did Dodge. The association promoted and popularized the scientific programs developed by the bureau. Education concerning venereal disease, sexual hygiene, and eugenic implications for choosing a mate and planning a family were advocated. The organization incorporated other health reforms and participated in joint programming and conferences with eugenic reformers. When the United States entered World War I,* red-light districts adjoining armed-forces training camps in 1917 were closed as a result of the American Social Hygiene Association agitation. Working with eugenic reformers, the group campaigned for preventing venereal disease transmission to wives and the unborn. It cooperated with the newly formed U.S. Public Health Service* in efforts to control syphilis and gonorrhea. By 1920, thirteen states had laws promoting restrictive marriages because of venereal diseases. The association changed its name to the American Social Health Association in 1960. Over the years it moved to different locations and in the early twenty-first century was headquartered at Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. It focuses upon sexually transmitted disease and sex education. References: Burnham, John C , "The Progressive era revolution in American attitudes toward sex," Journal of American History 59 (March 1973), 885-908; Gardner, James F., Microbes and Morality: The Social Hygiene Crusade in New York City, 1892-1917 (1974); Kneeland, George, A Beport on Vice Conditions in the City of Lancaster, Pa. (1913); Pivar, David J., Purity Crusade: Sexual Morality and Social Control, 1868-1900 (1973), Purity and Hygiene: Women, Prostitution, and the "American Plan," 19001930 (2002); Grittner, Frederick K., White Slavery: Myth, Ideology and American Law (1990). American Vigilance Association (1912-1913) This association, an amalgamation of social purity* societies, was instrumental in promoting antiprostitution legislation. In 1910 the National Vigilance Committee* of New York city became the American Vigilance Committee, with Charles Reynolds as president of the New York office. Board members included Jane Addams (1860-1935), a Chicago so-
American Vigilance Association
24
cial worker, Charles Eliot,* Cardinal James Gibbons (1834-1921) of Baltimore, David Starr Jordan,* and Grace Dodge.* Its primary representation was in Chicago and New York, and discord reigned between these two core groups. The new committee promoted legal measures to suppress commercialized prostitution* and supported passage of both the Howell-Bennet Act of 1910 by the U.S. Congress to prevent the immigration of individuals connected with prostitution as well as the Mann Act of 1910* to prohibit interstate traffic in women for "immoral purposes." The committee lobbied for state laws. By 1912 more than thirty states had passed laws dealing with white slavery.* The association published Vigilance from 1910 to 1914, which acquainted its readers with the "progress of legislation and other work for the suppression of the white slave traffic." Because of overlapping memberships and shared aims, sentiment arose for the merger of the committee with the American Purity Alliance* during a meeting at Dodge's home in New York city in July 1911. In 1912 the American Vigilance Association formed out of these two organizations, "to save the crusade against white slavery from falling into the hands of visionists and sensationalists"; the association's headquarters was in Chicago. Jordan was president and Clifford Roe (1875-1934), a Chicago attorney and prostitution investigator, was executive secretary. Other members included Addams, Reynolds, Dodge, Gibbons, and Janney. The director of investigation was George J. Kneeland (b. 1872), who examined prostitution around the nation. The aim of this new association was to act as a "clearinghouse for societies and committees directing their energies against the traffic in girls and women." In 1913 this short-lived association combined with the American Federation for Sex Hygiene,* which had evolved from Prince Morrow's* group, to form the American Social Hygiene Association.* This merger changed the focus of agitation against prostitution and venereal disease* from morality issues to a matter of public health.* References: "National merger to fight white slavery," The Survey, 27 (March 30, 1912), 1991-1992; Cordasco, Francesco, The White Slave Trade and the Immigrants: A Chapter in American Social History (1981); Graham, Abbie, Grace H. Dodge: Merchant of Dreams: A Biography (1926); Grittner, Frederick K., White Slavery: Myth, Ideology and American Law (1990); Janney, Oliver Edward, The White Slave Traffic in America (1911); Pivar, David J., Purity Crusade: Sexual Morality and Social Control, 18681900 (1973), Purity and Hygiene: Women, Prostitution, and the "American Plan," 1900-1930 (2002); Riegel, Robert E., "Changing American attitudes toward prostitution (1800-1920)," Journal of the History of Ideas 29 (July-September 1968), 437-452.
25
Anglo- or Anglo-Saxon Americans
Anglo- or Anglo-Saxon Americans ("old-stock") Old-stock Americans with ancestors from the colonial period formed the leadership cadre of most Progressive-era health-reform crusades, in particular the diet and nutrition,* eugenics,* temperance,* and purity* movements. These predominantly mainstream Protestants* had pride in their heritage and its accomplishments. Many held nativistic* feelings and considered themselves the leaders of civilization and superior to other ethnic groups. They heralded their form of government, political freedoms, culture, economic system, religion, and good health that had been achieved, in their view, through inborn superiority, strong moral values, hard work, and thrift. Many health reformers saw newer immigrant* groups as lacking high moral standards and being physically and mentally unhealthy and genetically "unfit" compared to themselves. Due to a declining birth rate among the educated middle class, many reformers feared the AngloAmerican lineage would die out inasmuch as "low-standard immigrants" from Eastern and Southern Europe were reproducing much faster than "more valuable" old-stock Americans. They feared America's way of life and overall health were in decline and strove to institute programs and legislation to exert control over groups and conditions to halt this trend. This attitude permeated many reform movements of the era. The majority of Americans were from Anglo-Saxon stock during the Progressive era. The 1900 census found that 86.3 percent of the population was native born, and of this group, 53.8 percent were Protestants whose ancestors had emigrated from England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. Other population groups, including African Americans,* Chinese Americans,* Mexican Americans,* and Native Americans, were "invisible" to the dominant culture unless a health or social problem spilled from their community. The few statistics gathered from the era suggested that Anglo Americans were healthier than other groups and had lower rates of many diseases. They also had higher life expectancies. In 1910 Anglo-American males in New York state had a life expectancy of 53 years and females 55.9 years, the highest for any group other than those of Jewish* ancestry. Anglo Americans remained the dominant force for health and social reforms, not only throughout the Progressive era but well into the late twentieth century. References: U.S. Bureau of the Census, The Statistical History of the United States from Colonial Times to the Present (1975); Bannister, Robert C , Social Darwinism: Science and Myth in Anglo-American Social Thought (1988); Dublin, Louis I., "The mortality of foreign race stocks," Scientific Monthly, 14 (January-June 1922), 94-104; Higham, John, Strangers
antiobscenity movement
26
in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925 (1955); Payson, George S., "Anglo-Saxon supremacy," Outlook 53 (March 14, 1896), 474-476. antiobscenity movement (1873-1930) This movement strove to prohibit materials its leaders considered immoral. It had links with the temperance movement,* was a facet of the purity movement,* and opposed the birth-control* and sex-education movements.* The antiobscenity movement generated social and legal sanctions and activities to prohibit a wide range of materials, including postcards, books, magazines, theater productions, works of art, and contraceptive information and devices. The major crusader of the antiobscenity movement was Anthony Comstock.* In 1866 the New York city YMCA,* concerned about young workingmen's weakness for pornographic books, saloons,* and prostitutes,* launched a campaign for stricter state obscenity laws. In 1869 the state of New York enacted legislation forbidding the dissemination of "smut." Comstock used this law as a model to influence Congress to enact Section 211 of the Penal Code in 1873, known as the Comstock Law,* that forbade the distribution of obscene material through the mails, including birth-control* information and devices. That same year the YMCA created the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice,* which, under Comstock's guidance, became the most powerful antiobscenity association in the nation. Similar societies organized in major eastern cities. The Boston Watch and Ward Society, formed in 1879, campaigned against crime books and "degrading magazines" such as Police Gazette. It initiated passage of a strict censorship bill in 1886 and obtained convictions of book dealers who sold condemned titles in the 1890s. "Banned in Boston" became synonymous with censorship. Comstock, who was made a special agent of the U. S. Post Office, arrested thousands of people over his lifetime, including poor immigrants* and notable writers and reformers. He attempted to censor Bernarr Macfadden's* physical culture and education* demonstrations and magazines and entrapped many individuals, including Margaret Sanger's* husband. Although Comstock was the most notorious antiobscenity crusader, Josiah Leeds (1841-1908), a wealthy Philadelphia Quaker, and his wife Deborah (b. c. 1845) also played leadership roles as public censors of the movement. Over his thirtyyear battle for censorship, beginning in the mid-1870s, Leeds, unlike Comstock, won few cases. Leeds led crusades to clean up "railroad reading" material and newspapers, as well as to ban "blood and thunder" novels, gambling, and prizefighting. His efforts resulted in the Anti-Lottery Act of 1890. Leeds's crusades against art forms
27
Anti-Saloon League of America
he considered obscene included classical ballet from Europe, since he considered wearing tights akin to nudity. He also opposed tobacco* and alcohol.* The city of Philadelphia, however, unlike Boston and New York, did not develop an effective censorship organization, and even Comstock failed when he tried to organize one. By the first decade of the twentieth century, "comstockery" (censorship) began to be viewed in a satirical light with fewer successful convictions. The antiobscenity movement began to lose its momentum. In the post-World War I* era, it lost most of its power. References: Bates, Anna Louise, Weeder in the Garden of the Lord: Anthony Comstock's Life and Career (1995); Beisel, Nicola Kay, Imperiled Innocents: Anthony Comstock and Family Beproduction in Victorian America (1997); Boyer, Paul S., Purity in Print: The Vice-Society Movement and Book Censorship in America (1968); Broun, Heywood C , and Leech, Margaret, Anthony Comstock: Boundsman of the Lord (1927); Parker, Allison, Purifying America: Women, Cultural Beform and Pro-Censorship Activism (1998); Pivar, David J., Purity Crusade: Sexual Morality and Social Control, 1868-1900 (1973). Anti-Saloon League of America (ASL) (1893-1948) This powerful organization was the primary leader of the crusade for national prohibition* that resulted in the Eighteenth Amendment* to the U.S. Constitution. Although many temperance* societies arose following the Civil War, they often worked at cross-purposes. Striving for unity after a series of defeats in the late 1880s, temperance reformers* issued a call for unity and nonpartisan action against the saloon.* Local and state leagues organized. The Ohio Anti-Saloon League was founded in Oberlin, Ohio, by Howard H. Russell,* a Congregational minister, on May 24, 1893. Its purpose was to support any candidate for local or state office who favored prohibition, regardless of party affiliation. Support was organized at the grassroots level by contacts with local pastors who were encouraged to enroll their congregations as league affiliates. Clergymen made up threefifths of league leaders. In contrast to other prohibition groups, the league was staffed by paid workers funded by membership dues. Most of the staff were also ministers. During 1893 a similar organization, the District of Columbia Anti-Saloon League, was founded in the nation's capital. These two organizations and forty-five other national, state, and local temperance organizations merged to form the National Anti-Saloon League, officially incorporated on December 18, 1895, in Washington, D.C. The name was later changed to Anti-Saloon League of America. The goal of this nonpartisan group was enacting legislation to curtail the growing power of the liquor traffic* and to eliminate the saloon. Russell was elected its first na-
Anti-Saloon League of America
28
tional superintendent. In 1903 Purley Baker* replaced him and led the league through its most powerful and influential era, which ended with his death in 1924. From its inception, the league proved to be a fairly regimented organization. At the top was a self-perpetuating executive committee that made certain that all political parties and supporting churches were represented. Beginning in 1894, the league held annual meetings attended by thousands of supporters. In December 1898 the league opened legislative offices in Washington, D.C, with Edwin C. Dinwiddie (1867-1935), a clergyman, as legislative superintendent. The first successful campaign on a national level by this office was the Anti-Canteen Law, passed by Congress on January 9, 1901, prohibiting the sale of alcohol at army posts. In 1909 its national office moved permanently to Westerville, Ohio, at the invitation of the local citizens, who donated land for its publishing company and headquarters. From 1893 until 1906 the Anti-Saloon League vigorously organized branches and crusaded against saloons, resulting in thousands of towns adopting state local-option measures for prohibition. Around 1906 the Anti-Saloon League shifted to a nonpartisan statewide prohibition campaign instead of local option. The league's strategy of first gathering local, then state support had been deliberate so as to crystallize public support to increase the probability of passing and enforcing laws. Popularization of the movement came through various publications, such as The American Issue,* under the adept editorship of Ernest Cherrington.* From 1908 to around 1933 it published the Anti-Saloon Year Book, which discussed the progress of temperance reform throughout the nation. By 1912 the prohibition movement had claimed considerable success inasmuch as about one-half the country was "living in territory in which the liquor traffic has been forbidden by law" through local options and statewide prohibition. In 1913 the league campaigned for a national prohibition constitution. As part of this process it lobbied Congress to adopt the Webb-Kenyon Act,* which prohibited interstate shipment of liquor into a state contrary to the laws of the state. This victory propelled the league into a vigorous campaign for submission of a national prohibition amendment. Over the next seven years many states began to adopt statewide prohibition, giving the Anti-Saloon League its greatest political victories in the history of temperance reform. In 1914 temperance forces won a majority vote in the House of Representatives for submission of a prohibition Constitutional amendment. However, the resolution failed due to a lack of a twothirds majority. Wayne Wheeler* was brought to Washington as the
29
Anti-Saloon League of America
chief counsel and lobbyist for the league, which focused its energies on the 1916 elections. Its efforts were rewarded with the election of a sufficient number of "dry" congressmen to provide the necessary two-thirds majority. On December 18, 1917, Congress passed the Eighteenth Amendment, sending it for ratification by the states. Further lobbying by the league resulted in Congress enacting the War Prohibition Act* on November 21, 1918. The amendment was ratified by the necessary two-thirds of the states on January 16, 1919. With the triumph of national prohibition, the Anti-Saloon League embarked on a campaign to extend the benefits of prohibition to the entire world. The World League Against Alcoholism* was created on June 7,1919, and headed by Cherrington. The Anti-Saloon League acted as a law-enforcement organization from its inception to its demise. It mandated strict enforcement of legislation and punishment of lawbreakers on the state and national levels. It used political tactics such as hiring "detectives," "rewarding" officials favorable to prohibition law enforcement, and inciting attacks against German Americans* during World War I* as a method to close "blind pigs," illegal traffic, and breweries.* During the backlash era of the roaring twenties, enforcement was often difficult. The league began to decline in the mid-1920s as a force in American politics and underwent a series of problems. Donations declined dramatically after passage of the Eighteenth Amendment because most contributors considered the problem solved. Wheeler died suddenly in 1927 and left a huge vacuum in the league's Washington lobby. William H. Anderson (1874-1959), the New York League's superintendent, was convicted of criminal activity in connection with league funds and was sentenced to prison. Wealthy backers such as John D. Rockefeller, Jr.,* unhappy with the strident enforcement policies pushed by the league and the changing sentiment of the country toward prohibition, halted contributions. In 1929 the national office moved to Washington, D.C. By 1933 the league had lost its power. Upon Cherrington's retirement in 1948, it split into two fragments, the National Temperance League and the Temperance Education Foundation. In 1973 the foundation, as the direct descendant of the league, turned over its buildings and contents to the Westerville, Ohio, public library for research purposes. References: Blocker, Jack S., Betreatfrom Beform: The Prohibition Movement in the United States 1890-1913 (1976), American Temperance Movements: Cycles of Beform (1989); Cherrington, Ernest H., The Evolution of Prohibition in the United States of America (1920), History of the Anti-Saloon League (1913); Kerr, K. Austin, Organized for Prohibition: A New History of the Anti-Saloon League (1985); Odegard, Peter H., Pressure Politics: The Story of the Anti-Saloon
anti-saloon movement
30
League (1928); Timberlake, James H., Prohibition and the Progressive Movement, 1900-1920, (1963); SEAP 1 (1925), 175-186. anti-saloon movement (1893-1920) This movement was interwoven with the prohibition movement,* both of which were part of the overall temperance movement* of the Progressive era's Clean Living Movement.* The anti-saloon movement had the support and leadership of Protestant* clergy and the majority of their congregations. Concerned about health and social problems perceived as having been caused by the saloon,* temperance reformers* issued a call for unity and nonpartisan political action against the liquor traffic* In the aftermath of a National Temperance Congress meeting in New York city in 1890, numerous local and state leagues organized. The Ohio and Washington, D.C, leagues, both founded in 1893, merged in 1895 to form the Anti-Saloon League of America.* The goal of this nonpartisan group and the movement it fanned was to curtail enactment of legislation and the growing power of the liquor industry, and the elimination of the saloon. It advocated support for any candidate of either party who agreed that "the saloon must go." The anti-saloon movement found support among members of the purity,* eugenics,* social hygiene,* and public health* movements, who considered the saloon the root cause of many health and social problems. Many renowned individuals not directly involved with temperance groups also supported the elimination of the saloon as an effort to prevent venereal disease,* prostitution,* poverty,* and racial degeneracy.* These individuals included David Starr Jordan,* Charles Eliot,* and Irving Fisher.* Strident prohibitionist and antisaloon spokespersons who fanned the movement included Billy Sunday,* Wayne Wheeler,* Howard Russell,* and Ernest Cherrington,* editor of the influential journal The American Issue.* The anti-saloon movement underwent three phases, the last of which was a movement for national prohibition. During the first phase it led an effort to eliminate the liquor traffic and the saloon through local option. By 1906 over 1,500 counties outlawed the saloon and alcohol under local option laws. Reformers realized that this nonpartisan political process was "the most effective method of fighting the liquor traffic." In the next phase, the movement shifted to a nonpartisan campaign for statewide prohibition. By 1913 nine states had statewide prohibition and thirty-one states had local-option laws, resulting in more than half the American population living in dry areas. After passage of the Webb-Kenyon Act* (1913), which forbade transporting of liquor into dry states, the final phase of the movement ensued. The anti-saloon crusade became a movement for "national constitutional prohibition." All the leading temperance
31
antismoking leagues
organizations then centered their efforts on a constitutional amendment to make America dry. Using pressure politics and lobbying, this prohibition movement resulted in the Eighteenth Amendment. * References: Blocker, Jack S., Jr., Betreat from Beform: The Prohibition Movement in the United States 1890-1913 (1976), American Temperance Movements: Cycles of Beform (1989); Cherrington, Ernest H., The Evolution of Prohibition in the United States of America (1920); Hamm, Richard F, Shaping of the Eighteenth Amendment: Temperance Beform, Legal Culture, and the Policy, 1880-1920 (1995); Rorabaugh, William J., The Alcoholic Bepublic: An American Tradition (1979); Timberlake, James H., Prohibition and the Progressive Movement, 1900-1920 (1963); Kerr, K. Austin, Organized for Prohibition: A New History of the Anti-Saloon League (1985). antismoking leagues Several antismoking and anticigarette associations came into being between 1894 and 1919 in an attempt to convince both children and adults not to smoke and to exert lobbying pressure for state and national legislation against smoking and/or cigarettes.* In 1894 a group of south-side Chicago churchwomen founded the National Anti-Cigarette Association, dedicated to persuading smokers to sign pledges to cease the habit. The group lasted only a few years. The Anti-Cigarette League of Chicago was founded by Lucy Page Gaston* with the help of a group of businessmen in 1899. Borrowing tactics from the Woman Christian Temperance Union,* Gaston and her followers churned out lectures, protests, strident rhetoric, and propaganda magazines. Children were urged to sign a "clean-life pledge"* and taught "anticigarette songs" that were sung at parades and gatherings. This organization became the National Anti-Cigarette League in 1901, the Anti-Cigarette League of America in 1910, and later the International Anti-Cigarette League, each of which was reorganized by Gaston. The league, under Gaston, strove to secure laws to prohibit the manufacture and consumption of cigarettes and to prosecute violators of the law. By 1921, as the antismoking movement* waned, the league limited its focus to the dissemination of scientific and other information concerning tobacco.* Around 1910 New York physician and dentist Charles G. Pease* founded the Non-Smokers Protective League of America, which lobbied for legislative action. In addition to these groups, other associations sprang up in the first and second decades of the century, including the Society Against the Abuse of Tobacco, the National AntiCigarette Association, the Clean Life Army, and the No-Tobacco League of America. Although these many groups differed in their objectives, they were united in demanding curbs on public smoking. Their lobbying and educational efforts resulted in changes in smoking laws
antismoking movement
32
in forty-three states, primarily prohibition of sales to minors. References: Dillow, Gordon L., "Thank you for not smoking: The hundred year war against the cigarette," American Heritage 32 (February-March 1981), 94-107; Engs, Ruth Clifford, Clean Living Movements: American Cycles of Health Beform (2000); Tate, Cassandra C, The American Anti-Cigarette Movement, 1880-1930 (1995). antismoking movement (1885-1930) Based upon concerns that smoking caused health and social problems, an antismoking movement emerged in the 1880s. The movement sought to eliminate tobacco,* and, in particular, cigarettes* from society. It evolved from the temperance movement* and had undercurrents of nativism* and eugenics.* Antismoking leagues* were founded to fight the "tobacco evil." The antismoking movement had links with many other healthreform issues of the day, including purity,* physical culture and education,* public health,* and the crusade against tuberculosis,* among others. It was a major facet of the Progressive era's Clean Living Movement.* Between 1896 and 1921, nineteen states passed laws prohibiting cigarettes. Difficulties in enforcing them resulted in the laws being ignored or repealed within a few years. In addition, the Tobacco Trust began fierce lobbying to prevent total prohibition of tobacco and cigarettes. The last state law that prohibited cigarettes was repealed in 1927. The first wave of antismoking agitation occurred in 1884, when the Woman's Christian Temperance Movement* developed a Department for the Overthrow of the Tobacco Habit. It cited the health hazards of smoking and suggested the best opportunity to make headway against this practice was with the young. It introduced antismoking education in the schools. The WCTU argued the merits of fresh air and advocated that smoking be permitted only if it did not interfere "with the rights and freedoms of any other individual." In the 1890s anticigarette advocates began proclaiming that smoking led to alcoholism,* drug abuse, crime,* and insanity. Various WCTU affiliates began to deluge Congress with petitions demanding a federal ban on cigarettes on grounds they were causing insanity and death to thousands of American youth. Some public health advocates, however, expressed concern about the emotional and exaggerated tactics used by these reformers. Agitation on the part of antismoking reformers sought state legislation against tobacco. The laws were primarily aimed at the "little white slaver" (cigarettes) and not pipes or cigars. By 1900 most states had banned cigarette and tobacco sales to minors. Most states generally ignored enforcing the laws until the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Tennessee's statute in 1900. This spurred greater anticigarette
33
antismoking movement
activity on the state level during the first decade of the twentieth century. During the surge of renewed activity, there was also social coercion against smoking. Some railroads, post offices, and other businesses, including Sears, Montgomery Ward, and Ford Motor Company, refused to hire cigarette smokers on grounds that smoking caused inefficiency, unreliability, and unproductiveness. These restrictions were generally accepted by both the courts and by opinion makers. Over the duration of the antismoking movement, leaders from other health crusades supported antitobacco crusades. These included John Harvey Kellogg,* Harvey Wiley,* David Starr Jordan,* Francis Willard,* and Bernarr Macfadden,* among others. The primary leader of the cause was Lucy Page Gaston.* In the early 1890s Gaston gave anticigarette lectures and lobbied the Illinois state legislature to ban cigarettes. She started an antitobacco program for children and urged them to take the "clean-life pledge"* to abstain from both tobacco and alcohol. In 1899, with the help of a group of businessmen, she founded the Chicago Anti-Cigarette League, which in 1910 became the Anti-Cigarette League of America. This organization strove to secure laws to prohibit the manufacture and consumption of cigarettes and to prosecute violators of the law. Another antismoking leader was Charles G. Pease,* who founded the Non-Smokers Protective League of America in New York city around 1910. He regularly "arrested" smokers on trains and subways and lobbied for restrictions against smoking. The antismoking crusade not only opposed tobacco but also lobbied for nonsmokers' rights to a smoke-free environment. Reformers advocated laws to require restaurants to provide accommodations for nonsmokers, "where they will not be subjected to the inconvenience and discomfort of inhaling tobacco," and to prohibit smoking in public places. When anticigarette laws were found to be unenforceable, states began to repeal them. By 1915 only nine states still prohibited cigarettes. In addition, the movement met with resistance during World War I,* when cigarettes were considered essential for the war effort as a result of lobbying efforts by protobacco forces. With passage of the Eighteenth Amendment* in 1919, the antitobacco movement was temporarily revitalized. The WCTU took the lead at its "victory convention" in St. Louis in November 1919. The group voted to fight against tobacco with general education programs, but did not favor prohibitory legislation. Several church organizations announced antitobacco programs aimed at youth. Billy Sunday,* a popular revivalist, was credited with saying, "Prohibition is won; now for tobacco." Despite the revitalized antismoking campaigns, tobacco consumption continued to increase and the movement for further
The Arena
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legislation died. In 1900 it was considered vulgar for a woman to smoke. However, fifteen years later many women began to smoke as a symbol of suffrage and emancipation. As the nation moved into the backlash era of the roaring twenties, cigarette smoking, with the help of protobacco interests, became associated with freedom and urban sophistication. References: "How much, if any, should we smoke?" American Monthly Beview of Beviews 35 (March 1907), 342-343; "Must lady nicotine follow John Barleycorn?" The Literary Digest 60 (March 15, 1919), 19-20; Abbott, Twyman O., "The rights of the non-smoker," Outlook 94 (April 2, 1910), 763-766; Burnham, John C , Bad Habits: Drinking, Smoking, Taking Drugs, Gambling, Sexual Misbehavior, and Swearing in American History (1993); Dillow, Gordon L., "Thank you for not smoking: The hundred year war against the cigarette," American Heritage 32 (FebruaryMarch 1981), 94-107; Engs, Ruth Clifford, Clean Living Movements: American Cycles of Health Beform (2000); Kluger, Richard, Ashes to Ashes: America's Hundred-Year Cigarette War, the Public Health, and the Unabashed Triumph of Philip Morris (1996); Rochard, Jules M., "Tobacco and the tobacco habit," Popular Science Monthly 41 (1892), 670-682; Tate, Cassandra C , The American Anti-Cigarette Movement, 1880-1930 (1995). The Arena (December 1889-August 1909) This popular magazine was a major literary vehicle for progressive thought and championed many health-reform crusades. It was considered the most intellectually respectable reform publication of the early Progressive era. Founded in Boston by B. O. Flower,* both a journalist and reformer, the magazine reflected his influence throughout much of its two-decade career. Health-reform issues discussed by the magazine included age of consent,* birth control,* eugenics,* immigration restriction,* temperance,* purity,* and physical culture and exercise,* among others. Women were authors and even editors. No subject was taboo. In 1894, birth control, an unmentionable subject in a general magazine, was openly advocated. In 1895, prostitution was discussed, and in 1908-1909, race suicide* was debated. Some scholars have considered this periodical a forerunner of muckraking* journalism. The Arena emerged out of The American Spectator, a monthly founded in 1886 by Flower in Boston. In 1889 this publication was merged with another magazine and renamed The Arena. During the first few years the magazine concentrated on religious items. Discussions ranged from the social gospel movement* to Christian Science.* Under Flower's guidance, the publication soon gravitated toward social and health-reform articles. Specific problems were
35
Association for the Advancement of Physical Education
often addressed in a "symposium" in which differing opinions were presented. Health-related symposia included age of consent* and purity,* the liquor traffic* and saloons,* dress reform and physical culture, and race suicide and racial degeneration.* The 1892 dress reform symposium advocated practical short skirts and elimination of the corset, along with adoption of physical exercise for women. The 1893 symposium on the liquor traffic and the saloon advocated prohibition.* It promoted eugenics and anti-Catholicism as they related to alcohol. The first frank discussion of prostitution* and white slavery* in any magazine designed for the general public occurred in a January 1895 symposium. It featured Aaron M. Powell,* Frances E. Willard,* and O. Edward Janney,* who discussed problems with what was considered by them low age-of-consent laws, advocated the White Cross* crusade, and argued for prostitution "abatement" laws. Discussion of the age of consent in the magazine over several years brought awareness of the "traffic in girls" to a wide audience, thus gaining public support for raising the age of consent. In 1896, due to economic and political reasons and Flower suffering an illness, The Arena's circulation declined and it went into receivership. It was purchased by a New York businessman and moved to that city, with a new editor. Flower returned in 1898 to write a monthly article. The magazine absorbed several other shortlived reform papers, experienced more financial problems, and changed hands again. Under the new owner, Flower resumed partial editorship in 1900. But lacking the brashness of its earlier editorial focus, its circulation declined after peaking in 1902. In 1903-1904 the magazine changed hands twice in six months. In 1904 Flower was appointed editor-in-chief. However, the magazine continued to flounder; its last issue was August 1909. It then merged with Christian Work and the Evangelist. References: Cline, H. F., "Benjamin Orange Flower and the Arena, 1889-1909," Journalism Quarterly 17 (June 1940), 139-150; Fairfield, Roy P., "Benjamin Orange Flower, father of the muckrakers," American Literature 22 (November 1950), 272-282; Flower, B. O., "The shame of America—The age of consent laws in the United States," The Arena 11 (January 1895), 192215, "How to deal with the liquor traffic: A symposium," The Arena 9 (May 1894), 827-844; Frederick, Peter J., Knights of the Golden Bule (1976); Mott, Frank L., A History of the American Magazine: 1885-1915, vol. 4(1957). Association for the Advancement of Physical Education (see American Physical Education Association)
B Baker, Purley Albert (April 10,1858-March 30,1924) A clergyman, Baker was head of the Anti-Saloon League* during its most powerful years. As a leader of the crusade for national prohibition,* he helped spearhead passage of the Eighteenth Amendment.* Baker was born in Liberty Township, Ohio; his father died when he was an infant and his mother remarried a farmer with five children. At age ten, Baker took the responsibility of making his own living by working on farms for several years, but was able to obtain some education. He was "converted" at a Methodist revivalist meeting and within a short time held offices in the church. Meanwhile, he attended the village school at Williamsport, Ohio, taught school, and paid his way through the normal school in Xenia, Ohio. He also studied law. Baker entered the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1883 and was ordained the following year. He served six years as a circuit minister (1883-1888) in Ohio. Subsequently, he spent five years in Gallipolis (1888-1893) and two years in Columbus, Ohio, as a pastor (1893-1895). During these pastorates he began to speak out against the saloon.* In 1896 he was appointed by the Ohio Methodist Conference to work with the Anti-Saloon League as its first field secretary. Two months later, at the urging of Howard Russell,* president of the Anti-Saloon League of America, he was appointed superintendent of the Cleveland district. About one year later he was elected state superintendent of the Ohio Anti-Saloon League, headquartered in Columbus. He held this position until December 1903, when he was elected general superintendent of the league, succeeding Russell. Baker was reelected to this position for twenty years and resigned only about a month before his death.
37
Battle Creek Sanitarium
Early in his presidency, Baker hired Ernest Cherrington,* who later became publisher and manager of the league's magazines and printing plant, as his assistant. Under Baker's guidance the league worked to curtail the growing power of the liquor traffic* and eliminate the saloon through legal changes. Baker became a powerful spokesman for the cause. He had talent for management and for rallying others to his cause. In 1909 he moved to Westerville, Ohio, when the national office was relocated there. He helped build the league into a powerful lobbying force that drove the anti-saloon* and prohibition* movements and resulted in passage of the Eighteenth Amendment* for national prohibition and the Volstead Act,* the enforcement arm of the law. When Cherrington formed the World League Against Alcoholism* in 1919 to take prohibition to the rest of the world, Baker was made one of its vice presidents. Over his lifetime, he was well known and received honors from several institutions. He married Lillie I. Greene in 1894, but they remained childless. Baker died at his home in Westerville after an illness of about six months. References: Kerr, K. Austin, Organized for Prohibition: A New History of the Anti-Saloon League (1985); Odegard, Peter H., Pressure Politics: The Story of the Anti-Saloon League (1928); DATB (1984), 23-24; NatCAB 14 (1917), 272; SEAP 1 (1925), 258-260, 258260; obituary, Public Opinion, April 3, 1924; NYT March 31, 1924. Battle Creek Sanitarium (BCS) (1866-1950s) The Battle Creek Sanitarium of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was known throughout the United States and abroad as the ultimate destination for treatment of many conditions. At its peak of popularity in 1928, about 1,400 guests could be accommodated. Notable politicians, educators, industrialists, reformers, and ordinary people came to the institution for treatment and rest. The sanitarium and its leader, John Harvey Kellogg,* influenced many health reforms of the day, including eugenics,* diet and nutrition,* physical education,* purity,* and temperance.* Numerous reformers interfaced with the institution or its director during the course of the Progressive era via its conferences, workshops, professional committees, and publications. The sanitarium sponsored the Eugenics Registry* and the Race Betterment Foundation,* which hosted two national health conferences. The sanitarium began as an institution of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. In 1866 the newly formed sect established the Western Health Reform Institute in Battle Creek, Michigan. The center, based upon the health principles advocated by the church, offered exercise, fresh air, and abstinence from alcohol,* tobacco,* and other stimulants. Treatment included spiritual healing and hydrotherapy. Physician John Harvey Kellogg was appointed medical director in
beer
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1876. Under his direction, the institution was transformed into a large treatment center. When the center was expanded in 1878, the institute was renamed the Medical and Surgical Sanitarium, commonly known as the Battle Creek Sanitarium or the "San" by its devotees. In the 1890s tension and conflict between the Adventist church and Kellogg developed. In 1898 Kellogg, through legal maneuvering, bought the sanitarium from the church and through a special act of incorporation allowed it to be operated as a not-for-profit enterprise. The sanitarium burned in 1902 under unknown circumstances and the following year a six-story Renaissance Revival-style building was constructed. The sanitarium's treatment system banned alcoholic drinks, meat, tea, coffee, tobacco, and spices. Besides a vegetarian diet, the daily regimen included proper exercise, fresh air, sensible clothing, sunshine, hydrotherapy, mind cure, and rest. Fletcherism*—the complete mastication of food—was also encouraged. As part of the sanitarium's diet, ready-to-eat dried breakfast cereals* were developed. Surgery was also preformed at the center. Due to its increasing popularity, the sanitarium was enlarged in 1928, receiving the addition of a fourteen-story tower and dining room annex. After the stock market crash the following year, business declined and the facility went into receivership in 1933. The sanitarium continued to occupy the site until 1942, when the U.S. Army purchased the building and established the Percy Jones General Hospital; it closed in 1953. After changing hands several times, the hospital became part of the Battle Creek health care system in 1993. References: Carson, Gerald, Cornflake Crusade (1957); Numbers, Ronald L., Prophetess of Health: Ellen G. White (1976); Reid, George W., A Sound of Trumpets: Americans, Adventists, and Health Beform (1982); Schwarz, Richard W., John Harvey Kellogg, M.D. (1981). beer Beer is an alcoholic beverage made from fermented grains in a process called brewing.* Until the late nineteenth century beer had a short shelf life and tended to be brewed and consumed locally. During the latter 1800s, however, drinking preferences changed. Beer replaced whiskey as Americans' preferred alcoholic beverage. In 1865 per-capita consumption of beer totaled 5.8 gallons. Between 1880 and 1890 annual beer consumption doubled, going from 11.1 to 20.6 gallons; it then rose more slowly, going from 23.6 gallons in 1900 to 29.7 gallons in 1915. Increasing preferences for beer reflected significant changes in the brewing industry during the late nineteenth century. Technological advances such as refrigeration and pasteurization facilitated shipment of a uniform product across the country from the main brewing centers in the Midwest and Northeast. Smaller
39
Beers, Clifford Whittingham
breweries began to consolidate into larger corporations such as Anheuser, Busch, Miller, and Pabst, which manufactured lighter, German-style lagers. These corporations established distributorships in the mid-1880s. Because it was relatively easy to brew beer in cities, it became the urban beverage of choice among working-class men. Some temperance reformers* during the last decades of the nineteenth century were pleased with beer because they "preferred that men should drink the mild lager rather than the more fiery whisky or rum." However, temperance workers by the end of the first decade of the twentieth century were concerned about the increase in beer consumption and considered the liquor trade* and brewing industry suspect. Increased consumption was attributed largely to an "artificial stimulation of demand" through advertising, monetary help to individuals for establishing new saloons,* and inducements, such as a "free lunch," to get people to patronize bars. References: Blocker, Jack S., Jr., American Temperance Movements: Cycles of Beform (1989); Engs, Ruth Clifford, Clean Living Movements: American Cycles of Health Beform (2000); Rorabaugh, William J., "Estimated U.S. Alcoholic beverage consumption, 1790-1860," Journal of Studies on Alcohol 37 (1976), 360-361, The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition (1979). Beers, Clifford Whittingham (March 30,1876-July 9,1943) Founder of the mental hygiene movement, Beers based his campaign for better treatment of the mentally ill on his own experience as a patient in mental hospitals. Born in New Haven, Connecticut, the fifth son of a produce merchant from an old-stock Anglo-American* and Episcopalian family, Beers was raised by his aunt because his mother was emotionally withdrawn. He attended local schools and in 1894 entered Yale University's Sheffield Scientific School, where he graduated with a Ph.D. (1897). After working as a clerk for three years in a New York city business firm, he suffered from a "mental breakdown" and attempted suicide by jumping out of a building. From August 1900 to September 1903 he spent most of his time in three Connecticut mental hospitals before he was pronounced improved and released. Three of his brothers later suffered from severe depression; two committed suicide. While under treatment in these "insane asylums," he suffered mistreatment and physical abuse. After his release he returned to the business world, intending to establish himself financially before attempting to reform the mental health field. However, by late 1904 he committed himself again to a Hartford retreat where he stayed for a short while. Shortly after his discharge, he wrote A Mind That Found Itself concerning his experiences as a
Bell, Alexander Graham
40
patient. This book, published in 1908, eventually led to drastic changes in the treatment of mental illness. It went through numerous editions over the twentieth century. Beers sent a copy to Adolf Meyer,* a psychiatrist. With Meyer's help he established the Connecticut Society for Mental Health in 1908 as a demonstration project. Its aims were to raise the standard of care for the mentally ill and to prevent mental disorders. In 1909 Beers, with the support of Meyer and other physicians, founded the National Committee for Mental Hygiene,* with headquarters in New York city, and remained its secretary until his retirement in 1934. With support from wealthy donors such as Henry Phipps* and John D. Rockefeller, Jr.,* the committee assumed the leadership of the mental health movement that brought about improvement of treatment and prevention of mental illness. By 1922 Beers's demanding personality clashed with the national committee and he shifted his efforts to international work and organized other groups. He traveled abroad several times, spreading the mental health message. He organized the American Foundation for Mental Hygiene (1928), the First International Congress for Mental Hygiene (1930), held in Washington, D.C, for which he raised the funding, and the International Foundation for Mental Hygiene (1931). Over his lifetime Beers received honors and recognition as founder of the mental health movement. He married Clara Louise Jepson in 1912, but they had no children due to fear of the hereditary nature of mental illness proposed by eugenic* reformers and the eugenics movement.* In the late 1930s, with failing health and depression, he committed himself in June 1939 to Butler Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island, where he died a few years later of a cerebral thrombosis. References: Beers, Clifford W., A Mind That Found Itself: An Autobiography{1908); ANB2 (1999), 475-476; DAB supplement 3 (1973), 50-52; NatCAB 34 (1948), 140-141; obituary, NYTjuly 10, 1943. Bell, Alexander Graham (March 3, 1847-August 2, 1922) Inventor of the telephone and other communication devices, Bell was an early pioneer in the eugenics movement.* He was the second of three sons born in Edinburgh, Scotland; both his father and grandfather taught and developed approaches for elocution. He graduated at age thirteen from the Royal High School in Edinburgh, after which he was educated privately by his grandfather in London. At age sixteen Bell intermittently taught elocution and music at preparatory schools and attended the University of London (1868-1870). Upon the death of his grandfather, he became an assistant to his father (1867), who was perfecting a method called "visible speech." The next year the young Bell used his father's system to teach speech to deaf children.
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Bell, Alexander Graham
In 1870 Bell immigrated to Canada with his parents. The following year he moved to Boston to teach his father's system to deaf mutes. In order to train teachers in his methods, he established a private school in Boston (1872) and served as professor of vocal physiology at the School of Oratory at Boston University (1873-1877). Simultaneously, he experimented with and invented a variety of instruments in an attempt to help deaf people hear or feel speech. In 1876 he developed the electric speaking telephone. Bell, an early pioneer of eugenics,* was one of the first to use field workers for collecting genetic and pedigree information. He studied the genealogy of deaf mute families in Martha's Vineyard in the early 1880s. Influenced by Darwin and reflecting growing interest in heredity, Bell began sheep-breeding experiments at his summer home in Nova Scotia in 1889. These experiments led him into the American Breeders Association* and the foundation of the American eugenics movement. In 1906 Bell became an original member of the Committee on Eugenics of the American Breeders Association. The committee expanded its activities in 1910 and Bell headed the Committee on Deaf Mutism. He helped organize the First International Conference on Eugenics,* held in London in 1912. That year he also became chairman of the board of expert directors to guide the research of the Eugenics Record Office* and chairman of the Committee on Eugenics for the American Breeders Association. He was made honorary president of the Second International Congress of Eugenics in 1921 and supported the foundation of a national eugenics society that culminated in the American Eugenics Society* soon after his death. Bell was in favor of immigration restriction to "eliminate undesirable ethnical elements," but not in favor of other eugenical legislation.* He was an early proponent of eugenic education and suggested that "individuals have the power to improve the race, but not the knowledge what to do. We students of genetics possess the knowledge but not the power; and the great hope lies in the dissemination of our knowledge among the people at large." However, by the end of the twentieth century his contributions to the eugenics movement had been largely ignored. During his lifetime Bell contributed to more than 500 publications on a variety of topics and was awarded many honorary degrees, awards, and medals for his inventions. He married Mabel Gardiner, one of his deaf students, and fathered two daughters. He worked on projects to the end of his life and died at his summer home in Baddeck, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. References: "International Eugenics Congress," American Breeders Magazine 3 (first quarter 1912), 75-76; "International Eugenics Congress," Journal of Heredity 4 (March 1914), 138; Bruce, Robert V.,
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Bell: Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude (1973); Bell, Alexander Graham, "A few thoughts concerning eugenics," National Geographic 19 (February 1908), 119-123, "Constructive eugenics," American Breeders Magazine 4 (second quarter 1913), 112, "How to improve the race," Journal of Heredity 5 (January 1914), 1-7; Davenport, Charles, ed., Eugenics, Genetics, and the Family, vol. 1, Scientific Papers of the Second International Congress of Eugenics (1923), 20-28; Haller, Mark H., Eugenics: Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought (1963); Kevles, Daniel J., In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity (1985); Pickens, Donald, Eugenics and the Progressives (1968); DAB 1 (1927), 148-152; EncAB (1996), 76-78; NatCAB 6 (1929), 220-223; Obituary, NYT August 3, 1922. Better Babies Campaign This "campaign for better babies" was an aspect of the eugenics movement.* It was both a positive eugenics and a public health campaign to educate parents in adequate child care, hygiene, and sanitation.* Its goal was to improve children's health and to prevent race degeneracy.* Baby contests, similar to livestock shows at agricultural fairs, sought to find the most healthy children. It was thought that better care and feeding of infants would produce healthier babies, as had been found with domestic animals. The better babies movement began at the Iowa State Fair in 1911 when Mary T. Watts (d. 1926) of Audubon, Iowa, was asked to supply an exhibit of interest to women fairgoers. She decided to judge babies who were brought to the baby show, not according to their beauty, but according to their health and strength. In March 1913 the editors of Women's Home Companion, a popular women's magazine, developed a Better Babies Bureau, headed by physician Lydia DeVilbiss (b. 1882). The purpose of the bureau was to educate mothers in "race betterment" methods through baby contests. It aimed to reach social workers and others to start contests and educate parents about hygiene, diet, and positive child-rearing techniques to produce healthier children. Most competitions were associated with state and county fairs or urban settlement houses. Results of the physical and mental examinations encouraged mothers to obtain information for the care and feeding of their babies so as to bring them up to the standards of prize winners. When a physician pointed out baby defects, parents were more ready for health education messages. In 1915 the Children's Bureau, established in 1912, organized a "better babies week" during which all American mothers were encouraged to have their children weighed and measured. In local communities, club women, extension organizations, doctors, ministers, and others organized better baby clinics. Parents
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bicycle craze
were urged to bring their children for free checkups. The better babies contest movement expanded in the pre-World War I* era throughout the country. In the postwar years it evolved into the Fitter Families Campaign.* References: "Fitter families," Eugenics 2 (June 1929), 32-33; Daggett, Mabel Poitter, "Women building a betterrace," World Work25 (December 1912), 228-234; DeVilbiss, Lydia, "Education for parenthood," in Robins, Emily F , ed., Proceedings of the First National Conference on Bace Betterment, January 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 1914 (1914), 265-272; Holt, Marilyn Irvin, Linoleum, Better Babies, and the Modern Farm Woman, 1890-1930 (1995); Johnson, Hildegarde Walls, "Fitter families for future firesides: The Kansas Eugenics Contest," Journal of Heredity 16 (December 1925), 457-460. bicycle craze (1890-1905) This fitness trend was an aspect of the physical exercise and fitness movement of the Progressive era's Clean Living Movement.* The "safety bicycle," which had two wheels the same size and pneumatic tires, was introduced around 1889. Its use became a craze among the middle class before the turn of the twentieth century. Although expensive, the price was within the middleclass budget. Physicians and clergymen made rounds on bicycle instead of horseback. Policemen and journalists rode in preference to walking their beats. Athletes turned long-distance cycle racing into a sport. By the mid-1890s the movement was at its peak. The "wheel" was considered good for health inasmuch as exercise in the open air was deemed particularly beneficial. "Bike" riding was also considered a cure for many diseases. Medical and sporting journals near the end of the nineteenth century were replete with articles applauding the bicycle as a great instrument of health and an aid to physical exercise. Numerous books, authored by a variety of people, focused on this activity. Frances Willard,* head of the WCTU* and a temperance* and purity* reformer, in her A Wheel within a Wheel: How I Learned to Bide the Bicycle (1895), urged women to take up cycling for increased freedom as well as healthy exercise. The bicycle did more to engage women in health-related exercise than any other single activity or invention. It also encouraged women to discard the corset and long bulky skirts for more suitable clothing for comfort and safety. However, some reformers feared the bicycle seat might cause moral downfall among women because it might stimulate sexual desires and "self abuse." Purity movement* advocates viewed the bicycle as a social vehicle for transporting girls into prostitution* and white slavery* because it allowed freedom of movement. Other critics branded women cyclists as "suffragettes" or immodest for wearing bloomer-type outfits. Its overuse was thought to result in various
Biggs, Hermann M.
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genital-urinary tract, muscular-skeletal, and other health problems for both men and women. By 1901 bicycling as an exercise was on the wane and was soon supplanted by the emerging "motor car" for transportation. References: Green, Harvey, Fit for America (1986); Porter, Luther H., Cycling for Health and Pleasure (1896); Smith, Robert, A Social History of the Bicycle (1972); Whorton, James C , "The hygiene of the wheel: An episode in Victorian sanitary science," Bulletin of the History of Medicine 68 (Spring 1978), 61-88, Crusaders for Fitness: The History of American Health Beformers (1982). Biggs, Hermann M. (September 29, 1859-June 28, 1923) An influential leader of the public health,* immunization,* sanitation,* and tuberculosis* (TB) movements, Biggs was also involved in the social hygiene movement.* Born in Trumansburg, New York, the son of a prosperous merchant, Biggs graduated from Cornell University (1882) and Bellevue Hospital Medical College (1883), and studied in Germany (1883-1885). In 1885 he was put in charge of the Carnegie Laboratory at Bellevue. In the fall of 1887 Biggs and colleagues were able to isolate cholera from passengers on an immigrant vessel. In 1892 he convinced the city health department to use this new technique for identifying cases and established the first diagnostic public health laboratory in the world, the New York city bacteriological laboratories. Under Biggs's leadership in the 1890s, the first American public health campaign against the spread of tuberculosis among humans was launched in New York city. Biggs and his colleagues developed a comprehensive program of tuberculosis control that became a model for public health boards throughout the United States and Europe. This program included factual information about the disease, methods of disinfection of surroundings, and a hygienic regimen including fresh air, diet, and exercise. Free bacteriological examination of sputum in 1894, an ordinance against spitting in 1896, and the requirement that physicians report TB cases to the health department of public (1897) and of private (1902) patients were also instituted. In addition, Biggs urged health leaders to give attention to social and economic conditions and not "just fight germs." Biggs introduced diphtheria antitoxin and immunization* to the United States in 1894. Along with Lawrence Flick,* Edward Trudeau,* and others, Biggs founded the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis, later named the National Tuberculosis Association.* Biggs was president of the organization from 1905 to 1907. During World War I* he was a consultant to the surgeon general of the U.S. Army and the American Red Cross Bureau of Tuberculosis. He championed school hygiene* and physical education,* and was involved
45
Billings, John Shaw
with venereal disease* prevention, including a recommendation that cases be registered. Along with Homer Folks,* he helped reorganize the New York state Board of Health in 1913. In 1918 he secured passage of a bill creating the Bureau of Venereal Disease in the state. He was active in the social hygiene movement* and was president of the American Social Hygiene Association* from 1919 to 1922. Early in his career he investigated the physiological action of cocaine (1885). Between 1885 and 1923, Biggs published ninety-two papers. Besides public health reforms, he was active in academic medicine and maintained a medical practice throughout his career. Biggs married Frances M. Richardson in 1898 and they had two children. He died in New York city of bronchial pneumonia subsequent to a disease of the "lymphatic system." References: Duffy, John, The Sanitarians: A History of American Public Health (1992); Knopf, S. Adolphus, A History of the National Tuberculosis Association: The Anti-Tuberculosis Movement in the United States (1922); Teller, Michael E., The Tuberculosis Movement: A Public Health Campaign in the Progressive Era (1988); Trattner, Walter I., Homer Folks, Pioneer in Social Welfare (1968); Winslow, C , The Life of Hermann M. Biggs: Physician and Statesman of the Public Health (1929); BiDSocW (1986), 88-90; DAMB 1 (1984), 65-66; NatCAB 19 (1926), 219-221; Obituary, A/YTJune 29, 1923. Billings, John Shaw (April 12, 1838-March 11, 1913) A physician and librarian, Billings was also a leader in public health,* sanitation,* and medical education. He influenced, directly or indirectly, many health reforms during the Clean Living Movement* era. Billings was born in southeastern Indiana, of New England parents. His father was a shopkeeper and both parents considered books important. Through self-study Billings was able to attend and subsequently graduated from Miami College, now Miami University (1857), and from the Medical College of Ohio (1860). In 1862 he was commissioned into the Army Medical Corps and practiced as a surgeon during the Civil War. For thirty years Billings worked in various positions in the U.S. surgeon general's office. He assembled the surgeon general's library (now the National Library of Medicine) and in 1879 founded what became the Index Medicus. During the 1890s he designed Johns Hopkins and other hospitals and became director of the New York Public Library from 1896 until his death. He was influential in the creation of the National Board of Health in 1879 and battled against John Hamilton* for the creation of a permanent federal health agency. In the 1880s Billings championed pure food and drug laws* on the national level and was president of the American Public Health As-
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sociation* in 1880. He encouraged the use of vital statistics to study disease trends and was in charge of the Division for Vital Statistics, Bureau of the Census, for the eleventh census. Billings was a founding member and chair of the Carnegie Institution of Washington* from 1903 to his death. Under his leadership, this organization funded Charles Davenport,* who began the Eugenics Record Office* that ultimately became the core of the eugenics movement;* funding was also given to Russell Chittenden,* who was influential in the diet and nutrition movement,* for research in nutrition. Billings wrote many articles on topics ranging from alcohol* to vital statistics. He married Katherine Mary Stevens in 1862, with whom he had three children. His son John Sedgwick Billings (1869-1928) was also involved with public health, in particular tuberculosis* prevention, during the first decade of the century. Both men sometimes used John S. Billings as their byline in their writings. He was active to the end of his life and died as the result of surgery complications. References: Garrison, Fielding H., John Shaw Billings: A Memoir (1915); Lydenberg, Harry Miller, John Shaw Billings: Creator of the National Medical Library and Its Catalogue (1924); Oblensky, Florence E., "John Shaw Billings—12 April 1838-11 March 1913: On the one hundred and twenty-ninth anniversary of his birth," Military Medicine (April 1967), 286-291; Rogers, Frank Bradway, Selected Papers of John Shaw Billings, Compiled with a Life of Billings (1965); BiDSocW(1986), 93-95; WhAm 1 (1942), 95; obituary, NYT March 12, 1913. birth control This term for pregnancy prevention was first coined by Margaret Sanger,* the leader of the birth-control movement.* Methods, devices, and information for preventing pregnancy were considered obscene under the Comstock Law,* and thus were not allowed to be sent through the mails, given out by physicians, described in writings, or even openly discussed during the Progressive era. Contraception was not considered respectable and was associated with libertine practices such as nonmarital sexuality. In reality, birth control was being used by the educated and the middle class. Information about methods were quietly passed among networks of women and between wives and husbands. Small families became increasingly fashionable among the middle class at the turn of the century, leading eugenics* proponents to be concerned about racial suicide.* By the mid-1920s many eugenicists saw birth control as a measure to reduce the high birthrate among paupers* and immigrants.* The birth-control movement fought for the right of all women to obtain legal birth-control information and methods. References: Chesler, Ellen, Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the
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birth-control conference, first
Birth Control Movement in America (1992); Gray, Madeline, Margaret Sanger: A Biography of the Champion of Birth Control (1973); Kennedy, David M., Birth Control in America: The Career of Margaret Sanger (1970); Reed, W. James, From Private Vice to Public Virtue: The Birth Control Movement and American Society since 1830 (1978). birth-control conference, first (1921) The first birth-control conference was held in New York city in 1921. Its purpose was to make birth control* respectable. Simultaneously with this conference, Margaret Sanger,* the leader of the birth-control movement,* founded the American Birth Control League.* Noted educators, eugenicists, physicians, and scientists attended the conference or presented papers. Those in attendance included S. Adolphus Knopf,* the public health leader who discussed eugenics* and birth control and their relationship to tuberculosis,* and Roswell H. Johnson,* who discussed the eugenic aspects of birth control. Other presentations included those by eugenicists Clarence C. Little* and Lothrop Stoddard.* This international conference, with attendees and presenters from several nations, was held November 11 and 12, 1921, and featured two days of scholarly and clinical papers and discussions. On November 13 a public town meeting to discuss the topic, "Birth control: Is it moral?" at New York's city hall was planned. When Sanger arrived with her featured speaker, the editor of the Edinburgh Beview, a crowd was gathered outside. One hundred policemen had ringed the locked doors of the hall. The doors were finally opened, but when Sanger attempted to speak the police removed her from the platform and arrested her along with other speakers. The next day the New York Times inferred that the raid was made at the request of Patrick J. Hayes, archbishop of the Catholic archdiocese. After the raid, Sanger's newsletter, the Birth Control Beview* suggested, "This date will become celebrated in history as the great turning point of public opinion. It was a case of American citizens gathering legally and peaceably to listen to a discussion of the morality of Birth Control, a subject of the most tremendous private and public importance." Many New York papers condemned the raid as an abridgment of the right of assembly and of free speech. A second meeting was arranged for the following Friday, and little interference was encountered. This first birth-control conference and the police raid helped to popularize the birth-control cause. References: "Church control," Birth Control Beview 5 (November 1921), 3-5; "The press protests," Birth Control Beview 5 (December 1921), 16-17; Chesler, Ellen, Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America (1992); Haller, Mark H., Eugenics: Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought (1963); Kennedy, David
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M., Birth Control in America: The Career of Margaret Sanger (1970); Sanger, Margaret, My Fight for Birth Control (1931). birth-control movement The birth-control movement emerged from several currents of the Progressive era. It was interwoven with the woman suffrage,* eugenics,* and social hygiene* movements. Like these movements, the birth-control crusade, in addition to the temperance movement* and certain aspects of the purity movement,* was primarily supported by Anglo-American* upper-middle-class or wealthy women. Similar to the suffrage movement, it was fraught with civil disobedience and clashes with law enforcement until laws were changed giving women more freedom of choice. The birth-control movement was launched by Margaret Sanger* at the height of the Progressive era and reached its peak in the years before World War II. Its basic theme was the "right of every individual mother to decide the time and frequency of her child-bearing" and the "inalienable birthright of every child to be wanted, to be born physically and mentally fit and to come into a home that is morally and materially able to care for it." In the first decade of the twentieth century, Emma Goldman (18691940), a socialist, had begun to advocate access to contraceptive information. However, Sanger launched a national movement in 1912 in a series of articles that dealt frankly with venereal disease* and feminine hygiene in the magazine Call. Under the Comstock Law,* however, her articles were deemed obscene and thus banned from the mail. Two years later, in 1914, Sanger began to publish the Woman Bebel, a militant journal, in which she urged legalization of birth control to alleviate the suffering of slum women from the "tyranny of childbearing." In the June 1914 issue of this magazine she coined the term "birth control."* Because this journal was considered obscene, Sanger was arrested and indited by the U.S. Department of Justice for violation of the postal laws. She fled the country to avoid imprisonment. Publicity about her arrests helped spur the birth-control movement. In 1915 several situations helped publicize the birth-control movement. Mary Ware Dennett,* a leader in the woman suffrage movement, launched her own crusade while Sanger traveled in Europe. Dennett and other feminists formed the National Birth Control League, which instituted an education and lobbying campaign to change laws rather than defy them. Goldman began lecturing on birth control around the country and was arrested several times for distributing birth-control literature. Dennett's group, however, excluded radicals such as Goldman and directed their appeal to the wealthy. Laws in twenty-four states made it illegal even for parents to inform
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their married children about contraception. Dennett petitioned Congress for repeal of the prohibition against birth control in 1915 and again in 1923, but her efforts were not successful. During 1915 the popular magazine Harper's Weekly took a chance and discussed issues surrounding birth control in a series written by Mary A. Hopkins (1876-1960). Anthony Comstock,* the antiobscenity movement's* leader, tricked Sanger's husband into distributing her "family limitation" pamphlet so as to draw Margaret back to the United States for conviction. The arrest drew hundreds of people into the movement, as birth control was now seen as a free-speech issue. Comstock died soon after this arrest. Sanger returned to the United States in late 1915; however, she perceived Dennett as a competitor and formed her own legislative initiative. Sanger and her group advocated that "doctors only" be allowed to prescribe contraceptives because she felt this approach had a better chance of winning support than a bill for total repeal as advocated by Dennett. In 1919 Dennett's organization became known as the Voluntary Parenthood League, which folded in 1923, leaving Sanger as the primary leader of the movement. During 1916 Sanger founded the Birth Control Beview,* which became the official voice of the movement over several decades. During this same year, in defiance of the law, Sanger and her sister opened the first birth-control clinic for contraceptive instruction in the nation. However, the police soon closed it and Sanger was arrested and convicted. Sanger was jailed for a month, giving more visibility to the movement just as imprisonment did for the suffragettes during this era. In an appeal, the judge, Frederick Crane, ruled that physicians could give birth-control information to married women for the prevention of venereal disease. During 1916 Sanger also founded the Birth Control League of New York, whose main purpose was fundraising. In 1921 Sanger established the American Birth Control League* and organized the first birth-control conference* in New York city. The public meeting of the conference was raided by police. This action, like other arrests, helped further the cause for birth control. In 1923 Sanger founded the Clinical Research Bureau,* a contraceptive center and research clinic. In that same year the Maternity Research Council was founded by Robert Dickinson* and a group of physicians to research the effectiveness of birth control and to dispense information and devices under the control of physicians, rather than Sanger's lay organization. However, by 1930 hundreds of physicians were trained in the use of diaphragms at Sanger's clinic. Sanger formed the National Committee on Federal Legislation in 1929 to lobby against the Comstock Law. However, the Catholic Church* fought all procedures to make birth control completely legal. In 1936 United States v. One Package elimi-
Birth Control Review
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nated contraceptive methods from the obscenity law and allowed birth-control materials to be sent through the mail to physicians. Hannah Stone,* the head of Sanger's clinic, testified at the trial. However, the right of individual citizens to bring birth-control devices into the country for personal use was not established until 1971. By the late 1930s the crusade era of the movement had waned and Sanger went into semiretirement. References: Chesler, Ellen, Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America (1992); Gray, Madeline, Margaret Sanger: A Biography of the Champion of Birth Control (1978); Kennedy, David M., Birth Control in America: The Career of Margaret Sanger (1970); Reed, W. James, From Private Vice to Public Virtue: The Birth Control Movement and American Society since 1830 (1978); Sanger, Margaret, My Fight for Birth Control (1931). Birth Control Review (1917-1940) This monthly periodical was the primary journal of the birth-control movement* and was the official organ of the American Birth Control League.* The first issue of the Birth Control Beview, "dedicated to the principle of intelligent and voluntary motherhood," as stated on its masthead, was published in New York city in February 1917 by Margaret Sanger,* the major leader of the birth-control movement. During its first year it was supported by revenues from newsstand sales, subscriptions, and donations from wealthy benefactors. In February 1918 Sanger organized and incorporated the New York Women's Publishing Company to finance the Beview and to promote birth control.* By 1921 eugenics* articles became more frequent, and in November "Birth Control: To create a race of thoroughbreds" was added to the masthead. In May 1923, after various difficulties including possible embezzlement by the managing editor, the American Birth Control League, also founded by Sanger, incorporated the .Review as its "official organ." The Beviewhelped popularize the birth-control movement among the middle class. It chronicled activities and conferences and served as the chief source of information for supporters of the movement. It published articles relating birth control to eugenics, immigrants,* temperance,* race suicide,* social hygiene,* tuberculosis,* and venereal disease.* Its format included the debate of controversial issues, letters from women seeking birth-control advice, a book review section, feature articles, and an information page from Mary Ware Dennett's* National Birth Control League during its few years of existence. As editor, Sanger used the Review to publish many of her own speeches and articles on a wide variety of topics throughout the late 1910s and 1920s. Health reformers including tuberculosis
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movement* leader S. Adolphus Knopf* and eugenicists Paul Popenoe,* Roswell H. Johnson,* Clarence C. Little,* and Lothrop Stoddard* published opinions or articles in the publication. Vigorous street sales and circulation campaigns made the journal available in nearly every state and boosted circulation to about 10,000 copies per issue by 1922. Seven months after Sanger resigned from the league she also resigned as editor, on January 31, 1929. The Beview continued to be published until July 1933. After this date it was published as a shorter monthly bulletin under the same name. Its last issue was published for January 1940. Over its lifetime this periodical was the main information vehicle of the birth-control movement. References: "The Birth Control Review, New York Women's Publishing company," (visited December 31, 2001); Birth Control Beview 1-7 (1917-1923). Bok, Edward William (October 9, 1863-January 9, 1930) Bok, an editor and journalist, wrote about and offered a forum for many health-reform issues of the Progressive era. He helped popularize the temperance,* pure food and drug,* patent medicine,* and social hygiene* movements through his writings and editorial policies as editor of the Ladies' Home Journal, a major women's magazine. Born in The Netherlands, Bok, the second of two sons, was from an old distinguished Dutch family. Their religious affiliation was with the Dutch Reformed Church, but he later became a Presbyterian. Due to a reversal of family fortunes, Bok migrated to New York with his family at age six in the autumn of 1870 and was educated in the Brooklyn public schools. At age ten Bok began to work at odd jobs, which included window washing and delivering newspapers, to help his family financially. He began as a youthful reporter of children's parties for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Soon after his father became a translator for the Western Union Telegraph Company, Bok quit school at age thirteen to be an office boy in the same company. When his father died, he and his brother assumed responsibility for supporting themselves and their mother. While working as an office boy he moonlighted in the evenings as a writer, writing theatrical news for the Eagle and editing a magazine for a church of which Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887), the noted theologian, was pastor. He became stenographer for Henry Holt and Company in 1882. Two years later he went to Charles Scribner's Sons in the same capacity and met many prominent individuals. Meanwhile, he continued to edit the church publication, which became the Brooklyn Magazine in 1884. Bok and a partner then sold this magazine and launched a newspaper syndicate that in 1886 became the Bok Syndicate Press. Due to his many connections, he published the works of noted writers and
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other prominent individuals. In April 1889 Cyrus H. K. Curtis (18501933), a publishing magnate, invited Bok to become editor of the Ladies' Home Journal. Bok accepted this position in October 1889 and retained it until his retirement thirty years later. In 1901 he relinquished his syndicate press. Bok influenced the Progressive era's Clean Living Movement* by offering a forum for and helping popularize several health-reform crusades. He was vehemently against patent medicines and their advertisement practices. He announced in 1892 that the Journal would cease accepting patent medicine advertisements even though they were a chief source of revenue for many publications. He was in favor of the temperance movement* and supported the work of the Woman's Christian Temperance Movement.* However, he admonished members of the WCTU who bought magazines with patent medicine advertisements, pointing out that most of those concoctions contained a high percentage of alcohol. Bok advanced several health movements. He was a member of the Committee of One Hundred,* which advocated a national health department. He was one of the first to discuss venereal disease* in the popular press and helped popularize the social hygiene movement. His magazine became a forum for the prohibition,* birth control,* eugenics,* public health,* and pure food and drug movements. In January 1920 he retired from the Curtis Publishing Company. For his remaining ten years he devoted himself to writing and philanthropic causes. Over his lifetime he was a prolific writer and received several honors. His autobiography, The Americanization of Edward Bok, in which he discussed temperance and concern about patent medicines, was awarded a Pulitzer prize in 1921. Over the next twenty years this work went through sixty printings. In 1896 he married Mary Louise Curtis, an heir of the Curtis Publishing Company. They had two sons. Bok died of an acute heart attack on his estate in Lake Wales, Florida. References: Bok, Edward, "The 'patent medicine' curse," Ladies' Home Journal 21 (May 1904), 18, "A diabolical 'patent-medicine' story," Ladies' Home Journal 22 (April 1905), 20, The Americanization of Edward Bok: The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After (1921), America Give Me a Chance! (1926); DAB 11 (1957), 91-93; NatCAB 23 (1933), 41-42; SEAP 1 (1925), 363; Obituary, NYT, January 10, 1930. breakfast cereals The development of ready-to-eat breakfast cereals emerged from the diet and nutrition movement* of the Progressive era. Breakfast cereals were developed at John Harvey Kellogg's* Battle Creek Sanitarium.* Based upon an earlier recipe that had been used at a hydrotherapy institution in Danville, New York, in the
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early 1860s, a multigrain cereal named "granula" was developed around 1877 by Kellogg. Threatened lawsuits over the name led Kellogg to change the name to "granola," which was manufactured by the sanitarium's bakery. As a service to former patients who wanted this and other products when they returned home, Kellogg started the Sanitas Food Company around 1890. Will Keith (W. K.) Kellogg (1860-1951), John Harvey's younger brother, was put in charge of the business to produce these foods for mail order. In 18941895 a flaked wheat cereal called Granose Flakes, for which John Harvey obtained a patent, began to be marketed. In 1898 the brothers developed a process for flaking corn. The following year the Sanitas Nut Food Company was formed to market their food products. By 1905 the Corn Flake business was booming. Will Kellogg, more businessminded than his physician brother, became interested in an all-out venture to produce flaked corn cereal and promote it through an advertising campaign. He formed his own company, the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company in 1906 and purchased the rights from his brother, John Harvey, for Corn Flakes. In 1907 W. K.'s company changed its product name from Sanitas to Kellogg Toasted Corn Flakes. In order to avoid confusion with John Harvey's company, W. K. had his signature printed across the labels of all Corn Flakes boxes. In 1909, when W. K. renamed his company the Kellogg Toasted Corn Flake Company, it was selling more than a million cases of the cereal. However, deep animosity between the brothers developed over the use of the Kellogg name. For a number of years they battled each other in court. In 1920 the court gave Will the right to use the name for his company, and John Harvey changed his business name to the Battle Creek Food Company. Besides the Kellogg brothers, others developed ready-to-eat cereals. In 1891 Charles W. Post (1854-1914) went to the Battle Creek Sanitarium to recover his health. He learned about diet and nutrition* and physical exercise; however, he did not improve in health. Remaining in Battle Creek, he studied Christian Science,* regained his health, became a mind cure* healer, and established a medical boarding house. In 1894 Post developed his own health food products and a year later introduced Postum Cereal Coffee. In 1898 Grape Nuts was put on the market. Post, using a similar process of flaking as the Kellogg brothers, in 1906 introduced his flaked corn, Elijah Manna. However, it was renamed Post Toasties in 1908 after complaints from religious groups. After Post's death in 1914 from suicide, the Postum Cereal Company was created. In 1925 this company united with the Jell-0 Company in the first of a series of mergers and purchases that led to the development of the giant General Foods Cooperation.
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In 1942 the Battle Creek Sanitarium Health Food Company was dissolved. However, W. K. Kellogg's company continued to grow into one of the largest conglomerates in the world. Corn Flakes and other cereals, developed by these and other cereal entrepreneurs, become a staple of the American diet into the twenty-first century. Battle Creek became known as the cereal capital of the United States. References: Carson, Gerald, Cornflake Crusade (1957); Schwarz, Richard William, John Harvey Kellogg, M. D. (1981). brewers, breweries, or brewing industry Large breweries had controlling interests in most urban saloons* by the first decade of the twentieth century and used them as outlets for their beers.* Breweries were highly competitive and openly encouraged heavy drinking. This was done through "treating," a practice in which patrons bought a round of drinks for all persons present. Although beer had been considered a "temperance" drink, by the first decade of the twentieth century temperance* reformers began to view the brewing industry as "lawbreakers" and "pushers" of the liquor traffic* Breweries began to be feared on grounds they had gained immense political power. When the anti-saloon movement* became more powerful in the decades on either side of the turn of the twentieth century, breweries began to resist local-option and statewide prohibition campaigns by the Anti-Saloon League* and other groups. Breweries in several localities blocked woman-suffrage* legislation out of fear that voting women would "run them out of business." In addition, many large national breweries were owned by German Americans.* Anti-German sentiments in the World War I* era were fanned by nativists.* This added further ammunition to the crusade to eliminate all alcoholic beverages through national prohibition* as the prohibition movement* reached its peak with passage of the Eighteenth Amendment.* References: Lender, Mark E., and Martin, J. K., Drinkingin America: A History, rev. and exp. ed. (1987); Warner, Harry S., Social Welfare and the Liquor Problem: A Series of Studies in the Sources of the Problem and How TheyBelate to Its Solution (1909). Burbank, Luther (March 7,1849-April 11,1926) A world-renowned plant breeder, Burbank was an early proponent of eugenics.* Born in Lancaster, Massachusetts, he was the thirteenth child of a farmer and brickmaker from a family proud of its old New England stock. Educated in local schools, he attended Lancaster Academy for four years but gained his scientific knowledge from the public library. In 1870, two years after the death of his father, he used his inheritance to buy property near his hometown and became a nurseryman and experimenter in plant breeding. In 1875 he sold his land and moved
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Burbank, Luther
to Santa Rose, California. Two years later his mother and sister joined him. He developed an experimental garden and created new varieties of fruits, vegetables, and flowers, including the Shasta Daisy. By 1890 Burbank's income from a variety of new hybrids was sufficient to enable him to go full time into fruit and flower development. In 1905 the Carnegie Institution of Washington* made an arrangement with him to collate his scientific data inasmuch as Burbank generally destroyed his field notes. However, this arrangement was not successful and it terminated after five years. Burbank's genetic experiments with keeping the "fittest" plants brought him into the American Breeders Association.* In 1906 he became an original member of the association's Committee on Eugenics.* Burbank's work with plants convinced him that the key to good breeding was a combination of genetic selection and the environment. He was an anomaly in the eugenics movement* inasmuch as he retained a belief that acquired characteristics* could be inherited long after it had been discredited by the scientific world. When the Eugenics Registry* was established in 1914 he was a member of its governing committee. Burbank was opposed to open immigration* from Southern and Eastern European cultures due to "a large proportion of inferior representatives," and was concerned about racial suicide* among "the better classes of the community." Burbank wrote little over his lifetime and did not seek publicity. In 1907 he published a booklet that carried the eugenics message for child rearing called Training the Human Plant. Under Burbank's direction the Luther Burbank Society (1912-1926) published the "Human Plant Improvement Series," including The Power of Environment: Nurture Versus Nature (1914) and The Laws of Heredity (1914). Burbank, like many other Progressive-era reformers, believed that many commonly used "stimulants," which in this era included alcohol* and tobacco,* were harmful to society. Over his lifetime Burbank achieved worldwide recognition and honors for his plant breeding. Near the end of his life, however, he was castigated for his religious viewpoints by fundamentalists.* He married twice, first to Helen A. Coleman (1890), whom he divorced in 1896, and then Elizabeth Waters (1916), his secretary, but fathered no children. He died of complications from a heart attack at his home and was buried under a cedar tree, among the flowers, in tribute to plants to which he had devoted many years of his life. References: Andrews, Charles S., "Luther Burbank: The man and his mind," New York Times, August 5,1906; Gould, Stephen Jay, "Does the stoneless plum instruct the thinking reed?" Natural History 101 (April 1992): 16-25; Dreyer, Peter, A Gardener Touched with Genius: The Life of Luther Burbank (1975); Kingsland, Sharon E., "The battling bota-
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nist: Daniel Trembly MacDougal, mutation theory, and the rise of experimental evolutionary biology in America, 1900-1912," Isis 82 (1991), 479-509; Williams, Henry Smith, Luther Burbank: His Life and Work (1915); ANB 3 (1999), 926-927; DAB 2 (1964), 265-270; obituary, NYT, April 11, 1926, April 13, 1926. Bureau of Social Hygiene (1911-1940) This bureau was a privately funded philanthropic organization established to study, ameliorate, and prevent prostitution,* venereal disease,* and other social problems. The Bureau of Social Hygiene supported a variety of investigations and experimental programs. It grew out of the appointment of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (JDR, Jr.)* to a special grand jury investigation of the white slave traffic* in New York city in 1910. The result of this inquiry was the recommendation of a permanent commission to investigate "social evils" in the United States and Europe. Local politics made such a publicly supported commission improbable. After consultation with numerous clergy, social workers, and labor and business leaders, JDR, Jr., in October 1911, organized the bureau with Paul Warburg (1868-1932), a banker, Starr Murphy (1860-1921), an attorney, and Katharine Bement Davis,* head of the New York State Reformatory for Women. The bureau was formally announced and incorporated in 1913 when concern over police corruption and vice arose in New York city. Davis was chosen as the first general secretary in 1917. JDR, Jr. was its main contributor, with additional funding for its grants provided by the Rockefeller Foundation and other private contributors. The bureau's initial interest was the elimination of prostitution, but it soon included sex education* and venereal disease prevention. In 1911 it financed a series of eighteen lectures on sex education to local teachers. Between 1910 and 1913, JDR, Jr. and later the bureau funded social hygiene* organizations that evolved into the American Social Hygiene Association.* The first major project of the bureau was the Laboratory of Social Hygiene* (1912). It supported George Kneeland (1872-c. 1921), former director of the Chicago Vice Commission, in the investigation for Commercialized Prostitution in New York City (1913) during 1912. Many other projects concerning prostitution in the United States and Europe were financed, including the Committee of Fourteen* and Abraham Flexner's* Prostitution in Europe (1914). The bureau underwrote early venereal disease work of the New York City Department of Health and funded an experimental syphilis clinic at Johns Hopkins University Hospital. It also supported a major study of police organizations and techniques in Europe in 1916 under the
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direction of Raymond B. Fosdick (1883-1972), a lawyer who later became JDR, Jr.'s biographer. In the 1920s, under the influence of Davis, the bureau became interested in other sexuality and health topics. It began to focus on birth control,* eugenics,* population control, Social Darwinism,* and narcotics* addicion. It supported both Margaret Sanger's* and Robert Dickinson's* birth-control research agencies and contraception research. The bureau organized the Committee on Drug Addiction in 1921 and under its auspices published The Opium Problem (1928). Davis was forced to retire in 1928 because of poor health and her controversial work, Factors in the Sex Life of Twenty-Two Hundred Women (1929). After she retired the bureau left the sexuality field, and more emphasis was placed on criminal justice and criminology. It ceased making appropriations in 1934 and was dissolved in 1940. References: Bullough, Vern L., "Katharine Bement Davis, sex research, and the Rockefeller Foundation," Bulletin of the History of Medicine 62 (Spring 1988), 74-89; Connelly, Mark Thomas, The Besponse to Prostitution in the Progressive Era (1980); Collier, Peter, and Horowitz, David, The Bockefellers: An American Dynasty (1976); Gardner, James E, Microbes and Morality: The Social Hygiene Crusade in New York City, 1892-1917 (1974); Kneeland, George J., Commercialized Prostitution in New York City (1913); Weidensall, Jean, The Mentality of the Criminal Woman (1916); "Social hygiene," NYT, January 27,1913; "Grand jury service guided Rockefeller," NYT, January 28, 1913.
c Carnegie Institution of Washington (1902-present) This institution, founded by Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) for basic scientific research, underwrote several health fields during the Progressive era; in particular, eugenics* research. The committee of incorporators, chaired by John S. Billings,* met in January 1902 to organize the institution. The organization was reincorporated by an act of Congress in 1904 under the title of Carnegie Institution of Washington. Its goals were to fund and publish original research. During its first decade of operation it supported Russell H. Chittenden* and Francis Benedict's research on diet and nutrition* and Luther Burbank's* plant genetic studies. In 1904 it established the Station for Experimental Evolution at Cold Spring Harbor, New York, for genetic research under the direction of Charles Davenport.* During the second two decades of the twentieth century it was a major supporter of studies that became the knowledge base of the eugenics movement.* In 1916 the institution published Arthur Estabrook's* The Jukes in 1915 (1916), a report from the Eugenics Records Office* that helped popularize the eugenics movement. In 1918 Mrs. E. H. Harriman (1851-1932), the main supporter of the ERO, transferred it to the institution. In 1921 the Station for Experimental Evolution absorbed the ERO to form the institution's department of genetics, which remained under the direction of Davenport. The ERO was maintained as a subsection of the department. However, in the late 1920s and 1930s, Harry Laughlin* and others at the ERO became more stridently nativistic* and lauded the eugenic policies of Nazi Germany. These activities concerned leaders of the institution, which in 1937 investigated Laughlin's research and found it unscientific. The institution forced Laughlin to retire, closed down the ERO, and disas-
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sociated itself from eugenics. The institution continues to fund research in many areas of basic science in the twenty-first century. References: Allen, Garland E., "The Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor, 1910-1940," Osiris, 2d ser., 2 (1986), 225-264; Osborn, Frederick, "History of the American Eugenics Society," Social Biology 21 (Summer 1974), 115-126; Woodward, R. S., "The Carnegie Institution of Washington and its work," Nature 85 (November 17, 1910), 74-77. Catholics or Catholic Church During the Progressive era, Southern and Eastern European Catholic immigrants* entered the United States. Their sheer numbers and contrasting way of life triggered anti-Catholic feelings among "old-stock" Protestants,* who helped fan the eugenics,* nativist,* and prohibition* movements in an effort to control the behavior of these immigrants. Yet the Catholic Church in the United States during this period of time did not speak with one central voice. A clash between Irish* Catholics, who controlled the American church, and Italian* and Eastern Orthodox groups erupted. As a result, different ethnic groups formed their own parishes and schools. During the Progressive era a high proportion of Catholics were blue-collar workers who labored in the burgeoning factories. The saloon* became their social club. Fear of Roman Catholic immigrants, which had origins in colonial times, led to the rise of pro "native-American" sentiments among many middle-class AngloAmerican* Protestants.* This was rooted in an underlying anxiety that papal power would overtake the country and eliminate religious freedom, and the separation of church and state. Anti-Catholicism had festered in the early nineteenth century and erupted in the KnowNothing Party of the 1840s. It became an underlying factor in the nativist uprising that revitalized the Ku Klux Klan* as large groups of Catholics immigrated to America before World War L* Antipathy toward Catholics increasingly interwove itself with health-reform issues. Irish Catholic immigrants, in particular, were decried as being in an endless cycle of birth and death, poverty,* and intemperance.* Nativists feared the entire nation would become overrun with these "degenerates." Reformers noted a disproportionate amount of insanity, crime,* alcoholism,* and infectious diseases* among slum-dwelling Irish Catholic immigrants, compared to other groups. Concern over the safety of the republic and racial suicide* and race degeneration* forged bonds between nativists and temperance* workers to do something about the perceived alcohol problem. Reformers viewed riotous tippling among the foreign born as mocking American social values. The Catholic vote and so-called ballot stuffing at saloon polling places were seen as corrupting po-
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litical systems in some major cities. At the turn of the century, Southern European immigrants from Italy and other countries brought the practice of daily wine drinking with meals, which contrasted sharply with the lifestyle of the native-born Protestant establishment. Eastern European Catholics had drinking patterns similar to the Irish Catholics. Heavy drinking of spirits and drunkenness was common. Fear of these urban immigrants by more rural middle-class Protestants increased agitation for prohibition measures as a way of social control. However, many urban Catholics fought against the institution of national prohibition. The Catholic hierarchy introduced a crusade against several health reforms of the Progressive-era. They campaigned against birth control* and some aspects of eugenics. On November 13, 1921, under probable orders from the New York dioceses, the police thwarted a meeting of Margaret Sanger* concerning birth control. Catholic writers, with the blessings of the Church, produced tracts and books condemning birth control as immoral. The Church, in many states, took the lead in urging enforcement of laws against contraception and attempted to suppress discussion of birth control in public meetings. By 1931 a papal encyclical was published "to stamp out the practices of birth control, companionate marriage, and divorce." The Church also took a stand against eugenical laws* such as sterilization near the end of the eugenics movement. Over the twentieth century a large majority of Catholics were integrated into the middle class. In many northern metropolises the educational and economic achievements of Catholics surpassed that of Protestants. Catholics also began to follow their own dictates concerning birth control. By the late twentieth century "a substantial proportion of the Catholic population [had] turned away from what [was] still the official teaching of the church" regarding sexuality. Dramatic changes in the church, including Vatican II, resulted in an American Catholic Church with many similarities to the old-stock Episcopalian and other mainstream Protestant denominations. References: Billington, Ray Allen, The Origins of Nativism in the United States 1800-1844 (1974); Engs, Ruth Clifford, "Past influences, current issues, future research questions," in Houghton, Eleni, and Roche, Ann M., eds., Learning about Drinking (2001), 147-166, "Do traditional Western European drinking practices have origins in antiquity?" Addiction Besearch 2 (1995), 227-239; Greeley, Andrew M., The American Catholic: A Social Portrait (1977); Haller, Mark H., Eugenics: Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought (1963); Johnson, Roswell H., "The Encyclical," Eugenics 4 (February 1931), 73; Kennedy, David M., Birth Control in America: The Career of Margaret Sanger (1970); Timberlake, James H., Prohibition and the Progressive Movement, 1900-1920 (1963); NYT, November 14,1921.
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Cherrington, Ernest Hurst
Cherrington, Ernest Hurst (November 24, 1877-March 13, 1950) A prolific author and editor of many temperance* publications, Cherrington is considered the father of national prohibition.* He was the pivotal leader of the Progressive era's temperance and prohibition movements, working much of the time behind the scenes. Son of a Methodist clergyman, Cherrington was born in Hamden, Ohio. After attending the preparatory department of Ohio Wesleyan University (1893-1897), he taught school in Ross Country, Ohio, edited the local newspaper, and began speaking for the Ohio Anti-Saloon League,* which had been founded in 1893. In 1902 he became a full-time temperance worker as superintendent of the league's Canton district. His effectiveness in fieldwork soon attracted the attention of Purley A. Baker,* the league's state superintendent, who selected Cherrington as his assistant. In 1905 Cherrington was sent to Seattle as superintendent of the Washington state league. He built up a powerful organization and edited the league's newspaper, The Citizen. Cherrington moved to Chicago when the league's national office appointed him associate editor and manager of publishing interests in February 1908. In 1909 the American Issue Publishing Company was established in Westerville, Ohio, which published The American Issue.* In 1909, after the sudden death of the magazine's editor-in-chief, Cherrington was appointed to replace him, a position he retained until 1942. By 1910 Cherrington was general manager of the company. Over the second decade of the twentieth century Cherrington built the publishing company into a huge enterprise. He edited many temperance journals and tracts over his career, including History of the Anti-Saloon League (1913), The Evolution of Prohibition in the U.S.A. (1920), and America and the World Liquor Problem (1922). Beginning in 1908, he edited the Anti-Saloon League Year Book (1908-1932). His sixvolume Standard Encyclopedia of Alcohol Problems (1925-1930) was a major comprehensive study of alcohol-related issues. Cherrington and his massive outpouring of prohibition and temperance material were extremely influential in bringing about the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment.* Under his guidance the prohibition movement was popularized through The American Issue and other publications. He influenced many policies and activities of the Anti-Saloon League. As secretary of the national executive committee of the league, he developed a fundraising program, managed its finances, and organized its national speakers bureau. Cherrington supported a widespread campaign to educate not only the country, but also the world on prohibition. However, he came into conflict with Wayne B. Wheeler,* the league's general counsel, who urged concentration on rigorous enforcement of the Volstead Act,* as to the best goals of the league. This conflict prevented
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Cherrington from being elected general superintendent of the league after Wheeler's sudden death. Instead, he was made director of the league's department of education and propaganda. These internal conflicts along with shrinking financial support following passage of the Twenty-First Amendment (which repealed prohibition) crippled the Anti-Saloon League. On Cherrington's initiative, in June 1919 the league founded the World League Against Alcoholism,* of which he was general secretary and later managing director. The goal of the organization was to foster prohibition in the rest of the world. After repeal of prohibition, the league's leaders lost power and influence and were soon forgotten. However, Cherrington remained active in temperance education and with his church's temperance program. In 1936 he became executive secretary of the Methodist Church Board of Temperance in Washington, D.C, and edited its journal, the Voice (1936-1948). He received two honorary doctorates for his lifetime of work. Upon his retirement in 1948 he returned to Westerville. Cherrington married Betty Clifford Denny in 1903 and fathered two children. He died of cancer two years after his retirement, in a sanitarium near his home. References: Blocker, Jack S., Jr., Betreatfrom Beform: The Prohibition Movement in the United States 1890-1913 (1976); Cherrington, Ernest H., "World-wide progress toward prohibition legislation," Annals of the American Academy 109 (September 1923), 208-224, The Evolution of Prohibition in the United States of America (1920), History of the Anti-Saloon League (1913); Clark, Norman H., The Dry Years: Prohibition and Social Change in Washington (1988); Kerr, K. Austin, Organized for Prohibition: A New History of the Anti-Saloon League (1985); Odegard, Peter H., Pressure Politics: The Story of the Anti-Saloon League (1928); ANB 4 (1999), 780-782; SEAP 1 (1925), 175-186, 2, 565-566; DAB sup. 4 (1974), 160-162; obituary, NYT, March 14, 1950, Westerville Public Opinion, March 16, 1950. Chinese and Chinese Americans Most Chinese who migrated to the United States at the beginning of the Progressive era were young single males. Since their arrival, Chinese immigrants were seen as undesirable by the dominant Anglo-Saxon* culture because of their association with cheap labor, opium smoking, prostitution,* and deadly infectious diseases* including bubonic plague and cholera. Some of the first immigration restriction* laws in the nation were enacted against this ethnic group. Several waves of Chinese immigration* occurred in the latter half of the nineteenth century. In the 1850s, fueled by news of the California gold rush, young peasants, like many American adventurers,
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went to California hoping to "strike it rich." Many intended to return home to China once they became wealthy. In the 1870s Chinese "coolies," or laborers, came to work on railroads, in mines, in mills, and in other unskilled jobs at extremely low pay. By 1880, 25 percent of California's workforce was of Chinese descent. Others moved into agriculture. Chinese farming techniques, along with migrant agricultural laborers, established rich agricultural areas in the west. By the turn of the century some Chinese had become domestic servants. A few immigrants started their own factories, profiting from the highly competitive atmosphere. The Chinese had close family bonds and generally practiced some form of Buddhism or Taoism, or similar religions. Due to language barriers and alien customs, many Chinese immigrants had little incentive to abandon old ways and adapt to the new culture, leading to more isolation. Ambivalence or hostility and a growing fear of cheap labor that threatened the American worker's sense of security fueled virulent campaigns against this "yellow peril." This nativist* movement culminated in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882* to limit immigration. Laws were also passed in many states restricting the occupational mobility of Chinese. This led Chinese-operated businesses such as restaurants and laundries to sometimes become associated with opium* dens and gambling casinos. However, in California and other states the Chinese fought against discrimination and mounted court challenges to virtually every governmentally imposed sanction. Chinese laborers brought the concept of the opium den, which was similar in function to the saloon* for European immigrants. In addition to opium, the den offered gambling, prostitution, loan sharking, and companionship. Many of the laborers were indentured servants under the control of merchant creditors and secret criminal societies or "tongs." Once the laborers had worked off their debt, they were theoretically "free"; however, many of them became deeper in debt due to opium addiction. As the Chinese migrated eastward, they introduced opium to other areas of the country. By the early twentieth century over 80 percent of the American Chinese population were found in segregated areas of major cities; their "Chinatowns" were often associated with opium dens, crime,* and white slavery.* Due to the social separation of Caucasians from the Chinese, opium smoking was confined to the Chinese neighborhoods until the mid-1870s. Opium use was more or less tolerated as long as it was confined to the Chinese community. Anti-opium laws were first passed in 1875 in San Francisco and in other California cities over the succeeding years; however, they were rarely enforced. Crackdowns generally occurred only when Caucasians and Chinese smoked together in common establishments. By the late 1890s, sto-
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ries of forced prostitution of young Chinese women abounded. As opium use began to spread among whites, alarming reports in the popular press of young white girls being forced into white slavery* were published. Fear of miscegenation (interbreeding) and the "yellow peril" translated into restrictive legislation against opium and the Chinese. The Smoking Opium Exclusion Act* of 1909 was passed to eliminate opium use among the Chinese and other groups when the opium habit began to be viewed as a criminal act rather than a medical problem. Middle-class reformers feared Chinese and other Asian immigrants on grounds that they spread infectious disease.* Asiatic cholera, bubonic plague, typhus, smallpox, and malaria were reported as proliferating at embarkation ports in China, Japan, and India. Plague was discovered in the body of a Chinese male in March 1900 in San Francisco. This led to the quarantine of Chinatown for several months, house-to-house inspection for the disease, and a general cleanup of the area. By February 1904 the disease had run its course, with a total of 121 cases, most of them Chinese. In 1907 plague was again identified in San Francisco, this time among Caucasians. The disease lasted a year and a half and resulted in 160 cases. During this second outbreak the principal efforts of health authorities were directed at the trapping and extermination of rats. In addition to this disease, the Chinese, compared to other ethnic groups living in large urban slums, had a relatively high rate of tuberculosis.* To screen for disease and to enforce the exclusion law, the Angel Island Inspection Station was opened in San Francisco Bay in May 1910. Some immigrants were quarantined for a year on the island. In 1940 a fire destroyed Angel Island and its files, dating as far back as 1850, resulting in the destruction of most Asian immigration history. By 1910 those of Chinese ancestry numbered about a half million in the country. Due to the immigration restriction rules, few Chinese immigrated to the United States until after 1965, when the Chinese Exclusion Act was rescinded by the U.S. Congress. The Chinese, like other immigrant groups, added richness and vitality to the American ethos. References: Booth, Martin, Opium: A History (1996); Chu, Daniel, Passage to the Golden Gate (1967); Courtwright, David T., Dark Paradise: Opiate Addiction in America before 1940 (1982); Gyory, Andrew, Closing the Gate: Bace, Politics, and the Chinese Exclusion Act (1998.); Seward, George F., Chinese Immigration: Its Social and Economical Aspects ([1881] 1970); McClain, Charles J., In Search of Equality: The Chinese Struggle against Discrimination in Nineteenth-Century America (1994); Nesbitt, Charles T., "The health menace of alien races," The World's Work 27 (November 1913), 74-78; Shah, Nayan, Contagious Divides: Epidemics
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chiropractic healing
and Bace in San Francisco's Chinatown (2001); Weir, Hugh, "The American opium peril," Putman'sMagazine 7 (December 1909), 329336; Zentner, Joseph, "Opiate use in America during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: The origins of a modern scourge," Studies in History and Society 5 (Spring 1974), 40-54. Chinese Exclusion Act of 1892 This immigration restriction* act, targeting Chinese* immigrants* coming to the United States, was passed at the beginning of the nativism* surge during the Progressive era. Because many Chinese immigrants workers did not plan to stay in the country, there was little incentive for them to abandon old ways and adapt to the new culture in America. Instead, they remained isolated. For recreation they often smoked opium.* Ambivalence or hostility toward the Chinese and a growing fear of cheap "coolie labor" that threatened the American worker's sense of security fueled virulent anti-Chinese campaigns. Newspaper reports suggested they lured young girls into forced prostitution,* later called white slavery.* Animosity toward Chinese led to the Chinese Exclusion Act, enacted May 6, 1882, to limit the immigration of Chinese workers. It also restricted their business, vocational, and property ownership opportunities. References: Booth, Martin, Opium: A History (1996); Gyory, Andrew, Closing the Gate: Bace, Politics, and the Chinese Exclusion Act (1998); Seward, George F., Chinese Immigration: Its Social and Economical Aspects ([1881] 1970). chiropractic healing (1895-present) This healing philosophy of "spinal adjustment" was developed in the late nineteenth century. Practitioners repeatedly fought with the American Medical Association* after medical doctors vigorously opposed alternative healing methods and spearheaded efforts to upgrade medical education in the first decades of the twentieth century. "Bonesetting," a precursor of chiropractic, was a folk healing art in Britain passed down from parent to child, which was introduced in North America at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Some practitioners used mental or "magnetic healing" as a spiritual base to their art. Chiropractic was "discovered" by Daniel David Palmer (1845-1913), a magnetic healer who had come to the United States from Canada in the postCivil War days. Palmer, in 1895, found that by manipulating "misplaced vertebra" he could cure various illnesses. He believed the key to health was the condition of the nervous system and reasoned that if the spinal column was not in proper alignment it put pressure on nerves running through it. This, in turn, lowered resistance to disease and caused pain. This "vertebral subluxation" was considered to be caused by a variety of factors, including fatigue, bad
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posture, stress, falls, poor lifting techniques, and so on. By restoring the vertebra to their natural position, normal function would be restored. This healing art was opposed to drugs and surgery. Another healing philosophy that also evolved in this era, osteopathy,* viewed this technique as imitating their method. To teach new practitioners, Palmer opened a propriety school in 1896 in Davenport, Iowa, later known as the Palmer School of Chiropractic. By 1908 the school had 130 students and trained both men and women. Two years later, in 1910, it offered a twelve-month course complete with anatomy, physiology, and other sciences; by 1920 it was the largest chiropractic school in the United States, educating numerous students. Other schools founded by graduates also opened; however, many of them were "diploma mills" and disappeared in the aftermath of the Flexner Report.* The increasing popularity of this healing practice was due to Palmer's only son, Bartlett Joshua (1881-1961), who joined him in the business. Bartlett bought it to the attention of the American public. In 1906 he published the first book on the subject and subsequently pamphlets, a journal, and much advertising copy to promote the practice. He also established continuing-education programs called "lyceums," named after the early Greek lecture hall. However, a difference of opinion developed between father and son, fueling a deep animosity between them. Orthodox physicians considered chiropractic medicine a "dangerous cult." In 1906 both father and son were arrested for practicing medicine without a licence, resulting in the father serving a few weeks in jail. Although thousands of chiropractors were prosecuted during the first thirty years, the healing art survived and chiropractic continued to be practiced in the country. Chiropractors also deliberately set themselves apart from regular physicians. A major legal victory came in 1913 when Kansas granted the practice their first state licencing law. By 1931, thirty states gave professional recognition to chiropractors. However, it was not until 1974 that the profession was legal in all fifty states. In 1912 the AMA published its first article against chiropractic and continued to wage battle against the practice into the late twentieth century. In 1987 the AMA was barred by law from public criticism of chiropractic, which continued to be a popular healing modality for back and neck problems in the early twenty-first century. References: Petrisko, Thomas W., "Schism and suppression: The elimination of medical protest schools, 18461939," Chiropractic History 2 (1982), 35-39; Rubens, Donna, "The legitimation of chiropractic: The first thirty years, 1900-1935," Chiropractic History 13 (1993), 17-24; Wardell, Walter L., "Chiropractors: Evolution to acceptance," in Gevitz, Norman, ed., Other Healers: Unorthodox Medicine in America (1988), 157-191; Palmer, David, The Palmers: Memoirs of David D. Palmer (1970).
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Chittenden, Russell Henry
Chittenden, Russell Henry (February 18,1856-December 26,1943) Although he was not a major reformer, Chittenden, a Yale University biochemist, gave input to the temperance,* diet and nutrition,* and pure food and drug* movements. His research on alcohol,* food, and other substances increased the scientific knowledge base of food and drink during the Progressive era. Born in New Haven, Connecticut, Chittenden was the only child of a clothing-factory superintendent. He was descended from an old-stock Anglo-American* family and as a youth attended local public and private schools and earned part of his expenses doing odd jobs. He attended Sheffield Scientific School at Yale and graduated with a chemistry degree (1875). During his senior year he was responsible for the newly created biochemistry laboratory, the first such course in the country, and continued to teach after graduation. In 1878 he studied for a time in Germany. Upon his return to Yale, he completed his Ph.D. (1880) and in 1882 was appointed to the newly created professorship of physiological chemistry. Appointed director in 1898, he built the department into a dynamic program. Up to 1890 Chittenden's research focused upon the chemical nature of proteins. This led to a general interest in the problems of diet, nutrition, and toxicology. Chittenden's work in toxicology brought him an appointment to the Committee of Fifty,* established in 1893 as a reaction against the campaign of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union's* "scientific temperance instruction"* in the schools. He investigated the effects of alcohol on humans. His results, in contrast to temperance literature, showed that many harmful effects ascribed to alcohol by temperance reformers* were not, in point of fact, confirmed in the laboratory. These results were incorporated into Physiological Aspects of the Liquor Problem (1903), published by the committee. Chittenden also gave input to the diet and nutrition movement. At the turn of the twentieth century, most human nutrition experts advocated a diet high in protein and calories. In 1902 Chittenden learned of the dietary theories of Horace Fletcher,* who advocated thorough chewing of food and a low-protein diet. With financial aid from Fletcher and the Carnegie Institution of Washington,* Chittenden embarked upon extensive studies of low-protein diets. He utilized Yale athletes and army volunteers as subjects. The results of his studies, published in Physiological Economy in Nutrition (1904) and The Nutrition of Man (1907), supported a low-protein diet of about 30 grams per day that was associated with health and physical stamina. These publications helped encourage the growing diet and nutrition movement. Chittenden adopted this diet himself. Chittenden became involved in the pure food and drug movement. In 1908 he was made a member of the referee board of consulting scientific experts appointed by the secretary of agriculture to help
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resolve differences of opinion between Harvey Wiley,* who was in charge of enforcing the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906,* and members of the food industry, who wished to use certain substances in adulterated foods.* After experiments with human volunteers, some substances, such as saccharin, were considered generally harmless, while copper salts were found to have an adverse effect. Over his lifetime Chittenden received many awards and honors and published over a hundred research papers. He married Gertrude Louise Baldwin in 1877. Although he fathered three children, only two daughters survived him. His wife died in 1922, the year he retired. He was active until the end of his life and turned to historical writings in his later years. He died in the New Haven Hospital, of bronchopneumonia, a complication of arteriosclerotic heart disease. References: Atwater, W. O., Billings, S. John, Bowditch, H. P., Chittenden, Russell H., and Welch, William H., Physiological Aspects of the Liquor Problem, vol. 1 (1903); Chittenden, R. H., Physiological Economy in Nutrition (1904), The Nutrition of Man (1907); ANB 4 (1999), 828-829; DAB sup. 3 (1941-1945), 162-164; DSB 3 (1971), 256-257; NatCAB 10 (1900), 181; obituary, NYT, December 27, 1943. Christmas seals (1907-present) The Christmas seal was a catalyst for the growth of the National Tuberculosis Association (NTA)* and, indeed, the tuberculosis movement.* These popular stamps were used for decades. In 1907 an article was published in the magazine Outlook concerning the Norwegian tuberculosis Christmas stamps, a concept that had originated in 1904 in Denmark, to collect funds to aid sick and especially tuberculosis-stricken children. This idea of selling seals to decorate Christmas letters spread rapidly in Europe. Emily P. Bissell (1861-1948), a Red Cross official in Delaware, and John Black (1860-1909), a physician, were struggling to maintain a "tuberculosis shack" outdoor camp near Wilmington, Delaware. After reading the article in Outlook, Bissell came to the conclusion that selling stamps might be a good method for securing funds. In December of that year the first Christmas seal was sold, sponsored by the Red Cross. The sale was a financial success. More important, the sale educated the public about the disease and methods for its cure and prevention. The average person at this time still considered TB to be "incurable, non-contagious, and hereditary." The next two years a successful national sale was conducted, under the direction of Red Cross chapters and women's clubs. During the second year over $200,000 was raised from the sale of these stamps. In its first few years, the National Tuberculosis Association relied almost exclusively on dues and gifts from a few donors. It was not
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Christian Science
financially well-endowed and so alternative methods of supporting the organization were necessary. After seeing the success of the Red Cross drive, association leaders in 1910 negotiated to form a liaison with the Red Cross in the Christmas seals campaign, with the two organizations dividing the proceeds. Sales were conducted each year, except in 1918, at the height of the influenza* epidemic and World War I.* In 1920 the Red Cross withdrew from this campaign and gave exclusive rights to the NTA. In 1919 the "double barred cross" was adopted as the official emblem of the association. It appeared for the first time on the 1920 stamp, which became known officially as the "NTA Christmas Seal." The seal transformed the tuberculosis movement, bringing large numbers of people into the crusade. The sale became an annual community event in which various groups participated. Schoolchildren sold the seals door to door, and, because people from all social classes could afford them, they gave a sense that everyone was involved in the battle against tuberculosis. The seal and the campaign to sell them became a major part of the educational program of the NTA. It accelerated the growth of voluntary tuberculosis associations, strengthened the position of the state associations in the movement, and assigned power of the national association to state societies. It provided funds for the NTA to expand its activities. These stamps continue to be sold into the twenty-first century. References: Jacobs, Philip, "The Christmas seals," Survey 29 (December 7, 1912), 307308; Knopf, S. Adolphus, A History of the National Tuberculosis Association (1922); Leonard, Priscilla, "The Christmas stamp in America," Outlook 90 (October 3, 1908), 265-268; Riis, Jacob, "The Christmas stamp," Outlook (July 6, 1907), 511-514; Shyrock, Richard H., National Tuberculosis Association 1904-1954: A Study of the Voluntary Health Movement in the United States (1957); Teller, Michael E., The Tuberculosis Movement: A Public Health Campaign in the Progressive Era (1988). Christian Science (1866-present)Christian Science was both a religious and a treatment sect. It was an essential element of the new thought movement* that had emerged out of the Third Great Awakening.* Christian Science also evolved during a time of ferment for American medicine and reached its peak of influence during the Progressive era. Founded by Mary Baker Eddy,* its greatest contribution was to bring mental healing to the attention of the public. Typical of many health-reform groups of the era, this religion of health was against the use of alcohol,* tobacco,* and other drugs. Because of its unorthodox views, it was perceived as a threat by both regular medicine and mainstream Christianity.
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In 1866, after a fall, Eddy cured herself and "discovered the principle that underlies Christian Science." A basic premise of her method was, "Mind is divine; mind is all. Sin and sickness are delusion of 'mortal mind.'" Treatment consisted of the "assertion that sickness is not a reality, but only a 'belief.'" Christian Science did "not draw a sharp line or distinction between mental and physical illness." The progenitor of mental healing in the post-Civil War era was Phineas Parkhurst Quimby (1802-1866). Horatio Dresser (18661954), a historian of the new thought movement whose parents had both been Quimby's students, suggested that Christian Science was an adaptation of Quimby's approach. However, Eddy claimed her inspiration was derived directly from the New Testament. After her cure, Eddy began to lecture about her experience and gathered a small group of followers in the Boston area. The religion appealed primarily to middle- and upper-middle-class Anglo-American* women. In 1875 Eddy published this system of "mind cure" as Science and Health. As the religion grew, the First Church of Christ, Scientist, was organized in Boston in 1879. In 1881 the Massachusetts Metaphysical College for the training of practitioners was established, but disbanded in 1889 when medical licencing laws were tightened. Many individuals claimed cures from the system. In 1908 the Christian Science Monitor was founded and soon established a reputation as one of the country's leading daily newspapers. Because the religion opposed the use of tobacco, coffee, and tea, mention of these substances was avoided in the publication. The October 19, 1921, issue of Nation noted, "if the Monitor reproduces a photograph of a man smoking, the cigarette or cigar is painted out." The Monitor also did not mention diseases and used euphemisms for death. As an alternative healing system, Christian Science posed a threat to orthodox medicine. Healing practitioners were brought to trial if a patient died. The church fought the American Medical Association* for acceptance as a treatment method and was against compulsory immunization* and vaccinations. It was a main supporter of the National League for Medical Freedom* and its fight against the creation of a national department of health in the 1910s. The sect was also a threat to orthodox religion. It was labeled a dangerous cult by some Protestant* groups. Both supporters and detractors wrote about it. During the organization's growth over the last two decades of the nineteenth century, most articles had been complementary. B. O. Flower,* although not a member, wrote many positive articles about Christian Science in The Arena.* However, in the first decade of the new century articles critical of the religion emerged. Mark Twain (1835-1910), based upon some of his previ-
71
cigarettes
ous articles, satirized the sect in the book Christian Science (1907). Muckraking* journalists in a McClure's magazine series attacked Eddy's autobiographical writings as somewhat untruthful. After Eddy's death in 1910 the denomination still continued to grow and peaked in popularity in the 1920s. The group's 155 churches in 1892 had grown to 2,451 by 1930. It has remained a viable denomination into the twenty-first century. References: Atkins, Gaius Glenn, Modern Beligious Cults and Movements (1923); Dresser, Horatio W., A History of the New Thought Movement (1919); Eddy, Mary Baker, Science and Health with Keys to the Scriptures (1906); Hudson, Winthrop S., Beligion in America (1965); Peel, Robert, Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Authority (1977), Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Trial (1971), Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Discovery (1966). Church of Christ, Scientist (see Christian Science) Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (see Mormons) cigarettes Cigarettes were introduced to the United States from Spain in the mid-nineteenth century. Until about 1884 cigarettes were hand rolled by skilled European workers in New York city and other urban tobacco* shops. These cigarettes were composed of expensive imported "Turkish" tobaccos and were smoked primarily by upperclass and bohemian urban dwellers. Poorer people rolled their own. In 1885, following the invention of a practical cigarette-rolling machine and a shift to domestic tobaccos, cigarette production increased. To promote these new cigarettes a massive advertisement campaign was begun by the tobacco industry. New forms of advertising aimed at young men spurred cigarette sales; they rose from about $500 million in 1880 to $4 billion in 1895. In 1898 Congress increased taxes on cigarettes 200 percent in order to help defray the costs of the Spanish—American War. This resulted in a decrease in the sale of cigarettes until the taxes were again lowered in 1900. After 1900 cigarette smoking continued to increase and replaced other forms of tobacco by the 1920s. Cigarettes were less expensive, puff for puff, and were milder and sweeter than cigars. They were considered "more hurtful than cigar-smoking because cigarette smokers so often inhale the smoke into the lungs." Machine-made cigarettes, however, soon developed a negative reputation. They were called "little white slavers," "devil's sticks," and "coffin-nails." Rumors abounded that they were adulterated with drugs such as opium* and that workers urinated on the tobacco to give it bite. Some feared that cigarettes were geared toward women inasmuch as the ette suffix lent a more feminine air. They were also
cigarettes
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mild compared to cigars, the middle-class manly smoke. Young boys and poor immigrants* liked cigarettes because they were inexpensive. Nativism* was also a component of hostility against cigarettes inasmuch as they were of "foreign origin" (from Spain) and associated with immigrant laborers. Health and social consequences of smoking began to be noticed. Research studies cited cases of asthma and heart palpitations and irregularities among smokers as well as nonsmokers in smoke-filled rooms. In the 1890s several newspapers reported deaths from convulsions among young boys from heavy smoking, which may have been due to nicotine poisoning. A number of studies conducted from about 1890 to 1918 suggested negative effects of cigarette smoking on school grades, class standing, athletic ability, ambition, and life success. It was observed that individuals who smoked were more likely to have a more severe case of tuberculosis.* By the first decade of the twentieth century tobacco was considered a racial poison* that could lead to race degeneracy.* By 1914 smoking was considered a predisposing factor to many diseases of the respiratory tract, including tuberculosis. Data from insurance companies suggested that regular tobacco use reduced life span. However, during World War I* the use of cigarettes by servicemen was sanctioned by both official edict and public consensus as necessary for the war effort. Congress included cigarettes in the rations issued to soldiers overseas. The impetus for this came from protobacco forces. Even the Salvation Army, Red Cross, and YMCA,* which had previously opposed the use of cigarettes, cheerfully dispensed them during the war. By 1921 cigarettes became, and still are, the leading form of tobacco consumption. References: "AntiCigarette crusade," The Outlook67 (March 1901), 607-608; Burnham, John C , Bad Habits: Drinking, Smoking, Taking Drugs, Gambling, Sexual Misbehavior, and Swearing in American History (1993); Dillow, Gordon L., "Thank you for not smoking," American Heritage 32 (February-March 1981), 94-107; Heimann, Robert K., Tobacco and Americans (1960); Knopf, Adolophus, "The modern aspect of the tuberculosis problem in rural communities and the duty of the health officers," American Journal of Public Health 4 (1914), 1132; Kluger, Richard, Ashes to Ashes: America's Hundred-Year Cigarette War, the Public Health, and the Unabashed Triumph of Philip Morris (1996); O'Shea, Michael V., Tobacco and Mental Efficiency (1923); Robert, Joseph C , The Story of Tobacco in America (1949); Tate, Cassandra C , The American Anti-Cigarette Movement, 18801930 (1995); Troyer, Ronald J., and Markle, Gerald E., eds., Cigarettes: The Battle over Smoking (1983); Wagner, Susan, Cigarette Country, Tobacco in America: History and Politics (1971).
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clean-life pledge Organized by Lucy Page Gaston* in the 1890s, this pledge was a method to encourage children to abstain from alcohol* and tobacco.* The child agreed to the following: "I hereby pledge myself with the help of God to abstain from all intoxicating liquors as a beverage and from the use of tobacco in any form." This pledge was an educational or moral suasion aspect of the temperance* and anti-smoking* movements, which were major crusades of the Progressive era's Clean Living Movement.* References: Dillow, Gordon L., "Thank you for not smoking," American Heritage 32 (FebruaryMarch 1981), 94-107; Engs, Ruth Clifford, Clean Living Movements: American Cycles of Health Beform (2000). Clean Living Movements Over the Progressive era agitation for health reform emerged for many perceived personal and public-health problems. To describe a period of time when a surge of health-reform crusades, many with moral overtones, erupts into the popular consciousness, the term "Clean Living Movements" was coined by the author in 1990. Reform activities during Clean Living Movements include temperance,* social purity,* diet and nutrition,* physical exercise, public health,* and anti-tobacco and drug campaigns. Interest in these issues rise and fall more or less simultaneously and generally follow a religious awakening in which both evangelical sentiments and the development of new sects emerge. It is the author's hypothesis that these movements tend to come in approximate eighty-year cycles, ranging from about seventy to ninety years for individual issues, and that three major Clean Living Movements have emerged in the past two hundred years in America. In the United States, widespread health agitation and subsequent reforms have, within a decade or so, coincided with the religious awakenings of the Jacksonian (1830-1860), the Progressive (18901920), and the "Millennial" (1970-2005?) reform eras. The Progressive era's health-reform movement emerged in the Third Great Awakening.* Individual health crusades as part of an overall Clean Living Movement often go through a cycle of moral suasion (education and social pressure), coercion (public policies), backlash, and complacency. The agitation or reforming phase lasts from approximately twenty to forty years. During this phase, reformers attempt to change "bad habits" or behaviors that are perceived as negatively harming the individual or society. During the cycle's ebb, popular changes or reforms that "make sense," such as personal hygiene* or sanitation,* become institutionalized. On the other hand, a backlash often emerges against unpopular or restrictive reforms, such as prohibition.* After the main thrust of the movement, when reformers have failed to change behaviors even by legislation, a hereditar-
Clinical Research Bureau, Birth Control
74
ian or eugenics movement* reaches its prime. Reformers may reason that the root causes must be "in the genes." During Clean Living Movements, reformers attempt to "clean up" society. During the Progressive era, in particular, the term "clean" was frequently used as part of crusades. Lucy Page Gaston* had children sign "clean-life pledges"* in which they agreed to abstain from tobacco* and alcohol.* Bernarr McFadden* was sometimes called a crusader for "clean living." David Starr Jordan* gave a popular lecture called The Strength of Being Clean (1900) that advocated abstinence from alcohol and tobacco and promoted purity* Most health crusades have been led by reformers with a zeal for a specific health issue. Some reformers have advanced or been leaders of many crusades. In the Progressive era this was true for Jordan, Irving Fisher,* S. Adolphus Knopf,* John Harvey Kellogg,* and Francis Willard,* who championed many health causes. Intertwined with Clean Living Movements have been undertones of nativism,* feminism,* and eugenics. References: Engs, Ruth Clifford, Clean Living Movements: American Cycles of Health Beform (2000), "Resurgence of a new 'clean living' movement in the United States," Journal of School Health 61 (April 1991), 155-159; Green, Harvey, Fit for America: Health, Fitness, Sport, and American Society (1986); McLoughlin, William G., Bevivals, Awakenings, and Beform (1978); Whorton, James C , Crusaders for Fitness: The History of American Health Beformers (1982). Clinical Research Bureau, Birth Control (1923-1940; Margaret Sanger Research Bureau, 1940-present) This organization was the first legal birth-control* clinic in the country. Opened in New York city in 1923 by Margaret Sanger,* the Clinical Research Bureau operated under the auspices of the American Birth Control League.* It functioned primarily as a contraceptive dispensary and the research arm of the league. During its first year over 1,000 women visited the clinic. Diaphragms were provided that had been smuggled into the country in Three-in-One Oil cartons by Sanger's husband, James Noah Henry Slee (1860-1943), the heir of the company. The bureau's first physician and medical director, Dorothy Bocker (1888?-1952), kept inadequate medical records that she took with her when she was encouraged to resign after two years. Blocker's successor, Hannah Stone,* followed up on more than 1,000 patients. Stone's findings, published in 1928, concluded that diaphragms were safe and effective. By the late 1920s they were being manufactured in the United States and sold to physicians. In 1924 the bureau received a grant from the Bureau of Social Hygiene* on the condition that Sanger submit her clinical data to Robert Dickinson's* Committee on Maternal Health* for medical
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Committee of Fifteen
research. Other conditions were discussed, including the merger of Sanger's and Dickinson's organizations. After negotiation with Dickinson, Sanger was eager to secure outside medical approval for her bureau's work, so she moved it to a location separate from the American Birth Control League, eliminated birth-control "propaganda" from the bureau's offices, and created a medical advisory board for the bureau. In 1925 Sanger and Dickinson formed the Maternity Research Council to oversee the operations of the bureau. This council also was charged with securing a dispensary license from the New York State Board of Charities, which the bureau had been unable to obtain. However, the licensing board still refused a license, due to pressure from the Catholic Church.* In June 1928 Sanger resigned as president of the league due to conflicts with the board and their failure to secure a dispensary license for the clinic. When she left she assumed full control of the bureau, renamed it the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau, and severed all ties with the league. This new entity served as an autonomous clinic and research facility from 1928 to 1939. In April 1929 police raided the clinic, seized records, and arrested Stone along with other staff members. A judge later dismissed the charges. The raid generated publicity and helped secure support from the medical establishment. By the early 1930s several hundred physicians had learned about contraceptives at the bureau and by 1938, 300 birth-control clinics had emerged in the United States. In 1939 the bureau reunited with the American Birth Control League to form the Birth Control Federation of America, which in 1942 changed its name to Planned Parenthood Federation of America. The bureau, which continued to function as the largest contraceptive clinic in the country, changed its name to the Margaret Sanger Research Bureau in 1940 in honor of its founder. It is still involved with birth control and other research into the twenty-first century. References: "The Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau, 1928-1939," the Margaret Sanger Papers Project, (visited July 27, 2001); Borell, Merriley, "Biologists and the promotion of birth control research, 1918-1938," Journal of the History of Biology 20 (Spring 1987), 51-87; Chesler, Ellen, Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America (1992); Gray, Madeline, Margaret Sanger: A Biography of the Champion of Birth Control (1979); Kennedy, David M., Birth Control in America: The Career of Margaret Sanger (1978); Reed, W. James, From Private Vice to Public Virtue: The Birth Control Movement and American Society since 1830 (1978). Committee of Fifteen This New York city committee was one of the first groups to study prostitution* and to make recommendations
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for its control during the Progressive era. During November 1900 a meeting of concerned citizens was held that resulted in the formation of the Committee of Fifteen. The committee undertook four stated purposes, including determining the "causes of the present alarming increase of gambling and the Social Evil in this city, and to collect such evidence as shall establish the connection between existing conditions and those . . . who are responsible." Second, it strove "to publish the results of such investigations in order to put our fellow-citizens in possession of facts." Third, it planned to "promote such legislation as shall render it less difficult to reach offenders." Fourth, it focused efforts to "suggest and promote the provisions of more wholesome conditions and surroundings, in order to lessen the allurements and incentives to vice and crime." Under the direction of Edwin R. A. Seligman (1861-1939), professor of social economics at Columbia University, the committee collected a mass of information during the winter and spring of 1901. While leading the committee, Seligman corresponded with the British social purity* leaders, who promoted a "new abolitionist" position rather then regulation. In 1902 the committee published The Social Evil; with Special Beference to Conditions Existing in the City of New York, which detailed its findings. The report exposed official complicity with vice in New York city, linking Tammany Hall with police-protected brothels. It discovered a "cadet system" in which young girls were recruited for prostitution by young men. The report discussed the "Raines Laws" of 1896 that stipulated that taverns needed to have over ten attached rooms in order for a traveler to consume alcohol with a meal on Sunday. This law was an effort to close workingclass saloons.* However, the unintended consequence resulted in rooms being added to saloons and the expansion of prostitution. The committee cooperated with the framers of the Tenement House Bill and secured its enactment into law. This resulted in measures being taken to eliminate prostitutes from tenement houses. The committee's report on prostitution was a turning point in redefining policy. It rejected the notion that prostitution was heredity or a natural depravity and suggested that prostitution was not a permanent state, but a temporary condition brought on by industrial and commercial circumstances. It recommended improvement of wages for the working class, especially young women, a "better system of moral education," "provision of hospital accommodations for venereal cases," and creation of a "moral police." The committee concluded that to regulate "the vice," prostitution would have to be legalized and given the status of an industry. Although the committee soon disbanded, it paved the way for other aspects of the purity movement* and the Committee of Fourteen.* References: Commit-
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Committee of Fifty
tee of Fifteen, The Social Evil with Special Beference to the Conditions Existing in the City of New York (1902); Gardner, James F., Microbes and Morality: The Social Hygiene Crusade in New York City, 1892-1917 (1973); Peters, John P., "The story of the Committee of Fourteen of New York," Journal of Social Hygiene 4 (July 1918), 347388; Pivar, David, Purity and Hygiene: Women, Prostitution, and the "American Plan," 1900-1930 (2002). Committee of Fifty (1893-1905) This committee, organized for the purpose of investigating and publishing reports on various aspects of the "liquor problem," was made up of scholars representing different occupations and opinions. It was not affiliated with temperance* organizations. Members included university professors, clergy, physicians, and public-health officers. It was formally organized on April 5, 1893. On October 20, 1893, four committees were established to investigate "impartial facts" concerning the "physiological, legislative, ethical, and economic aspects of the drink question." It was established as a reaction against the campaign of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union* promoting Scientific Temperance Instruction.* The committee examined "practical methods of temperance reform—total abstinence and moderation, legal prohibition and the licensing system," and then published this information. During the first decade of the twentieth century it was one of the few voices of moderation and gave recommendations such as advising "a single glass of wine per day" for middle-aged persons. The committee, whose membership included Charles Eliot* and Francis G. Peabody,* clashed with Mary Hunt* of the WCTU concerning accurate information about the physiological effects of alcohol. The committee published several volumes, including Physiological Aspects of the Liquor Problem (1903), Economic Aspects of the Liquor Problem (1899), The Liquor Problem in Its Legislative Aspects (1897), and Substitutes for the Saloon (1901). It recommend that night schools, public lecture courses, free public libraries, and education classes connected with the YMCA* be instituted as alternatives to the saloon. The committee disbanded in 1905 after the publication of these volumes and a summary volume The Liquor Problem: A Summary of Investigations. References: Chittenden, Russell H., Physiological Economy in Nutrition (1904); Lender, Mark E., and Martin, J. K., Drinking in America: A History, rev. and exp. ed. (1987); Peabody, Francis G., ed., The Liquor Problem: A Summary of Investigations Conducted by the Committee of Fifty, 1893-1903 (1905); Williams, David E., "The drive for prohibition: A transition from social reform to legislative reform, 1880-1920," Southern Communication Journal 61 (Spring 1996), 185-187; SEAP 2 (1924), 663-664.
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Committee of Fourteen (1905-c. 1920s) Organized to fight both prostitution* and saloons* in New York city, this committee was active during the first two decades of the twentieth century. It was a joint effort by members of the Anti-Saloon League* and other organizations and was the successor to the Committee of Fifteen.* Because of the number of Raines Law hotels (rooms attached to saloons that were often used for prostitution), the Committee of Fifteen had recommended their elimination. However, few had been closed, as New York city was making enormous profits from their licensing. Some city reformers decided to take action. The Committee of Fourteen was organized on January 16, 1905, by members of the New York Anti-Saloon League, the City Club, and other groups. Its objective was to abolish the Raines Law hotels. One member of the committee had been active in the old Committee of Fifteen. Based upon the information published by the Committee of Fifteen and their own brief investigation, they were instrumental in introducing a bill on February 15, 1905, requiring inspection of all hotels to determine whether they complied with the provisions of the hotel law before a liquor license could be issued. A weakened version of the bill was passed and became law after May 1. The committee reported that the Raines Law hotels could not exist without the support of brewers* and the liquor traffic* Both these groups cooperated in attempting to cooperate with the committee to abolish all "disorderly liquor stores and saloons." In 1908 a subcommittee of the Committee of Fourteen, called the Research Committee, conducted a study of all the laws of New York city relating to the "immorality of women," and investigated in more detail the legal aspects of prostitution and the Raines Law hotels. George Kneeland (b. 1872) of Chicago, author of several "vice reports," was employed to carry out the research. The report from this investigation was published as the Social Evil in New York City: A Study of Law Enforcement (1910). It examined social conditions at places where prostitution was common, such as tenement houses, Raines Law hotels, and dance halls. The committee examined methods of inducing women into prostitution, such as "seduction under the promise of marriage," compulsory prostitution of wives, or compulsory marriage. These investigators examined prohibition* laws, "immoral pictures," and at the relationship of obscenity and saloons. The committee's findings disclosed an elaborate system fostered by business and political interests. It also showed a failure to enforce the existing laws. With this report, the committee concluded its specific work had been completed inasmuch as there were no more Raines Law hotels. However, the committee continued its work and helped secure witnesses for John D. Rockefeller, Jr.'s* "White Slave
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Grand Jury." When the mayor of New York refused to appoint an official committee for ongoing investigation of prostitution as recommended by Rockefeller's grand jury, the Committee of Fourteen continued but changed its name and reincorporated in February 1912 as the Committee of Fourteen for the Suppression of Commercial Vice in the City of New York. It expanded its mission and joined forces with other groups, including the New York Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis* and the Bureau of Social Hygiene* formed by Rockefeller. During World War I* the committee helped investigate prostitution and saloons surrounding military bases. References: Gardner, James F., Microbes and Morality: The Social Hygiene Crusade in New York City, 1892-1917 (1974); Peters, John P., "The story of the Committee of Fourteen of New York," Journal of Social Hygiene 4 (July 1918), 347-388; Pivar, David, Purity and Hygiene: Women, Prostitution, and the "American Plan," 1900-1930 (2002). Committee of One Hundred for National Health (1907-1923) The Committee of One Hundred was formed by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.* Its goal was to push for a national department of health and educate the public on the importance of health improvement. Although the AAAS and its committee were not successful in obtaining a cabinet-level health department, this Progressive-era lobbying group helped bring about the transformation of the Public Health Marine Hospital Service into the U.S. Public Health Service.* In a 1906 meeting of the AAAS, a paper was read advocating a national department of health as a human conservation measure. On April 18, 1907, the AAAS subsequently organized the committee, with Irving Fisher* as chair. Members of the committee included leaders of the diet and nutrition,* eugenics,* public health,* social hygiene,* tuberculosis,* and other movements. Members included Herman Biggs,* Edward Bok,* Luther Burbank,* Charles Eliot,* Horace Fletcher,* Luther Gulick,* David Starr Jordan,* John Harvey Kellogg,* S. Adolphus Knopf,* George Kober,* Prince Morrow,* and Henry Phipps.*Although sources vary, other probable members included John Shaw Billings,* Henry Trudeau,* and Booker T. Washington.* Fisher and his committee prepared a report, National Vitality: Its Wastes and Conservation (1909), which estimated that life expectancy could be increased by applying preventive medicine,* personal hygiene,* and sanitation* methods to reduce mortality from diseases, including tuberculosis, diphtheria, and typhoid. The committee supported eugenic* principles in achieving health and longevity. It also suggested that businesses, such as insurance agencies, could become involved with health improvement through preventive activities.
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Fisher later used this concept in establishing the Life Extension Institute.* The objectives of the committee were widely supported. However, political infighting on the cabinet level, organized opposition from the Christian Science Church* and the National League for Medical Freedom,* which feared monopolization of medicine by the American Medical Association,* along with fear of the intrusion of the federal government into medical practice, halted the proposal by 1912. Although the immediate goals of the committee failed, lobbying and publicity by the committee made significant contribution in recognizing health as a public issue and the need for coordination on the national level. The committee finally disbanded in 1923. References: Hirshbein, Laura Davidow, "Masculinity, work and the fountain of youth: Irving Fisher and the Life Extension Institute, 1914-31," Canadian Bulletin of Medical History 16 (January 1999), 89-124; Rosen, George, "The Committee of One Hundred on National Health and the campaign for a National Health Department, 1906-1912," American Journal of Public Health 62 (February 1972), 261-263; Schieffelin, William Jay, "Work of the Committee of One Hundred on National Health," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 37 (March 1911), 321-330. Committee on Maternal Health (1923-1955) This New York city organization was formed by physicians to engage in contraception research. Although the committee was created at the end of the Progressive era, it was influenced by the eugenics,* birth control,* and purity* movements. The Committee on Maternal Health, founded in March 1923 by Robert Latou Dickinson,* a New York gynecologist, began as a rival to Margaret Sanger's* lay birth-control clinic, the Clinical Research Bureau,* also founded in 1923. The committee was sponsored by the New York Obstetrical Society. Its purpose was to undertake contraceptive and reproductive research and to serve as an information center on the medical aspects of human fertility. It was housed at the New York Academy of Medicine, although there was no formal affiliation with the academy. Dickinson secured the support of George Kosmak (1873-1954), editor of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, to give credibility to the research. Though a practicing Catholic* and a vocal opponent of birth control,* Kosmak joined the committee on grounds that a "responsible" alternative to Sanger's clinic was needed. The committee attempted to work through traditional medical channels as opposed to Sanger's more direct action. It sought to support or gain support for careful research and the publication of projects that would provide reliable information to wary physicians, and attempted to evaluate birth-control methods in a way unbiased by propaganda. The committee was initially comprised of about fifty physicians.
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To secure reliable data for his proposed birth-control study, Dickinson enlisted the cooperation of the outpatient departments of seven leading Manhattan hospitals. However, he was not able to obtain diaphragms from Europe because of the Comstock Law,* which deemed them immoral and prohibited them from being sent through the mail. Dickinson did not advertise the availability of his clinic service and established rigid procedures for written referral of patients by reputable doctors in private practice. However, only nine patients made themselves available for research after the first eight months of the project. Even after loosening the requirements, the project was not successful because it only collected 335 incomplete case histories in five years. In 1924 Dickinson and Sanger found themselves in competition for funding from the Bureau of Social Hygiene,* the research institution established by John D. Rockefeller, Jr.* Adolf Meyer,* a renowned psychiatrist, encouraged corporation between Sanger and Dickinson. Katharine Bement Davis,* head of the Bureau of Social Hygiene, recommended that Rockefeller make contributions toward Sanger's research, with the condition that her data be submitted to the Committee on Maternal Health for professional analysis and review. After various compromises, in 1925 Sanger agreed to step down as head of the bureau if a clinic licence could be obtained. She also sold Dickinson diaphragms that had been smuggled into the country for her clinic. In December 1925 Sanger and Dickinson formed the Maternity Research Council to oversee Sanger's bureau. The council was also charged with securing a dispensary licence for it. However, the New York State Board of Charities, the license-granting office, refused to grant the bureau a licence despite the Maternal Research Committee's lobbying efforts in 1926 and 1927. Pressure from the Catholic Church* against birth-control clinics and state politics contributed to this action. The committee (named the National Committee on Maternal Health in 1930) subsequently went outside the United States to conduct research. It secured funding from the Bureau of Social Hygiene in 1929 for a study in Edinburgh, Scotland, that investigated the efficacy and safety of chemical contraceptives. The results, published in 1933 as the Chemistry and Physics of Contraceptives, suggested chemical spermicides were safe and effective. Dickinson provided the foreword to this publication. The committee also hoped to control venereal disease,* as well as to reduce poverty* and its related afflictions, through improved methods of contraception. In 1930 the committee changed its name to the National Committee on Maternal Health and refocused its efforts on health education only. It closed its office in 1955 and the Population Council took over its functions. References: "The Margaret Sanger Papers Project," (visited October 12, 2001); Borell, Merriley, "Biologists and the promotion of birth control research, 1918-1938," Journal of the History of Biology 20 (Spring 1987), 5 1 87; Chesler, Ellen, Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America (1992). Committee on Prevention of Tuberculosis of the Charity Organization Society (1902-c. 1920s) This committee of a social-work society was an early model of a voluntary association that helped educate the public in methods to prevent tuberculosis* and influenced campaigns for hygiene education in the schools and community. It eventually grew into the New York Tuberculosis and Health Association and an affiliate of the National Tuberculosis Association.* Organized in 1902 by Homer Folks* and Edward Janeway,* the committee was composed of prominent public health leaders, including S. Adolphus Knopf,* Edward Trudeau,* and Lillian Wald.* The committee fostered coordinated action among various groups, agencies, and medical services for a vigorous educational campaign against TB. In 1903 it published the Handbook on the Prevention of Tuberculosis, which focused upon prevention methods for TB and promoted techniques for healthy, sanitary living. Its educational philosophy interwove with the temperance,* diet and nutrition,* and personal hygiene* movements. The prevention campaign of the committee included educational pamphlets, exhibitions, and lectures to educate the public about the communicability of consumption through sputum that dried in the air. Educational pamphlets, such as "Warfare Against Consumption" in 1903, discussed the basic factors for the cause and prevention of TB. The pamphlet encouraged keeping the body strong so as to prevent the disease by abstaining from "strong drink," drinking plenty of pure water, sleeping eight hours a day, and eating "plain good food." This organization influenced the formation of what eventually became the National Tuberculosis Association. References: Bates, Barbara, Bargaining for Life: A Social History of Tuberculosis, 1876-1938 (1991); Charity Organization Society, A Handbook on the Prevention of Tuberculosis, Being the First Annual Beport of the Committee on the Prevention of Tuberculosis (1903); Knopf, S. Adolphus, A History of the National Tuberculosis Association: The Anti-Tuberculosis Movement in the United States (1922); Shyrock, Richard H., National Tuberculosis Association 1904-1954: A Study of the Voluntary Health Movement in the United States (1957). Comstock, Anthony (March 7,1844-September 21,1915) The leader of the antiobscenity movement, Comstock battled against "smut" until his death. He successfully lobbied Congress to pass postal regu-
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lations relating to sexually explicit materials. Opposed to saloons,* whiskey,* tobacco,* patent medicines,* and gambling, he was a strong voice of the purity,* anti-saloon,* and pure food and drug* movements. Comstock was born in New Canaan, Connecticut, the son of a sawmill owner and member of a devout Congregationalist family. His mother died when.he was ten years of age. Comstock attended public schools until his eighteenth year. In that year he became a clerk in a general store at Winnipauk, Connecticut. In this town he shot and killed a stray dog. Shortly afterward he conducted a solitary crusade against the dog's owner, who illegally exchanged groceries for whiskey. This incident set the stage for the process of his future reform work. On December 31, 1863, Comstock enlisted as a volunteer in the Union Army to replace his brother who had been killed at Gettysburg. He served a year and a half in Florida, where he kept a diary that reflected a personal battle with the "sin of self abuse" (masturbation). After the war, Comstock worked as a store clerk in several places and then went to New York city to work as a dry goods clerk. In 1868, after one of his friends had been "led astray" and inspired by the YMCA's* campaign against pornography, he launched a personal crusade to entrap pornography dealers and illegal saloon owners, which led to the arrest of two publishers. In 1871 Comstock offered his services as crusader to the YMCA. He helped form the Association's Committee for the Suppression of Vice, which subsidized him in his many operations against publishers and booksellers. Claiming that the urban diseases of obscenity and vice were becoming pressing national problems inasmuch as many materials were sent through the mail, and with the support of this committee and influential friends, he urged Congress to change the postal laws. In 1873 new postal legislation, known as the Comstock Law,* forbade the shipment of obscene and immoral matter through the mail. In addition, Comstock received an appointment as special agent of the U.S. Post Office Department, was authorized to crack down on so-called acts of depravity, and was given the power to arrest. On his return to New York, he was made secretary of the newly created New York Society for the Suppression of Vice,* separate from although supported by YMCA members. Until his death he remained secretary of this society and special agent of vice for the Post Office Department without pay until 1906. Comstock helped form other vice societies, including the New England Watch and Ward Society in Boston in 1876, that actively repressed theater productions and literature. Comstock's fame grew rapidly, making him a national figure who was generally lauded for his work but in certain quarters ridiculed and reviled. Comstock spent his lifetime in furious raids upon pub-
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lishers of obscene and fraudulent literature, abortionists, gamblers, illegal lotteries, patent-medicine salesmen, art and theater productions, and anything else he deemed smut, including Bernarr Macfadden's* physical culture exhibitions and George Bernard Shaw's (1856-1950) play, Mrs. Warren's Profession. Shaw in 1906 turned Comstock's name into a metaphor of repressiveness and censorship; namely, "comstockery." Comstock vehemently argued that "if you open the door to anything, the filth will all pour in and the degradation of youth will follow." He took this position even if it involved only dispensing contraceptive information for physicians and their patients. Over his career this ardent crusader persecuted and arrested numerous individuals for breaking vice and obscenity laws. Many were impoverished European immigrants* struggling to make some kind of a living. Comstock bragged about the number of individuals he had arrested who committed suicide or died early. Not everyone agreed with his prudish laws or the way he viciously entrapped people. He had numerous enemies and political cartoons poked fun at him during the latter years of his career. Comstock published two books, Frauds Exposed (1880) and Traps for the Young (1883), and several pamphlets. He personally supervised the arrests of over 2,270 individuals, destroyed over seventythree tons of printed matter and goods, and shut down illegal gambling and even legal lotteries. He was married in 1871 to Margaret Hamilton, ten years his senior. They had one daughter who soon died; they then adopted and raised another girl. In 1915 Comstock sent a decoy to William Sanger, the husband of Margaret Sanger,* leader of the birth-control movement,* to obtain a birth-control tract from Sanger, who subsequently was arrested by Comstock. At Sanger's trial, Comstock developed a fever and died a few weeks later. Comstock's lifetime crusade, as an aspect of the purity movement, had long-term influence on the definition of obscenity, the ramifications of which are still present in the early twenty-first century. References: Bates, Anna Louise, Weeder in the Garden of the Lord: Anthony Comstock's Life and Career (1995); Broun, Heywood C, and Leech, Margaret, Anthony Comstock: Boundsman of the Lord (1927); Boyer, Paul S., Purity in Print: The Vice-Society Movement and Book Censorship in America (1968); Hopkins, Mary A., "Birth control and public morals: An interview with Anthony Comstock," Harper's Weekly, May 22,1915,489-490; Trumbull, C. G., Anthony Comstock: Fighter (1913); ANB 5 (1999), 306-308; DAB 2 (1929), 330-331; NatCAB 15 (1916), 241-242; obituary, NYT, September 22, 1915. Comstock Law This law, passed immediately before the dawn of the Progressive era, prevented any sexually explicit material, including medical education and birth-control* material, from being
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shipped through the U.S. Post Office. On March 3, 1873, Anthony Comstock,* with the help of influential New York YMCA* financial supporters, persuaded Congress to pass the Comstock bill. The law, "An Act for the Suppression of Trade In, and Circulation Of, Obscene Literature and Articles of Immoral Use," began as a seemingly innocuous postal bill; however, it policed sexuality and governed traffic in sexual literature and information into the twenty-first century. The law marked the beginning of federal vice regulation and state-sponsored censorship. It expanded the category of obscenity to encompass all printed material and, for the first time in history, criminalized the circulation of information and advertisements about contraception or abortion. It allowed the entrapment of thousands of street vendors and printers and helped flame the antiobscenity movement.* References: Bates, Anna Louise, Weeder in the Garden of the Lord: Anthony Comstock's Life and Career (1995); Broun, Heywood C, and Leech, Margaret, Anthony Comstock: Boundsman of the Lord (1927); Boyer, Paul S., Purity in Print: The Vice-Society Movement and Book Censorship in America (1968). consumption (see tuberculosis) crime Throughout the Progressive era crime was seen as a major social problem and was associated with immigrants,* immorality, poverty, and the saloon.* Reformers suggested that factors leading to crime included alcohol* and the liquor traffic,* prostitutes,* obscene literature, and opium* dens. Thel890 crime statistics suggested that immigrants were more likely to be prisoners compared to the white native-born population. Native-born whites made up 55 percent of the population but only 43 percent of the prisoners. The foreign white population was 33 percent, but produced 57 percent of white prisoners. Of all prisoners, 54 percent were or had parents who were foreign born. Native-born children of immigrants were more likely to be criminal than immigrant children, and more than three times likely to be criminals as native children. In 1900 the foreign born in penal, reformatory, or charitable institutions were 28 percent of the total inmate population; the foreign-born population in that year was 14 percent of the total population. Of all imprisonments, 27 percent were Irish* and 20 percent were Italian,* English, or Polish immigrants. Of homicides, 35 percent were "committed by foreigners of no education." The "Mafia" was seen as a major force behind violent crime in large cities with Italian populations, as was the "Tong" among the Chinese.* The reported high crime rate among immigrants helped push the nativism* surge at the end of the nineteenth century, culminating in the Johnson-Reed Immigration Restriction Act of 1924.* Crime per-
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ceived as being related to the saloon and the liquor traffic helped fan the prohibition movement.* Reformers saw the saloon as leading to drunkenness and in turn sexual relations with prostitutes. This in turn led to the transmission of venereal diseases,* which were brought back to the drinker's wife and unborn children, thus leading to racial degeneracy* Crime statistics were used to bolster the eugenics movement* and eugenic laws,* such as mandatory sterilization and segregation of prostitutes and the "feebleminded." They were used to help support the prohibition and anti-saloon movements.* References: Brandenburg, Broughton, "The truth about the Mafia," Collier's Weekly 34 (December 10,1904), 17-18, 27-30; Committee of Fifteen, The Social Evil with Special Beference to the Conditions Existing in the City of New York (1902); Fisher, Sydney G., "Immigration and Crime," Popular Science Monthly (October 1, 1896), 625-630; Hall, Prescott, Immigration, and Its Effects upon the United States (1907); Kevles, Daniel J., In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity (1985); Roe, Clifford, The Great War on White Slavery ([1911] 1979); Timberlake, James H., Prohibition and the Progressive Movement, 1900-1920 (1963).
D Davenport, Charles Benedict (June 1, 1866-February 18, 1944) A noted biologist and eugenicist, Davenport introduced biometrics into American science. He was the pivotal figure of the American eugenics movement.* Through his writings and influence, eugenics* became an underlying principle in many reform crusades of the day. Out of eugenic concerns, he opposed the birth-control movement,* but was in favor of immigration restriction* and eugenical legislation.* Davenport was born on a farm near Stamford, Connecticut, where the family spent about half the year. His father was an ardent temperance* advocate and a strict Congregationalist from old Puritan stock that traced its ancestry to the Norman conquest of England. During the winter the family lived in Brooklyn Heights, where his father was a successful real estate and insurance broker. Until he was thirteen, Davenport received private tutoring from his father and also worked in his business. In 1879 he entered the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, and graduated with a B.S. in civil engineering (1886). He then worked for a railroad survey in Michigan, entered Harvard College (now Harvard University), where he received a B.A. (1889) and Ph.D. (1892) in biology, and subsequently became an instructor at the institution. Davenport then taught at the University of Chicago (1899-1904). During this period he introduced statistics to biology in a popular textbook, Statistical Methods in Biological Investigation (1899). In 1898 Davenport became the head of the summer biological laboratory at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Science at Cold Spring Harbor, New York, a position he retained until 1923. He persuaded the new Carnegie Institution of Washington* foundation to establish a station for the experimental study of evolution near this labo-
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ratory. This was accomplished in 1904, with Davenport as its director, a position that brought him power and prestige. At his station he established biometry and genetics research with poultry and other animals, which led to an interest in human heredity. Facing the natural constraints of experimenting with human breeding, Davenport created a "family records" form to gather data on normal and abnormal human characteristics that he distributed to various groups. Results from these data became the basis for Heredity in Belation to Eugenics (1911), a widely quoted work that helped launch the eugenics movement. In 1906 the Committee on Eugenics was formed within the American Breeders Association* and Davenport became its secretary. Under his influence the committee became a section of the association in 1910. In that same year the Eugenics Record Office* was founded. This office became a center for eugenic activities, both national and international. Davenport trained field workers (mostly women) to collect family data. Information from this research resulted in many articles and monographs. Davenport organized the Eugenics Research Association* (1913) to facilitate communication between field workers and those active in the study of human heredity; he was elected its first president. As an army major (1918-1919) during World War I,* Davenport supervised the testing and measurements of recruits. This resulted in the publication of several monographs concerning defects and diseases in recruits of different races. In 1921 the ERO and the Experimental Station were consolidated into the Department of Genetics under the control of the Carnegie Institution. Davenport was director until his retirement in 1934. He and the ERO exerted leadership positions in all the important eugenic organizations over the course of the movement. This included all three international eugenics congresses* (1912, 1921, 1932), the National Conferences on Race Betterment (1914, 1915, 1928), and the Race Improvement in the United States (1909) conference. He was a founder of the elitist Galton Society* and the American Eugenics Society.* Davenport became a part of the nativistic* faction of eugenicists. He feared unrestricted immigration would lead to racial degeneracy,* and thus encouraged immigration-restriction laws and the screening of immigrants for inherited conditions. He opposed Margaret Sanger* and her birth-control movement* on grounds that contraception use among the "better stocks" would lead to further race suicide.* Throughout his career, Davenport thought in terms of single Mendelian inheritance for most characteristics, including such traits as "nomadism" and pauperism.* He ignored the force of environment,
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which in his later years brought criticism of his works. A prolific writer, Davenport completed about 450 articles and books. He coauthored with Charles Estabrook* in 1912 The Nam Family: A Study in Cacogenics, based upon field work done at the ERO. In 1893 Davenport married Gertrude Crotty, with whom he had two daughters. He was active to the end of his life and died from pneumonia after boiling a whale carcass that he was preparing for an exhibition at a new maritime museum where he was curator. References: Allen, Garland E., "The Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor, 19101940," Osiris, 2d ser. 2 (1986): 225-264; Davenport, Charles, "Influence of heredity on human society, in American Academy of Political and Social Science, Bace Improvement in the United States (1909), 16-21, Eugenics: The Science of Human Improvement by Better Breeding (1910), Heredity in Belation to Eugenics (1911); Haller, Mark H., Eugenics: Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought (1963); Kevles, Daniel J., In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity [1985); Pickens, Donald, Eugenics and the Progressives (1968); Osborn, Frederick, "History of the American Eugenics Society," Social Biology 21 (Summer 1974), 115-126; Riddle, Oscar, "Charles Benedict Davenport," BioMem 25 (1949), 75-110; Steggerda, Morris, "Charles Benedict Davenport (1866-1944): The man and his contributions to physical anthropology," American Journal of Physical Anthropology 2 (June 1944), 167-185; 1MB sup. 3 (1973), 214-216; DSB 3 (1971), 589-591; obituary, NYT, February 19, 1944. Davis, Katharine Bement (January 15, 1860-December 10, 1935) A prison reformer, sociologist, and sex researcher, Davis was active in the social hygiene* and eugenics movements.* Born in Buffalo, New York, Davis was the eldest of five children of old New York Dutch stock. Her father was a manager of a credit-rating firm. She was brought up as a Presbyterian, but as an adult was not active in church affairs. As a child, her family moved first to Dunkirk, and then to Rochester, New York, where she was reared in comfortable middleclass surroundings. Davis entered the Free Academy in Rochester to study chemistry. After graduating in 1879, she returned to Dunkirk to teach science for ten years in the high school after her father had suffered some business reversals. She saved enough money and in 1890 entered Vassar College, where she earned an A.B. (1892). The next year she took courses at Columbia University while teaching science at Brooklyn Heights Seminary for Girls for a year. This led her in the spring of 1893 to a position demonstrating food and nutrition at the Chicago Exposition. Drawing upon this experience, Davis was appointed head resident of the St. Mary's Street College Settle-
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ment House in Philadelphia. This experience confirmed her growing interest in social welfare. She resigned this position in 1897 and studied at the University of Chicago, where she received a Ph.D. (1900) in economics and sociology after studying at the Universities of Berlin and Vienna and collecting data for her thesis. In 1901 Davis became the administrator of the Reformatory for Women at Bedford Hills, New York, where she instituted innovative reforms, including education and training courses for women and girls, many of whom were prostitutes.* In 1911 a pamphlet written by Davis, A Bational Plan for the Treatment of Women Convicted in the Courts of New York City, about her program and research, came to the attention of J. D. Rockefeller, Jr.* This preliminary field work encouraged Rockefeller to establish the Bureau of Social Hygiene,* with Davis as a board member. The Laboratory of Social Hygiene,* established at Bedford in 1912, was the bureau's first major project that focused on the causes of prostitution. In January 1914 she resigned from Bedford to become commissioner of corrections of New York city, the first woman to serve in this capacity. However, in 1915 she left that position to head the city's new parole board, a position she lost in 1917 with the change of the political administration. In 1915 she was a vice president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. * During World War I,* Davis served as vice chairman of a relief organization for European women and children, and directed some social hygiene* activities to help curb venereal diseases* and prostitution around military training camps. After the war she served as a representative of the Young Women's Christian Association to investigate social hygiene conditions in Europe. In 1917 Davis was appointed to a ten-year contract as general secretary of the Bureau of Social Hygiene. Under her direction, the bureau expanded its research into the fields of public health,* birth control,* sexuality, and social hygiene. These studies included Margaret Sanger's* and Robert Dickinson's* contraceptive research clinics, work on narcotics addiction that resulted in The Opium Problem (1928), and Study of Women Delinquents in New York State (1920), the result of her earlier fieldwork. Davis supported the woman suffrage movement,* sex education,* and eugenics,* and was a member of the American Eugenics Society.* She had several publications, including Factors in the Sex Life of Twenty-Two Hundred Women (1929), that examined female sexuality, including that of lesbian women, which was considered a breakthrough work at the time. However, the bureau's board considered the book too controversial and attempted to limit its distribution. With the termination of her contract in 1928, she was asked to retire. Davis, now suffering ill
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health, moved to Pacific Grove, California, to live with two sisters who, like her, had never married. She was considered one of the leading women reformers of the Progressive era and received many honors. She died of cerebral arteriosclerosis. References: Bullough, Vern L., "Katharine Bement Davis, sex research, and the Rockefeller foundation," Bulletin of the History of Medicine 62 (Spring 1988), 74-89; Fitzpatrick, Ellen F., Endless Crusade: Women Social Scientists and Progressive Beform (1990); Fitzpatrick, Ellen F., ed., Katharine Bement Davis, Early Twentieth-Century American Women, and the Study of Sex Behavior (1987); ANB (1999), 210-212; DAB 11 (1964), 227-228; obituary, NYT, December 11, 1935. death rate Over the course of the Progressive era, a fall in the death rate accompanied success of the public health* and personal hygiene* movements. This decrease occurred chiefly among those under thirty-five years of age. As death from tuberculosis,* typhoid fever, diarrhea, and other infectious diseases* declined, mortality from chronic diseases such as heart disease, kidney disease, and cancer began to increase. The death rate for the total population was approximately 21.8 per thousand in 1890. By 1900 it had decreased to 17.2, then 14.7 in 1910, 13.0 in 1920, and 11.3 in 1930. For the white population it declined from 19.1 in 1890 to 12.3 in 1925; for the non-white population (African Americans,* Asians, Native Americans, and other groups), it declined from 29.9 to 20.9 per thousand over this same period. Paralleling the decrease in overall death rate was a decrease in infant mortality. The death rate for children under one year of age was 145.4 in 1900; it had fallen to 66 per thousand by 1925. The mortality rate for immigrants* tended not only to be higher than native-born whites, but also higher compared to their own ethnic groups who had stayed at home, with the exception of Russian Jews.* Eugenicists* and nativists* believed this was due to the "poor quality of immigrants" who migrated to the United States. In 1910 the death rate for foreign-born males was 17.1 and for American-born males 13.8 per thousand; for females it was 16.6 and 12.4, respectively. The major contribution of the health-reform movement was an increase in the life expectancy. The average life expectancy at the beginning of the Progressive era in 1890 was about forty-five years; by the mid-1920s it was fifty-nine years. For the white population, life expectancy had increased to age 60.7 and for non-whites to age 45.7 in 1925. In New York state, among immigrant groups, Jewish men (53.4) and women (55.8) had the highest and Irish* men (38.7) and women (45.9) the lowest life expectancies. References: Dublin, Louis L, "The mortality of foreign race stocks," Scientific Monthly
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14 (January-June 1922), 94-104; U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States Colonial Times to 1970, part 1 (1975), 105-106; Woodward, R. S., "The progress of science," Popular Science Monthly 59 (October 1901), 600-602. Dennett, Mary Coffin Ware (April 4, 1872-July 25, 1947) A leader in the woman suffrage movement,* Dennett was also a birth control and sex education* pioneer near the end of the Progressive era. She established a lobbying group to overturn restrictive federal laws that prevented the dissemination of contraception information, and was the major rival of birth-control leader Margaret Sanger.* Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, Dennett was the second of four children; her father was a wool merchant. Both parents were from old New England stock. When her father died in 1882, she moved with her mother to Boston. Dennett was educated in Boston's public schools, at Miss Capen's School in Northampton, Massachusetts, and at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts School. She taught at the Drexel Institution in Philadelphia (1894-1897). After a trip to Europe, Dennett and her sister opened a craft shop and became active in the arts and crafts movement. She married William Hartley Dennett, an architect (1900), and while working with him as a consulting interior designer became involved with the woman suffrage movement. In 1908 Dennett became field secretary of the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association and was elected corresponding secretary of the National American Woman Suffrage Association* (1910-1914). Her move to New York city for this position contributed to her marriage ending in divorce. While in New York she became involved in pacifist anti-World War I* activities. Dennett was an early leader of the birth-control movement who was eclipsed by Margaret Sanger. In March 1915, after Sanger, the founder of the birth-control movement, had fled the country to avoid prosecution, Dennett and two other feminists formed the National Birth Control League to take over the fledgling birth-control movement. Dennett became the league's secretary and initiated a campaign to repeal portions of the New York state obscenity law, which considered birth-control information obscene. Due to lack of support on the state level, Dennett resigned from the group in 1919 and founded a new organization, the Voluntary Parenthood League, dedicated to changing federal obscenity laws that prevented the circulation of birth-control information. The two goals of this league were to make birth-control information legal by removing the words "prevention of contraception" from the Comstock Law,* and to educate married couples so that they could choose when to become parents. Dennett worked for over five years lobbying for her bill. However,
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the bill did not pass due to Sanger's campaign for a "doctors only" bill that allowed contraceptive information to be dispensed only by physicians. Many doctors were afraid they would lose control over women's health care if Dennett's bill was passed. From 1922 to 1925 Dennett edited the Birth Control Herald, her league's newspaper. In 1925, when the league merged with Sanger's organization, Dennett resigned her position but stayed active in the fight for birth control. She published Birth Control Laws (1926) to educate the public on the Comstock Law. An outgrowth of her birth-control activities was sex education for young adults. In February 1918 the Medical Beview ofBeviews published an article called "The Sex Side of Life," originally written as instruction to her adolescent sons in 1916. She sent out 25,000 requested copies and it became popular with physicians, social workers, and educators and was distributed through groups such as the YMCA.* Robert Latou Dickinson* did the line drawings for the second edition. However, the U.S. postmaster deemed the pamphlet obscene under the Comstock Law and it was banned from the mail in 1922. She continued to distribute the tract and the American Civil Liberties Union took up her cause. In March 1930 "serious instruction" regarding sex education was struck from the definition of obscenity. Dennett published the account of the campaign in Who's Obscene? (1930). Her final contribution to the sex-education movement was The Sex Education of Children, published in 1931. The last years of her life were spent working for world peace. She bore three children, two of whom survived to adulthood. Dennett suffered from arteriosclerosis and died in Valatie, New York. By the end of the twentieth century she was largely forgotten as both a pioneer of birth control and sex education. References: "Dr. Stone and Mrs. Dennett," Eugenics (June 1929), 24-25; "Sex instruction is no crime," The Christian Century (March 12, 1930), 325-326; Chesler, Ellen, Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America (1992); Dennett, Mary Ware, Birth Control Laws (1926); Sanger, Margaret, My Fight for Birth Control (1931); Kennedy, David M., Birth Control in America: The Career of Margaret Sanger (1970); AB (1985), 229-230; BiCAW 2 (1925), 236-240; NoAW 1 (1971), 463-465; obituary, NYT, July 26, 1947. Dickinson, Robert Latou (February 21, 1861-November 29, 1950) Dickinson, a gynecologist and sexologist, founded the Committee on Maternal Health.* He was the leading medical advocate of birth control* and gave input and leadership to the eugenics,* sex education,* and social hygiene movements. * Born in Jersey City, New Jersey, he was the oldest of three children of a well-to-do hat manufacturer.
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His parents were from old-stock New England families, active in civic and cultural pursuits. Dickinson enjoyed a privileged childhood in Brooklyn Heights, New York, and spent summers on an uncle's farm in Connecticut. He was raised Episcopalian and was committed to social service as advanced by the social gospel movement.* At age twelve he went to Europe with his family for four years, where he was privately tutored and attended schools in Switzerland and Germany. Dickinson returned to the United States in 1876 and entered Brooklyn Polytechnical Institute, where he graduated in 1879. Although he was a talented artist, he entered the Medical School of Long Island Hospital and completed coursework for an M.D. (1881). He then spent a year as an assistant to Alexander J. C. Skene (1837-1900), a gynecologist and writer, and illustrated Skene's textbook, Treatise on Disease of Women (1888). In 1882 Dickinson began to build a successful private practice. In 1886 he was hired by Long Island College Hospital as a lecturer in obstetrics and remained an active teacher until he retired from clinical practice. He gathered case histories of over 5,000 women, resulting in anatomical sculptures and the Birth Atlas (1940), used into the twenty-first century, for childbirth classes. During World War I* he was assistant chief of the medical section of the National Council of Defense. Following his war service, he closed his lucrative practice and moved to Manhattan, devoting the rest of his life to sexuality and other reform movements. In 1919 and 1926 he headed missions to China for the U.S. Public Health Service.* Dickinson advocated several health-reform issues of the day. He published a series of articles on women's sexuality, advocated dress reform, and promoted physical education.* During the peak of the bicycle craze* he advised on healthy use of the "wheel," including the proper saddle, correct posture, and correct riding position to prevent "female problems." Dickinson supported sex education for men and women, research studies of healthy marriages, and the use of birth control for better marriage relationships. An early proponent of birth control, Dickinson opposed the prevailing thought that birth control was immoral and indecent. In 1916 he handed out circulars concerning birth control at the gynecological society, but was ignored. In the 1920s and 1930s he worked to change the New York state law regarding the dissemination of contraception. Initially at odds with Margaret Sanger* and her lay Clinical Research Bureau,* Dickinson and medical colleagues in 1923 founded the Committee on Maternal Health. He was its secretary until 1937 and then became chairman until 1950. However, Dickinson's medical clinic in the mid-1920s was not popular with patients compared to Sanger's lay clinic. In December 1925 Sanger and Dickinson
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formed the Maternity Research Council to oversee Sanger's bureau if a dispensary license for it could be obtained. Despite much lobbying effort, licensing was refused due to state politics and opposition from the Catholic Church.* His committee became a clearinghouse for information on human fertility and marriage counseling and played a key role in the support of contraception research in Europe. In 1920 he was elected president of the American Gynecological Society and used this as a platform to make the case for sex research and counseling as a medical responsibility. Dickinson was not successful in convincing the AMA* to accept contraception as a legitimate and essential part of medicine until 1937. Later in his life he was a senior vice president of Planned Parenthood, which evolved out of Sanger's bureau. Dickinson supported the eugenics movement.* He served on the advisory council of the American Eugenics Society* and edited the "birth regulation" department for Eugenics* the journal of the society (1928-1930). For the AMA he evaluated the sterilization program, sponsored by the Human Betterment Foundation,* in California in 1929. A prolific writer, he penned more than 200 research papers on obstetrics, diseases of women, and sex problems during his years of practice. He later wrote books, including A Thousand Marriages (1931), coauthored with Laura Beam (1887-1978); Control of Conception (1931), with Louise Stevens Bryand (1885-1956); Atlas of Human Sex Anatomy (1933); and some nature guidebooks. He married Sarah Truslow, a founder of the Young Women's Christian Association, who died in 1938, and fathered three daughters, one who died in infancy. He died at the home of a daughter in Amherst, Massachusetts. References: Dickinson, Robert L., "Bicycling for women," Outlook 53 (March 28, 1896), 550-553; Pivar, David J., Purity Crusade: Sexual Morality and Social Control, 1868-1900 (1973); Reed, W. James, From Private Vice to Public Virtue: The Birth Control Movement and American Society since 1830 (1978); ANB 6 (1999), 573-575; DAB sup. 4 (1974), 230-232; DAMB 2 (1984), 202-203; obituary, NYT, November 30, 1950. diet and nutrition movement (1890-1925) This movement, an aspect of the physical fitness and personal hygiene movements,* had links with the pure food and drug* and eugenics movements.* Increased interest in diet emerged in the 1880s, reaching its peak in the first decade of the twentieth century and then declining after 1910. During the early Progressive era, dyspepsia (indigestion) and constipation were considered major debilities affecting both men and women. For both men and women of this era, a slightly portly figure was considered evidence of good health, while a very thin
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physique was often associated with diseases such as tuberculosis.* Large steaks several times a day and lots of butter were thought necessary for good health. John Harvey Kellogg,* an early pioneer of the dietary movement, suggested that condiments and spices irritated the digestive system and "clogged the liver." When ingested by children, condiments and spices were thought to lay the foundation for intemperance* and "self-abuse." Kellogg also claimed that meat eaters had sluggish bowels because they did not have enough roughage, which led to "toxins" and illness. In the 1880s Kellogg began to recommend a diet consisting of fruits, vegetables, and grains. He condemned tea, coffee, and hot liquids with meals. Kellogg developed a vegetarian* diet, which included breakfast cereals,* as the mainstay of the diet offered at his Battle Creek Sanitarium.* By the turn of the century women's magazines were including recipes for wholesome meals that would eliminate dyspepsia; however, the meals generally contained meat. Dietary changes did not gain broad acceptance until the first decade of the twentieth century, when reformers began to campaign for diets that did not consist of meat and were low in protein. In addition, concerns about contaminated food and Upton Sinclair's* revelations about the meat industry encouraged many to examine their diets. Several leaders of the dietary movement emerged during the first decade of the century. Horace Fletcher,* in A.B.-Z. of Our Own Nutrition (1903), suggested that ill health as a result from overeating could be cured by thorough chewing (later called Fletcherism*) and a low-protein diet. Bernarr Macfadden,* leader of the physical culture movement,* also encouraged a meatless diet to gain physical stamina. Sports and athletics were considered to be closely related to diet, and it was thought that a high-meat diet was important for athletic ability. On the other hand, vegetarians were considered by some to be poor athletes. To test the theories of a low-protein or meatless diet for health and endurance, Russell Chittenden,* Irving Fisher,* and others carried out research in this area. Chittenden conducted an elaborate study of the effects of a lowprotein diet that included sedentary workers, represented by Yale University professors, moderate workers, represented by U.S. Army volunteers, and heavy workers, represented by Yale University athletes. Between autumn 1903 and summer 1904 each group subsisted on a diet that contained less than half the accepted standard of protein. Chittenden found that a low-protein regimen of about 35 grams per day caused no ill effect to sedentary workers or athletes. In fact, these subjects gained strength over the course of the experiment. The results of the study were published by Chittenden in Physiological Economy in Nutrition (1904) and The Nutrition of Man
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(1907). In another study, Irving Fisher found that "flesh abstainers" from the Battle Creek Sanitarium were more fit compared to "flesh eaters," which he published as a paper in 1907, "The effect of diet on endurance." The results of these and other studies led to lowering the recommended protein amount, a standard still used into the twenty-first century. However, the vegetarian aspects of diet and nutrition were not given serious attention by scientists. By the second decade of the century reformers from several fields were recommending a lower-protein diet for personal health and race hygiene. The diet and nutrition movement began to wane in the late 1920s. References: Eliot, Charles W., "The main points to attack in the campaign for public health," Social Hygiene 1 (September 1915), 505513; Engs, Ruth Clifford, Clean Living Movements: American Cycles of Health Beform (2000); Whorton, James C , Crusaders for Fitness: The History of American Health Beformers (1982); "'Physiologic optimism': Horace Fletcher and hygienic ideology in progressive America," Bulletin of the History of Medicine 55 (Spring 1981), 5 9 87, "Muscular vegetarianism: The debate over diet and athletic performance in the Progressive era," Journal of Sport History 8 (Summer 1981), 58-75. distilled spirits During the Progressive era distilled alcoholic beverages were known by many terms, including John Barley Corn, ardent spirits, strong drink, liquor, demon rum, whiskey, and spirits. This alcoholic beverage is made from the distillation of fermented fruits, juices, and vegetable mashes. Spirits have historically been consumed by cultures and colonies from Northern and Eastern Europe. In the United States, spirits in the form of rum, and later whiskey, were the most commonly consumed alcoholic beverage until after the Civil War; per-capita consumption was 3.5 gallons per year in 1865. After this date, beer* consumption increased and supplanted spirits as the most popular alcoholic beverage. By 1880, per-capita consumption of spirits had declined to 2.4 gallons, in 1890 consumption had dropped to 2.2 gallons, and from 1900 until the end of Prohibition,* per-capita consumption remained around 2 gallons per year. Temperance reformers* considered distilled spirits, in particular, to be the root of many health and social problems, such as crime,* prostitution,* venereal diseases,* racial degeneracy,*and poverty.* Beer, wine, and ciders were often considered temperance drinks. A drinker was defined as someone who consumed "hard liquor" and not necessarily the other forms of alcohol. Temperance reformers reasoned that if saloons* and spirits were eliminated from society, many problems would disappear. References: Blocker, Jack S., Jr., American Temperance Movements: Cycles of Beform (1989);
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Engs, Ruth Clifford, "Do traditional Western European drinking practices have origins in antiquity? Addiction Besearch 2 (1995), 227239; Rorabaugh, William J., "Estimated U.S. alcoholic beverage consumption, 1790-1860," Journal of Studies on Alcohol 37 (1976), 360-363, The Alcoholic Bepublic: An American Tradition (1979). Dodge, Grace Hoadley (May 21, 1856-December 27, 1914) Most noted for organizing and financing Teachers College, Columbia University, the American YWCA, the Working Girls' Society, and the Travelers Aid Society, Dodge was influential in the purity* and social hygiene* movements for her behind-the-scenes organizational skills and financial support. Dodge was the oldest of a family of six children who constituted the fourth generation of an old, wealthy New York family noted for its business sense and noblesse oblige. She was educated at home. Her father vetoed college for her in favor of Miss Porter's "finishing" school in Farmington, Connecticut. However, because she felt "out of place," Dodge attended this school for only a year. As a young woman Dodge was influenced by evangelist Dwight Moody (1837-1899), and she began to engage in charity work, teaching homemaking skills to working women. She fostered the improvement of educational reform, and wrote numerous tracts and several books, including a Bundle of Letters to Busy Working Girls on Practical Mattters ([1877] 1974). Her primary reform objectives were to safeguard the health and purity of the American working girl. To this end, she encouraged premarital chastity, honest information concerning sexuality, personal hygiene,* physical exercise,* and good nutrition. Concerned about the apparent growth in organized prostitution,* in 1895 Dodge became a member of the Central Council of the American Purity Alliance,* an organization that sought to abolish commercialized vice. In 1906 Dodge and other citizens, including O. Edward Janney,* organized the National Vigilance Committee,* which lobbied various government agencies to secure legislation against organized vice, both at home and abroad. The committee, after going through several reorganizations, achieved its goal in 1910 with passage of the Mann Act* prohibiting the transportation of women across state lines for "immoral purposes." Dodge was instrumental in bringing together organizations involved with some aspect of sexuality, including sex education, a single standard of sex for both men and women, the elimination of prostitution, and the reduction of venereal diseases,* to be united under the umbrella of the American Social Hygiene Association* in 1913. She never married and died the day after Christmas 1914 of a stroke. References: Graham, Abbie, Grace H. Dodge: Merchant of Dreams (1926); Katz, Esther, Grace Hoadley
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Dodge: Women and the Emerging Metropolis, 1856-1914 (1980); Pivar, David J., Purity Crusade: Sexual Morality and Social Control, 1868-1900 (1973); Robinson, Marion O., Eight Women of the YWCA New York (1966); obituary, NYT, December 28, 1914. dope This slang term for an illicit, habit-forming, or narcotic drug began to be used in the early 1890s. The original term referred to the thick preparation used in opium* smoking. However, during the first decade of the twentieth century its use was applied to stupefying drugs in general, including cocaine, marijuana, and other opiates such as heroine. "Dope fiend" was a term for an individual who used illicit drugs. When opium use in the form of tonics began to decrease among middle-class white women and increase in the form of smoking opium or marijuana or injecting cocaine or heroin among minorities and "criminals," drugs and drug users were demonized and considered evil. Opium use was associated with Chinese Americans* and cocaine with African Americans.* Many Progressive-era drug laws were aimed at eliminating the drug habit* among criminals, "night-people," and other undesirables. These laws included the Smoking Opium Exclusion Act* of 1909, the Hague Convention* of 1912, and the Harrison Narcotics Act* of 1914. References: Burnham, John C, Bad Habits: Drinking, Smoking, TakingDrugs, Gambling, Sexual Misbehavior, and Swearing in American History (1993); Engs, Ruth Clifford, Alcohol and Other Drugs: Self-Besponsibility{1987)', Musto, David F., "Evolution of American attitudes toward substance abuse," Annals of the New York Academy of Science 562 (Summer 1989), 3-7, The American Disease: Origins of Narcotic Control (1987); Zentner, Joseph, "Opiate use in America during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: The origins of a modern scourge," Studies in History and Society 5 (Spring 1974), 40-54. drinking norms, Anglo-American Among affluent and "old-stock" Anglo Americans,* moderate whiskey drinking by men had been part of normal social life since the inception of the republic. However, drunkenness was unacceptable. Individuals drank to be hospitable and to relax with friends and family in private. Among the rich, imported wines were consumed by both men and women. Whiskey and other distilled spirits were often used as payment for labor. Liquor—"ardent spirits"—during the Jacksonian era's Clean Living Movement* (1820-1860), however, began to be seen as a fomenter of serious social problems. These concerns resulted in stateenacted prohibition* laws against liquor by thirteen states during the 1850s, but these laws were soon repealed. At the inception of the Progressive era, some temperance* reformers began to criticize
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middle- and upper-class moderate drinking as a poor role model for "undomesticated" European immigrants* who often drank publicly to drunkenness in saloons* and flaunted American drinking norms. Immigrants, in many cases, were merely exhibiting the accepted drinking norms of their cultures. Over the course of the Progressive era's Clean Living Movement, many temperance reformers veered from a moderation stand, including the acceptance of beer* and wines, to a position of complete abstinence and the prohibition of all alcoholic beverages. Alcohol* and drinkers were seen as a threat to the republic because alcohol in any form was perceived as a "racial poison"* and one drink was believed to lead down the "slippery slope" to alcoholism,* resulting in crime,* prostitution,* venereal diseases,* and destruction of the family and society. By the middle of the second decade of the twentieth century, more than a half of all Americans opposed any consumption of alcohol. This attitude led to the passage and ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment.* References: Blocker, Jack S., Jr., American Temperance Movements: Cycles of Beform (1989); Burnham, John C , Bad Habits: Drinking, Smoking, Taking Drugs, Gambling, Sexual Misbehavior, and Swearing in American History (1993); Engs, Ruth Clifford, Clean Living Movements: American Cycles of Health Beform (2000), "Past influences, current issues, future research questions," in Houghton, Eleni, and Roche, Ann M., eds., Learning about Drinking (2001); Lender, Mark E., and Martin, J. K., Drinking in America: A History, rev. and exp. ed. (1987); Rorabaugh, William J., The Alcoholic Bepublic: An American Tradition (1979). drinking norms, immigrant Drinking patterns and attitudes brought by various waves of immigrant* groups over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had deep roots in antiquity. These differences became a factor in the polarization of attitudes in the Progressive era toward drinking and helped foster the prohibition movement* in the dominant Anglo-American* culture. European immigrant drinking norms included the "Southern," "blended," and "Northern-Eastern" European patterns. The Southern European pattern included moderate consumption of wine with meals. Countries with the southern cultural pattern included Italy, southern Spain, and Greece. Drunkenness was not acceptable. The blended pattern consisted of the consumption of both wine and beers,* generally with meals, and drunkenness was generally not acceptable. Cultures with blended patterns included England, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Jewish* custom included wine drinking with religious meals and celebrations. Drunkenness was not acceptable.
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Asian immigrants, including the Chinese* and Japanese, tended to consume rice wines and beers in moderation. In contrast, a pattern of drinking distilled spirits, often to intoxication, was brought by the Irish,* Scandinavians, and Eastern European immigrants. The Irish, in particular, were considered dangerous drinkers and were often referred to as the "drunken Irish." Intemperance* among immigrants and the fact that most saloons* were owned by German* or Irish Americans was a major factor in national prohibition and the Eighteenth Amendment.* Curtailing alcohol* use among these immigrants, in particular, was a way of social control over their behavior, in addition to a hopeful reduction in crime,* poverty,* and infectious disease* among them. References: Engs, Ruth Clifford, "Do traditional Western European drinking practices have origins in antiquity?" Addiction Besearch 2 (1995), 227-239, Clean Living Movements: American Cycles of Health Beform (2000); Levine, Harry Gene, "Temperance cultures: Concern about alcohol problems in Nordic and English-speaking cultures," in Lader, M., Edwards, G., and Drummond, D. C , eds., The Nature of Alcohol and Drug Belated Problems (1992), 15-36. drug addiction (see drug habit) drug habit Drug addiction, or drug dependency, was generally termed the "drug habit" during the Progressive era. Reformers became concerned about addiction from patent medicines* and recreational opiate use. The typical drug-dependent person of the late nineteenth century was a white upper-middle-class matron who was addicted to opium* through medical use of proprietary or prescription medications. These women were generally regarded sympathetically and considered innocent victims. At the worst, the drug habit was considered a vice. Many dependent persons carried on with their jobs or maintained a home inasmuch as their illness did not inflict injury on anyone other than themselves. Opiate addiction peaked among this group in the mid-1890s and then began to decline as fewer physicians prescribed them. Opiates and other drugs were also used by literary figures, who were considered eccentric. However, concerns about the drug habit led to the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906* and labeling the contents of patent medicines. This law resulted in a reduction of narcotics* in patent medicines and decreased their sales, but it did not reduce overall drug addiction, even after popular education concerning the dangers of these substances. As the social class of recreational drug users shifted, addicts began to be seen as loathsome criminals rather than individuals who were sick. Because both cocaine and heroin use were
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perceived as increasing among criminals and minorities, leading to crime* and prostitution* and spilling over into more affluent social classes, a push for new laws to curb these evils emerged. Stiffer antidrug measures such as the Harrison Narcotic Act* of 1914 were passed, along with subsequent Supreme Court interpretations. By the 1920s "dope fiends" were considered irresponsible lower-class members on society's periphery (e.g., prostitutes, criminals, and jazz musicians). The narcotics division of the treasury department launched a reign of terror against addicts. Even physicians who dared to continue writing prescription for addicts were imprisoned. Due to this process, the addict-patient disappeared and the addict-criminal emerged. References: Booth, Martin, Opium: A History (1996); Courtwright, David T., Dark Paradise: Opiate Addiction in America before 1940 (1982); Hall, Emmett Campbell, "Deadly drugs and beverages," Good Housekeeping Magazine, November 1910, 582-584; Musto, David F., "Evolution of American attitudes toward substance abuse," Annals of the New York Academy of Science 562 (Summer 1989), 3-7; Schieffelin, William J., "Safeguarding the sale of narcotics," in Proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and Correction (1909), 208-212; Zentner, Joseph, "Opiate use in America during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: The origins of a modern scourge," Studies in History and Society 5 (Spring 1974), 40-54. Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt (February 23, 1868-August 27, 1963) A sociologist, editor, and political activist, Du Bois, during the Progressive era, carried out the first health and sociological study of blacks in the nation. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, a typical Anglo-American* New England town, Du Bois was of French, Dutch, and African-American* parentage. His father deserted the family when he was an infant and his mother worked as a maid to support the family. As a child, Du Bois worked at odd jobs and attended the local Congregationalist church-run school and was known as a brilliant student. He earned B.A.s from both Fisk (1888) and Harvard (1890) Universities. Du Bois began working on his doctorate and studied in Germany. Upon returning to the United States he received his Ph.D. (1894) from Harvard. Du Bois taught briefly at Wilberforce University in Ohio before accepting an offer in Philadelphia to conduct sociological research on a local African-American neighborhood plagued by poverty* and crime.* This massive survey became a major contribution to the Progressive era's public health movement.* In his research Du Bois devised basic methods for gathering and interpreting sociological and health data. His study was the first of a black-American urban ghetto. The findings, The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study (1899), reported
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both sociological and health conditions. He reported that "the Negroes exceed the white death rate largely in consumption, pneumonia, diseases of the urinary system, heart disease and dropsy, and in still-births." Based upon this work, he advanced the then revolutionary conclusion that black Americans had few chances for advancement, not only because whites denied them such basic rights as equal employment and fair housing, but also because middleclass African Americans ignored their poorer brethren. In 1897 Du Bois was appointed professor of history and economics at Atlanta University in Georgia, a traditionally black institution, where he remained until 1910. During this time he established black sociology as a legitimate field of study and organized a series of annual conferences on the problems of black America. These conferences, which he continued to lead for seventeen years, produced a series of publications, the only ones at the time, that focused upon African Americans. The publication from the eleventh conference, Negro Health and Physique (1906), discussed data concerning anthropological, mental, and physical health variables similar to information found in eugenics* writings during the rise of the eugenics movement.* In this report, based upon 1903-1904 military statistics, Du Bois showed that among recruits rejected for service, African Americans were more likely to have venereal diseases* and tuberculosis* but were in better physical condition than European Americans. Black military personnel were less likely to acquire measles, malaria, syphilis, alcoholism, or gonorrhea, but more likely to have tuberculosis and pneumonia, compared to whites. From 1900 census data, he reported that Northern blacks were healthier than Southern blacks and had lower death and infant-mortality rates. This work was also an attempt to counter nativist* and eugenic contentions that the "Negro race" was "racially inferior" and unsuitable for modern life. During his mid-life, Du Bois was considered radical by most African and European Americans. This led to conflicts between him and other entities. In the first decade of the twentieth century, Du Bois contributed pieces on various political and social issues to major magazines and newspapers. In 1903 some of these essays were published in a collection entitled The Souls of Black Folk. In the aftermath of this popular work, lifetime animosity emerged between Du Bois and Booker T. Washington,* considered the most prominent and popular black leader in the country. Du Bois harshly criticized Washington's policy of compromise and accommodation, which encouraged blacks to focus on industrial education, the abdication of civil and political rights, and the willingness to be subservient to the dominant white culture. Opposing this philosophy, Du Bois and
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mostly Northern black intellectuals formed what became known as the Niagra Movement in 1905. Political maneuvering by Washington, internal politics, and financial limitations caused the movement to fail, but it laid the basis for the formation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909, in which Du Bois was instrumental. Du Bois subsequently left his position at the university to found and edit the associations's new monthly magazine, Crisis. After Washington's death in 1915, many looked to Du Bois as the leading black figure in the country. However, some NAACP board members and others considered him too outspoken, revolutionary, and radical. During the 1920s Du Bois gave many lectures and conferences and remained at the forefront of civil rights efforts. He was also instrumental in the international pan-African movement. In 1934 the NAACP board forced him to resign as editor of Crisis due to his Marxist leanings. He returned to Atlanta University and was given a lifetime position as chairman of the Department of Sociology. However, his communist sympathies and internal university politics led the university to revoke his appointment and he left in 1944. Du Bois returned to the NAACP as director of research. However, tensions and internal politics caused him to be forced out a second time in 1948. Du Bois then ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate as a candidate of the American Labor Party and headed several organizations that the U.S. government considered subversive due to their ties with the Soviet Union. This led to government harassment and the revoking of his passport from 1952 to 1958. In October 1961 Du Bois accepted an offer from the president of Ghana to move to that country, where he began work on the Encyclopedia Africana. Prior to leaving the country, he joined the American Communist Party and renounced his U.S. citizenship. Du Bois received many awards, including the Lenin Peace Prize. He was a prolific writer and wrote many historical and political works and even five novels throughout his lifetime. He married Nina Gomer (1896) and they had two children. She died in 1950 and a year later he married an old friend, Shirley Graham. Upon his death in Ghana, he was granted a state funeral. During his lifetime most Americans, black and white, considered him too radical and too scholarly. Thus, his pioneering health and sociological reports were largely forgotten. References: Du Bois, W.E.B., The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study (1899), The Health and Physique of the Negro American (1906), The Autobiography of W.E.B. Du Bois: A Soliloquy on Viewing My Life from the Last Decade of Its First Century (1968); Lewis, David Levering, W.E.B. Du Bois: The Biography of a Bace, 1869-1919 (1993); ANB 6 (1999), 944-949; 1MB sup. 7 (1981), 200-205; obituary, NYT, August 28,1963.
E Eddy, Mary Baker (July 16, 1821-December 3, 1910) Founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist and Christian Science* as a method of healing, Eddy was a major force of the new thought movement.* She was compared to Christ by her followers. He represented the male and she the female principle of godliness on Earth. Eddy was born near Concord, New Hampshire, into an intensely religious congregational farm family from old New England stock. A sickly child, subject to anxiety attacks, her education was largely home reading and study. In 1843 she married George W. Glover, who died six months later before the birth of their son. Because of her poor health, the boy was reared by others and had little contact with his mother. Eddy then married Daniel Patterson, an itinerant dentist, but the marriage ended in divorce. Because of continued poor health, she sought out and was cured by Phineas Parkhurst Quimby (18021866), who used mind cure,* or mental healing, to treat disease. After Quimby's death, Eddy suffered a spinal injury from a fall but healed herself. Influenced by Quimby's method, after experiencing a revelation while reading biblical passages of one of Jesus's healings she developed her own distinctive healing system. She began to lecture about her experiences and gathered a small group of followers in the Boston area. In 1875 Eddy published Science and Health, which went through fifty revised editions. The following year she founded the first Christian Scientist association, in Lynn, Massachusetts. She then married one of her followers, Asa Eddy, in 1877, her third marriage. The marriage lasted until his death in 1882. Between 1875 and 1892 Eddy continued to work at defining her own unique method of healing.
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Eddy organized the First Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston in 1879. By the mid-1890s, Christian Science had begun to attract increasing numbers of converts, mostly from Congregational and Methodist churches. The church began a rapid growth and reached its peak of popularity in the 1920s. Besides numerous writings, Eddy established and then disbanded colleges, associations, and journals. In 1908 she founded the Christian Science Monitor, which developed into one of the country's leading daily newspapers. Eddy was against the use of tobacco,* coffee, alcohol,* and drugs. Eddy, in Science and Health, similar to many reformers of the era, was disturbed about the negative effect of various substances. Concerned about "a loss of control over the body," she suggests that "the depraved appetite for alcoholic drinks, tobacco, tea, coffee, opium, is destroyed only by Mind's mastery of the body." In her later years she recognized the use of pain-killing opiates in some circumstances. The years of development, growth, and success of her religion and healing system were marred by personal difficulties, many of which entailed bitter breaks with former students, clashes of doctrine and authority, and challenges to the originality of her teachings. Several dissatisfied students developed competing healing practices. As both a religion and a healing system, Christian Science posed a threat to both mainstream religion and orthodox medicine. Both supporters and detractors raised their voices for and against her and her system of beliefs during the first decade of the century. In the last few years of her life she became reclusive, and "passed on" at her home in the Boston suburb of Chestnut Hill, of pneumonia. References: Atkins, Gaius Glenn, Modern Beligious Cults and Movements (1923); Eddy, Mary Baker, Science and Health with Keys to the Scriptures (1906); Hudson, Winthrop S., Beligion in America (1965); Peel, Robert, Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Authority (1977), Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Trial (1971), Mary Baker Eddy: The Years ofDiscovery (1966), AA (1938), 241-242; ANB (1999), 297-300; NCoAB, vol. 3 (1893); 80-81; obituary, NYT, December 5, 1910, 1-2. Eighteenth Amendment (January 16,1919) The Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States provided for national prohibition* of the sale, manufacture, transportation, importation and exportation of intoxicating liquors. Under the Volstead Act,* the enforcement arm of the law, "intoxicating" was considered one half of one percent alcohol by volume. This amendment was one of the major legislative actions of the Progressive era's Clean Living Movement.* This Amendment to the Constitution of the United States reads as follows:
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Section 1. After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited. Section 2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress. As the nation mobilized for World War I,* the House, on December 17, and the Senate, on December 18, 1917, passed the amendment, sending it for ratification by the states. The amendment was ratified by the necessary two-thirds of the states on January 16,1919. It was rejected by only three states: New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. Eventually forty-six states, including New Jersey in 1922, ratified it. In reality, the nation went dry under the War Prohibition Act* in July 1919 rather than midnight January 16,1920. The Supreme Court of the United States on June 7, 1920, unanimously upheld the validity of the amendment. This constitutional amendment was the cumulation of activities of the anti-saloon* and prohibition movements. The major players pushing for national prohibition included the Anti-Saloon League,* the Women's Christian Temperance Union,* and the Prohibition Party.* References: Blocker, Jack S., Jr., American Temperance Movements: Cycles of Beform (1989); Cherrington, Ernest H., The Evolution of Prohibition in the United States of America (1920); Hamm, Richard F., Shaping of the Eighteenth Amendment: Temperance Beform, Legal Culture, and the Policy, 1880-1920 (1995); Kerr, K. Austin, Organized for Prohibition: A New History of the Anti-Saloon League (1985); Odegard, Peter H., Pressure Politics: The Story of the Anti-Saloon League (1928); Timberlake, James H., Prohibition and the Progressive Movement, 1900-1920 (1963). Eliot, Charles William (March 20,1834-August 22,1926) President of Harvard University and an educational reformer, Eliot was also prominent in the social hygiene,* public health,* temperance,* and eugenic* movements. Over his long career he was found on both sides of the temperance issue. Born in Boston to a socially prominent old-stock New England family who were religiously Unitarian, he enjoyed a privileged childhood. He attended Boston Latin School before entering Harvard at age fifteen, and graduated with high honors (1853). After graduation Eliot taught mathematics and chemistry
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at Harvard, studied abroad, and upon his return became a professor of chemistry at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1865. He began publishing his philosophy of educational reform, which led to his election as president of Harvard at age thirty-five in 1869. During his forty-year tenure he made sweeping educational changes and was instrumental in transforming Harvard from a college into a prestigious university. After retiring from Harvard in 1909, he became involved with the international peace movement and took leadership roles in several health-reform issues of the Progressive era. Eliot became the first president of the American Social Hygiene Association,* an organization formed in 1913 to combat venereal disease* and prostitution* and to promote purity.* He championed sex education* and suggested activities such as exercise, proper diet, and avoidance of alcohol,* tobacco,* and drugs to prevent the loss of "self-control" leading to sexual activity. Eliot was a eugenics advocate and member of the planning committee for the First International Congress of Eugenics* in 1912. He was against the "melting pot" concept of assimilation and was against interracial marriages. Eliot advocated segregation of feeble-minded women in state institutions during their child-bearing years as a measure to prevent both venereal disease and prostitution. He advocated better diet, physical fitness, and programs to eliminate tuberculosis.* He supported the public health movement and perceived that preventive medicine could help eliminate poverty* and misery. In the decade prior to his retirement as Harvard's president, Eliot was a member of the executive board of the Committee of Fifty,* a group that explored the physiological and social effects of drinking. Until about 1909 Eliot embraced temperance or moderate drinking. However, during World War I* he changed his position and advocated national prohibition. He also became convinced that coffee and tea were harmful and suggested that "hard mental workers who use the double stimulation of wine and tea or coffee are admittedly burning the candle at both ends." Eliot married Ellen Peabody in 1858, the sister of Francis G. Peabody.* She died the day after he became Harvard's president. The couple had four children. In 1877 Eliot married Grace Mellen Hopkinson. Active to the very end, Eliot died at his summer home on the Maine coast. References: "International Eugenics Congress," American Breeders Magazine 3 (first quarter 1912), 75-76; Cotton, E. H., The Life of Charles W.Eliot (1926); Eliot, Charles W., "The moderate drinker," Ladies Home Journal 26 (March 1909), 23, "The American Social Hygiene Association," Social Hygiene 1 (December 1914), 1-5, "The main points to attack in the campaign for public health," Social Hygiene 1 (September 1915), 505-513; Huber, John B., "Books: Preventive medicine," Harper's Weekly, September 13,
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1913, 29; James, Henry, Charles W Eliot: President of Harvard University, 1869-1909, 2 vols. (1930); Saunderson, Henry Hallam, Charles W Eliot: Puritan Liberal (1928); ASL (1993), 154-155; CoAG (1914), 661; PJH(1988), 176; obituary, NYT, August 23, 1926. Estabrook, Arthur Howard (May 9, 1885-December ?, 1973) A biologist and eugenicist, Estabrook published several works that became part of the theoretical basis for and helped popularize the eugenics movement.* Estabrook was born in Leicester, Massachusetts. He received his undergraduate degree from Clark College (1905) in Massachusetts and a doctorate in biology from Johns Hopkins (1910). He also attended the New York School of Philanthropy (1914). Estabrook was a field worker and researcher at the Eugenics Records Office* and the Station for Experimental Evolution of the Carnegie Institute of Washington* (1910-1929) in Cold Spring Harbor, New York. During World War I* he served as a captain in the Sanitory Corps of the U.S. Army. After leaving the ERO he joined the American Society for the Control of Cancer (after 1944 the American Cancer Society) as a researcher (1929-1941). Between 1920 and 1936 he was also involved with an anti-venereal disease* campaign in New York city and in 1936 surveyed "crippled children" in the Buffalo, New York, area. From 1943 to 1948 Estabrook was the secretary of the mental hygiene and public health division of the Pennsylvania Public Charities Association. He then took a position as a public health projects officer with the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C. (1951-1963), where he worked in various capacities until his retirement. Estabrook is most noted as an early eugenics* leader and for the promotion of sterilization and custodial care for the "unfit." In 1911 he published The Nam Family: A Study in Cacogenics, coauthored with Charles Davenport,* based upon his fieldwork for the ERO. As a field worker, Estabrook carried out or assisted state agencies in field studies. In 1915 he surveyed two Indiana counties and reported that approximately 1.2 percent of the population was epileptic, insane, or feebleminded and that measures should be taken to prevent them from "reproducing their kind." The field notes for Richard Dougdale's original study, The Jukes (1877), a case study of a "degenerate family," were discovered in 1914. Estabrook traced the contemporary decedents of this family, which was published as The Jukes in 1915 (1916). Estabrook concluded that half of the family were feebleminded and recommended permanent custodial care and sterilization to prevent their defective "germ-plasm" from being transmitted. In 1926 Estabrook coauthored, with Ivan E. McDougle, Mongrel Virginians: The Win Tribe. The fol-
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lowing year he testified at the Buck v. Bell Supreme Court decision that upheld the right of Virginia to sterilize "defective" individuals against their will. He was involved with several eugenics organizations. In 1917 he was named to the executive council of the Eugenics Research Association (ERA)* at the peak of its influence and was elected president in 1925. Although Estabrook was well known in the early part of the century as a eugenicist, at the end of his life he was largely forgotten. Estabrook married Jessie McCubbin (1911), who died in 1931. He married Anne Ruth Medcalf during this same year. Estabrook in his later life lived near Utica, New York. References: "Finding aid for the Arthur H. Estabrook papers, 1910-1943," (visited December 14, 2001); Bix, Amy Sue, "Experiences and voices of eugenics field-workers: 'Women's' work in biology," Social Studies of Science 27 (August 1997), 625-668; Estabrook, Arthur H., "The Indiana Survey," Journal of Heredity 8 (April 1917), 156-159; Estabrook, Arthur H., and Davenport, Charles B., The Nam Family, memoir 2 (1912); AMS, 5th ed. (1933), 337; AMS, 11th ed. (1965), 1143; WhNAA 1 (1976), 492. eugenical laws By the early twentieth century, some reformers called for measures to restrict breeding among the "unfit." In their view, Lamarckian inheritance* and Social Darwinism* implied that reproduction among the unfit would lead to a proliferation of "degenerates." This called for programs they felt would benefit humankind on both humanitarian and economic grounds. During the first three decades of the twentieth century, to reduce breeding among the "unfit," custodial institutions were built, sterilization statutes were implemented, and marriage license laws were passed; on the federal level, immigration restriction* legislation was enacted. Segregation of degenerates in institutions had increased during the late nineteenth century. In 1890 fourteen states maintained state institutions for the mentally disabled. In that year, 40 percent of inmates in these institutions were immigrants* or children of immigrants. Whether they were old-stock Anglo Americans* or recent immigrants, most were paupers. Fear of the "feebleminded" prostitute,* who not only bore degenerate children but also transmitted venereal diseases,* became a particular concern. However, custodial care was expensive and sterilization began to be recommended. Until the twentieth century the only way to sterilize males was by castration; the sterilization of females was a risky procedure. In 1899 a Chicago surgeon, A. J. Ochsner, described vasectomy and urged it as a measure for sterilizing male criminals. Harry Sharp,* a physician at the Indiana State Reformatory, began to use this new proce-
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dure and lauded its benefits to society. In 1905 the Pennsylvania legislature passed the first eugenics* sterilization law, but the governor vetoed it. Indiana was the first state to pass and adopt a sterilization law in 1907. Between 1907 and 1912 seven additional states (Washington, California, Connecticut, Nevada, Iowa, New Jersey, and New York) successfully passed laws. By 1915, fifteen states had passed measures modeled on the Indiana law. Most states allowed for sterilization of institutionalized "confirmed criminals, idiots, imbeciles, and rapists" if the institution's board agreed. Harry Laughlin* of the Eugenics Records Office* in Cold Spring Harbor, New York, surveyed the laws across the nation and in 1922 published Eugenical Sterilization in the United States, which included a "model eugenical sterilization law" that was adopted later by other states and used as a blueprint for Nazi Germany's "racial-hygiene" program, along with Ezra Gosney and Paul Popenoe's* Sterilization for Human Betterment (1929). Sterilization laws in the United States varied from state to state, but in general a combination of lax enforcement and court decrees left them relatively innocuous; only 1,422 individuals had officially been sterilized by World War I,* with 1,077 of those being performed in California. Constitutional challenges were brought in several states against these laws and most were declared invalid. In fact, Indiana's law was repealed in 1921. However, Virginia's involuntary sterilization laws were upheld by a 1927 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Buck v. Bell, that led to increased sterilizations in the 1930s. Between 1907 and 1941, at the end of the eugenics movement,* 38,087 institutionalized persons were recorded as having been sterilized. In the postWorld War II years, most states repealed these laws. Marriage-restriction laws were passed as part of the eugenics movement. To prevent venereal diseases, especially syphilis, that could be passed to unborn children, reformers pushed for laws requiring a health certificate before a marriage licence was granted. Some states in the 1890s began to forbid marriage contracts if either party was not cured of a venereal disease or was feebleminded or epileptic. By 1912 some type of marriage restrictions had been enacted in thirtyfour states or jurisdictions. These included physical examinations to rule out venereal disease. Some state forbade marriage due to epilepsy and drunkenness. The vast majority forbade marriages in which either party was insane or feebleminded. However, marriage-restriction laws were not always strongly enforced. Immigration restriction laws were passed as eugenical measures to protect native-born "Nordic" and Anglo-Saxon American* values, vigor, abilities, and "purity."* Eastern "Alpine" and southern "Mediterranean" European immigrants were considered morally, in-
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tellectually, and constitutionally inferior "races." Laughlin, in a series of two surveys of state institutions for the feebleminded, insane, and criminals, as well as special institutions such as tuberculosis* sanitariums, between 1914 and 1919, found that a disproportionally large number of these individuals were from Southern and Eastern European, compared to those of Northern European stock. This suggested these immigrants were difficult to assimilate and eugenically harmful to the racial strength of the American people. Laughlin's results and testimonies before the House Committee on Immigration under Albert Johnson* were major factors in the justification of immigration restriction from these countries and contributed to the passage of the Johnson Immigration Restriction Act of 1924.* References: American Academy of Political and Social Science (AAPSS), Bace Improvement in the United States (1909); Haller, Mark H., Eugenics: Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought (1963); Laughlin, Harry H., Eugenics Becord Office Beport no. 1 (1913), Eugenical Sterilization in the United States (1922), "Laws regulating marriage," Survey (September 21, 1912), 766-767; Paul, Diane B., Controlling Human Heredity: 1865 to the Present (1995); Pickens, Donald, Eugenics and the Progressives (1968); Reilly, Philip R., The Surgical Solution: A History of Involuntary Sterilization in the United States (1991); Rentoul, Robert Reid, Bace Culture: Or, Bace Suicide (a Plea for the Unborn) (1906). Eugenical News (1916-1954) and Eugenics (1928-1931) Eugenical News and Eugenics were two publications that served to popularize the eugenics movement.* Eugenical News was founded in 1916 by Charles Davenport* and Harry Laughlin* as a clearinghouse for the activities of the Eugenics Record Office* at Cold Spring Harbor, New York. It contained short, popular articles on eugenics* research and such themes as the menace of the feebleminded, differential fertility, and the superiority of Nordic races. It actively promoted immigration restriction,* sterilization, and other eugenic practices. The newspaper reprinted minutes of Galton Society* meetings, profiled biographies of prominent leaders, and had reviews of eugenics books. Its tone was overtly propagandistic and it advocated Nazi race-hygiene programs beginning in the late 1920s. The News was the official organ for the Eugenics Research Association,* an offshoot of the ERO, from August 1920 to December 1938, and the Galton Society from 1925 to December 1938. It also became the official organ of the American Eugenics Society,* which cosponsored the magazine from 1926 until 1928. The American Eugenics Society launched its own official journal, Eugenics, "a journal of race betterment," in October 1928, which
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was published until February 1931. Most issues of Eugenics were devoted to a single theme, such as immigration,* psychology, medicine, crime, and the like. Its title page featured a profile of Francis Galton (1822-1911) and the Fitter Families* contest medal of John Harvey Kellogg's* Race Betterment Foundation.* In 1931 Eugenics was superceded by People, "a magazine for all the people, official organ of the American Eugenics Society, and devoted to all phases of the eugenics movement." Only one issue was published in April 1931 by the Galton Publishing Company. Following discontinuance of these magazines, the AES contracted in 1931 with the ERA, publishers of Eugenical News, to make it the official organ of the society. This relation continued to the end of 1938. In June 1938, when the ERA was forced to close, Eugenical News was transferred to the AES in New York city and changed from propaganda to a more scientific based journal. It commenced publishing the News as a quarterly with the 1939 issue and published studies of human populations and behaviors. In 1954 the journal was in turn replaced with Eugenics Quarterly. It became the Journal of Social Biology in 1968, which continues to the present. References: Bigelow, Maurice A., "Brief history of the American Eugenics Society," Eugenical News 31 (December 1946), 49-51; Haller, Mark H., Eugenics: Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought (1963); Osborn, Frederick, "History of the American Eugenics Society," Social Biology 21 (Summer 1974), 115-126. eugenics As stated by Charles B. Davenport,* a prime mover of the American eugenics movement,* eugenics is the "science of the improvement of the human race by better breeding." Other terms for eugenics have included "race betterment,"* "race improvement," "race regeneration," "racial hygiene," and "sanitary marriages." The opposite of eugenics was termed "dysgenic," "cacogenic," or "race degeneracy"* resulting from breeding of "degenerates." "Positive eugenics" focused upon promoting reproduction among the fit. It included lectures on child rearing, "fitter families contests,"* and registering family pedigree charts at the Eugenics Registry.* Negative eugenics was aimed at preventing breeding among the unfit. It included eugenical laws* for sterilization or segregation in institutions, marriage licensing, and immigration restrictions.* Eugenic attitudes evolved from Darwinian evolutionary theory and were imported from Britain. Francis Galton (1822-1911), a British scientist and cousin of Charles Darwin (1809-1882), coined the term in 1883 in Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development. After studying the pedigrees of eminent men, Galton concluded that "nature was more important than nurture" and that genius was hereditary. He argued that the theory of evolution implies that "it would
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be quite practical to produce a highly gifted race of men by judicious marriages during several consecutive generations." Mendelian inheritance,* traits passed through the "germ cells," or genes, was rediscovered in 1900. These ideas, along with Social Darwinism,* spread across the Atlantic to academicians. Social Darwinism held that a variety of complex human, moral, social, and disease conditions were based on natural selection, could be inherited, and were not just caused by poor environments. Although hereditarian concepts had been voiced during the last quarter of the nineteenth century in the United States, the first group to use and present eugenics as a term was the American Sociology Association in 1904. Two years later the American Breeders Association* established a eugenics committee. Although Darwinists, many American eugenicists, in the mold of Progressive-era thought, were ambivalent toward the concept of natural selection in terms of socioeconomic and moral conditions. It was believed that a person of sound heredity could overcome disadvantages through hard work and living a "moral" or healthy life. On the other hand, many scientists in the early decades of the twentieth century continued to believe in the transmission of acquired characteristics* from damage to germ cells by environmental factors. These ideas cumulated in advocacy of public health reforms to curtail such undesirable outcomes. Sanitation, preventive medicine,* personal hygiene,* better diets, and the elimination of racial poisons* such as alcohol,* tuberculosis,* and venereal disease* were championed. Eugenicists became concerned about racial suicide.* They observed that middle-class old-stock Anglo Americans* were producing fewer children compared to ethnic groups and others they considered inferior or degenerate. In eugenicists' view, Southern and Eastern Europeans were inferior "racial stocks," inasmuch as they were overrepresented among criminals, the insane, the feebleminded, prostitutes,* and the poor. Consequently, eugenicists championed immigrant restriction policies. Because they believed mental retardation, mental illness, epilepsy, and criminality were inherited, they supported institutionalizing and involuntary sterilization programs. Not necessarily acting out of selfish or evil intent, eugenicists were convinced that eugenic practices would benefit humanity by curtailing reproduction among the unfit. Eugenic reform was an underlying concern of many Progressive-era health-reform movements. References: Barnesby, Norman, "Eugenics and the child," Forum 49 (March 1913), 341-348; Davenport, Charles, Heredity in Belation to Eugenics (1911); Galton, Francis, "Eugenics: Its definition, scope, and aims," American Journal of Sociology 10 (July 1904), 1-25; Haller, Mark H., Eugenics: Hereditarian Attitudes in American
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Thought (1963); Pernick, Martin S., "Eugenics and public health in American history," American Journal of Public Health 87 (November 1997), 1767-1772; Paul, Diane B., Controlling Human Heredity: 1865 to the Present (1995); Pickens, Donald, Eugenics and the Progressives (1968); Reilly, Philip R., The Surgical Solution: A History of Involuntary Sterilization in the United States (1991). eugenics movement (1890s-1940) This movement constituted a crusade to encourage reproduction among healthy productive members of society and to curtail breeding among the less fit and disadvantaged. The movement grew out of the late nineteenth-century belief in the inheritability of poverty* and moral behaviors, concepts of Social Darwinism,* and concerns over the population decline of oldstock Anglo Americans.* This movement crested in the late 1920s, a decade after the surge of other Progressive-era health-reform campaigns. Eugenic* concepts were interwoven with most health crusades, with which they became cross-fertilized in rhetoric and remedies. Unlike other health movements of this era, such as prohibition* and tuberculosis,* the eugenics movement never became a crusade of the masses. Eugenics largely remained a matter of concern with the upper middle class, supported by leaders in biology, psychology, criminology, social work, sociology, liberal religion, and medicine. Some historians suggest it became a kind of secular religion for many who dreamed of a society in which every child was endowed with vigorous health and an agile mind. The movement can be divided into three phases. During the first phase, from about 1870 to 1905, hereditarian attitudes took root among professionals and reformers. Problems of racial degeneracy* and racial suicide* began to be discussed. Early proponents included such figures as Francis Willard,* Alexander Graham Bell,* and John Harvey Kellogg.* During this era the American Breeders Association* was founded to advance genetics, and Harry Sharp* of Indiana began to sterilize inmates of state institutions. At the end of this phase, three factions with differing agendas and activities had evolved. Social-welfare workers, health professionals, and institutional caregivers, all concerned about preventing crime,* disease,* and poverty, advocated sterilization, custodial care, and marriagerestriction laws. Academicians interested in genetics carried out family, genetic, and mental aptitude research. Nativists,* alarmed by the massive influx of poor immigrants* from Southern and Eastern Europe, fostered immigration restriction legislation such as the Johnson-Reed Immigration Restriction Act of 1924.* The second phase, when the movement had its greatest impact, ranged from about 1905 through the late 1920s. During the second
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decade of the century, the Eugenics Records Office* and its director Charles Davenport* became the hub of the movement. The ERO, in addition to the Eugenics Research Association,* the Eugenics Registry,* and the Race Betterment Foundation,* further promoted the cause. Family pedigree studies, including those by Henry Goddard* and Arthur Estabrook,* advanced the case for eugenic sterilization and segregation laws. By 1914, eugenic principles were taught at forty-four colleges. Educational programs, including better babies* and fitter families contests and popular lectures, attempted to popularize the movement. In the 1920s organizations such as the American Eugenics Society* and the Human Betterment Foundation* were established to further educate the public. Eugenical conferences and International Congresses of Eugenics* interlinked eugenicists from all over the world. Support from reputable scientists, including Henry F. Osborn* and Irving Fisher,* university presidents Charles Eliot,* David Starr Jordan,* and Clarence Little,* along with president Theodore Roosevelt,* lent prestige to the movement. Throughout this phase eugenical laws were passed. Although they were often challenged and repealed, Virginia's involuntary sterilization law was upheld by a 1927 Supreme Court decision, Buck v. Bell, which led to more sterilizations during the 1930s. The third phase of the movement, beginning in the late 1920s, manifested a decline in the movement's prestige and influence resulting from several factors. By the late 1920s, arising from new knowledge from genetics and psychology, the tenets upon which much of the movement was grounded began to lose scientific support. The movement's nativistic* faction, including Madison Grant* and Harry Laughlin,* moved to the forefront. Their support of Hitler's racial-hygiene program in the 1930s became embarrassing to the movement's funding sources, such as the Carnegie Institute of Washington.* Funds were withdrawn and several eugenic organizations were forced to close. During the 1930s older leaders died and there were few successors to replace them. By the 1940s the movement constituted only a few adherents. The use of euthanasia to foster a superior race in Hitler's Germany and changes in social and political thought discredited eugenics and the movement throughout the rest of the twentieth century. References: Haller, Mark H., Eugenics: Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought (1963); Kevles, Daniel J., In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity (1985); Paul, Diane B., Controlling Human Heredity: 1865 to the Present (1995); Pickens, Donald, Eugenics and the Progressives (1968); Reilly, Philip R., The Surgical Solution: A History of Involuntary Sterilization in the United States (1991).
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Eugenics Record Office (ERO) (1910-1939) The center of the eugenics movement* in the United States during its three decades of reform activity was the Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, New York. This organization helped facilitate and coordinate all aspects of the movement and was the only eugenics* institution with a building, research facilities, and paid staff. Most noted eugenicists of the era were associated with this center. In 1902 Andrew Carnegie established the Carnegie Institute of Washington,* which two years later set up the Station for Experimental Evolution at Cold Spring Harbor, New York, under the direction of Charles Davenport,* a geneticist. Davenport enlisted Mary Harriman (18511932), widow of railroad magnate Edward Harriman, in founding and supporting an institution for eugenics research and education. Mary Harriman donated a tract of land adjacent to the Experimental Station, which was established on October 1, 1910, as the Eugenics Record Office under the direction of the Eugenics Section of the American Breeders Association.* Davenport, who was secretary of the newly established Eugenics Section, became resident director, and Harry Laughlin* "superintendent" or manager of the ERO. The major purpose of the Eugenics Record Office was to "serve eugenical interests in the capacity of repository and clearinghouse." To this end, the office, in conjunction with the Eugenics Section of the American Breeders Association, provided forms for recording health problems of families going back several generations. Alcoholism,* mental illness and retardation, tuberculosis,* and Huntington's cholorea were among the health issues investigated. The ERO trained field workers to collect data and maintained a permanent storage facility for this information. Other purposes of the office were to build up a "collection of traits of American families," "study offspring in terms of inheritance of specific traits," give advice to prospective marriage partners, cooperate with other institutions concerned with eugenical studies, and encourage new eugenics research centers. An overall aim of the office was to prevent "the propagation of defectives" and to encourage "more talented strains" of the human race to increase their reproduction. During its active years, the Eugenics Record Office published numerous family histories, research studies, and other materials and established a Eugenics Registry.* A news bulletin, Eugenical News* launched in 1916 to provide information concerning activities of the office, became the official journal of the Eugenics Research Association,* an offshoot of the ERO in 1920. The News was later adopted by other eugenics organizations, including the Galton Society* and the American Eugenics Society.* Funding for the Eugenics
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Records Office came chiefly from Harriman. In its first few years J. D. Rockefeller, Jr.* and the YMCA* also helped underwrite it. In 1918 Harriman transferred the Eugenic Records Office to the Carnegie Institution of Washington. The Station for Experimental Evolution in 1921 absorbed the Eugenics Record Office to form the Department of Genetics for the Carnegie Institution under the direction of Davenport. The ERO was maintained as a subsection of the Department of Genetics. In the early 1930s younger eugenicists began to realize the effects of environment and the complex etiology for many human conditions, including socioeconomic status, alcoholism, and crime.* However, Laughlin and others at the ERO maintained a nativistic* philosophy and lauded the eugenic policies of Nazi Germany in Eugenical News. These activities concerned the Carnegie Institution, which in 1937 investigated Laughlin's research, found it unscientific, forced him to retire, and closed down the ERO. In 1939 it became the Genetics Record Office and the family records were moved to the Dight Institute at the University of Minnesota. Since the last decade of the twentieth century, the Human Genome Project has been headquartered at the Cold Spring Harbor facility. References: American Breeders Magazine (1910-1911); Allen, Garland E., "The Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor, 1910-1940," Osiris, 2d ser., 2 (1986), 225-264; Bigelow, Maurice A., "Brief history of the American Eugenics Society," Eugenical News 31 (December 1946), 49-51; Haller, Mark H., Eugenics: Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought (1963); Laughlin, Harry, "Report on the organization and the first eight months' work of the eugenics record office," American Breeders Magazine 2 (second quarter 1911), 107-112, Eugenics Becord Office Beport no. 1 (1913), "The progress of American Eugenics," Eugenics 2 (February 1929), 3-16, "Historical background of the Third International Congress on Eugenics," in Perkins, Harry F., ed., A Decade of Progress in Eugenics: Scientific Papers of the Third International Congress of Eugenics (1934); Pickens, Donald, Eugenics and the Progressives (1968); Osborn, Frederick, "History of the American Eugenics Society," Social Biology 21 (Summer 1974), 115-126. Eugenics Registry (1915-c. 1939) This registry collected information concerning "hereditary traits" from individual families and classified them as eugenically fit or unfit. John Harvey Kellogg,* at the First Race Betterment* Conference at Battle Creek, Missouri, in January 1914, suggested that a "Eugenics Registry Office is needed to establish a race of human thoroughbreds Such a registry in which may be recorded the names of infants born under eugenic conditions and also the names of persons and pedigree." The Eugenics
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Registry was established after the Second Race Betterment Conference in San Francisco (1915) under the guidance of Kellogg, and was a "partnership" of the Race Betterment Foundation,* Battle Creek, Michigan, and the Eugenic Records Office* in Cold Spring Harbor, New York. Its purpose, as stated on its family-information survey forms, was, "1) To make an inventory and record of the socially important hereditary traits and tendencies of the individual. 2) To point out, as far as possible, the conditions under which these traits and tendencies may express themselves in succeeding generations. 3) To contribute to the growth and spread of our knowledge of natural inheritance in man. 4) To assist in the maintenance and increase of natural endowments and to combat race decay." After data were collected, names of those who met certain standards were enrolled in a "human pedigree" book. Forms for data collection were given to willing participants through various clubs and organizations. Members of the board for this registry included pioneers of the eugenics movement: David Starr Jordan,* president; John H. Kellogg,* secretary; Irving Fisher,* Luther Burbank,* and Charles B. Davenport,* director of the ERO. The Eugenics Registry collected information on thousands of families during its years of operation. References: Kellogg, J. H., "Needed—A new human race," in Robins, Emily F., ed., Proceedings of the First National Conference on Bace Betterment, January 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 1914 (1914), "The Eugenics Registry," in Official Proceedings of the Second National Conference on Bace Betterment August 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8, 1915. Held in San Francisco, California (1915), 76-87; Micklos, D., and Witkowski, J., eds., "Image archive on the American Eugenics Movement," DNA Learning Center, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, (visited July 6, 2000); Schwarz, Richard William, John Harvey Kellogg, M.D. (1981). Eugenics Research Association (ERA) (1913-1938) This professional organization was formed for those interested in eugenics* research. The Eugenics Research Association emerged out of a 1913 conference for field workers at the Eugenics Records Office* in Cold Spring Harbor, New York. Its purpose was to facilitate communication among workers and others active in the study of human heredity and to promote research. Charles Davenport* was elected its first president. The ERA became an important group for the organization and coordination of eugenics and, in turn, human genetics on the national and international level in the second decade of the twentieth century. Eminent scholars and reformers from many fields, united by their interest in heredity, became members of the ERA and attended its annual conferences at Cold Spring Harbor.
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In 1916 the ERA, under Davenport and Harry Laughlin,* began a monthly newsletter, Eugenical News,* as a clearinghouse for the activities of the Eugenics Record Office and the official organ for the Eugenics Research Association. By 1928 the ERA was composed of 300 persons interested in human heredity. It continued to draw up programs for research and to hold annual meetings, but did little else. With its limited funds, the association subsidized some minor research projects and judged a few essay contests on eugenics. In 1928 Frederick Osborn (1889-1981), a former businessman and nephew of Henry Fairfield Osborn,* began to finance some research programs for the ERA. Soon he became treasurer and a leading member of the association. Under his input, the ERA published a series of monographs, the Eugenics Besearch Association Monograph Series, beginning around 1929, published by the Galton Publishing Company. Each monograph focused upon a eugenics issue and included such topics as "Mental tests and heredity," "Some biological aspects of war," and "Comparative birth-rate movements among European nations." When genetic research in the late 1920s and 1930s did not support many of the presuppositions of eugenics and when Laughlin and Clarence Campbell (1868-1956), the ERA president, openly supported Nazi Germany's race-hygiene policies, the organization began to lose credibility. The last annual meeting of the ERA was held in June 1938. It voted to transfer the association's property to the newly organized Association for Research in Human Heredity, which was never activated. References: Allen, Garland E., "The Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor, 1910-1940," Osiris, 2d ser., 2 (1986), 225-264; Bigelow, Maurice A., "Brief history of the American Eugenics Society," Eugenical News 31 (December 1946), 49-51; Haller, Mark H., Eugenics: Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought (1963); Laughlin, Harry H., Eugenics Becord Office Beport no. 1 (1913); Pickens, Donald, Eugenics and the Progressives (1968). .
F feminism (see woman suffrage) Fisher, Irving (February 27, 1867-April 29, 1947) An economics professor, Fisher was a pivotal reformer during the Progressive era's Clean Living Movement.* Through his leadership positions and publications, he greatly influenced campaigns embracing eugenics,* diet and nutrition,* prohibition,* physical exercise, tuberculosis,* and public health.* Fisher, the third of four children, was born in Saugerties, New York, the son of a Congregational minister descended from early New York settlers. Soon after his birth his family moved to Rhode Island, then Connecticut, and finally to St. Louis. The year his father died he graduated from Smith Academy in St. Louis (1884). He received a B.A. from Yale University, where he was class valedictorian. Under full scholarship he immediately began working on a doctorate in mathematics. Fisher joined the Yale faculty in 1890 as an instructor and completed his Ph.D. (1891). He then studied in Berlin and Paris (1893-1894). Upon returning to the States in 1894, he switched from the mathematic's department to the department of political economy, where he remained the rest of his career. Over his lifetime Fisher became one of the nation's leading economists. In 1898 he was stricken with tuberculosis and it took him three years to recover. Fisher was treated by Edward Trudeau,* a pioneer of the tuberculosis movement.* Fisher also spent time at sanatoriums* in Colorado Springs and Santa Barbara. This experience awoke a lifelong interest in personal hygiene,* public health, and temperance.* Fisher's research lent scientific support to the diet and nutrition and physical education* movements during the first decade of the century. In 1904 Fisher visited the Battle Creek Sanitarium* to meet
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John Harvey Kellogg* and learn about his "biologic living" system. This meeting between the two men led to a lifelong association and friendship. Following Kellogg's advice, Fisher launched a low-meat diet and abstinence from alcohol,* as well as coffee, tea, and cane sugar. Kellogg's dietary, hygiene, and exercise regime were cited in Fisher's publications. Intrigued by the low-meat diet, in addition to Horace Fletcher's* system of thoroughly chewing food, Fisher conducted a study on Yale students, publishing his findings in The Effect of Diet on Endurance ([1907] 1918). He suggested that students on a semi-vegetarian,* low-protein diet had more endurance than those on a high-meat diet. These results, along with other studies, led to general advocacy of lower dietary protein in American diets. Fisher exerted strong influence upon the public health movement. In 1907 the American Association for the Advancement of Science* appointed him chair of the Committee of One Hundred* to agitate for a national department of health. Fisher and his committee produced the Beport on the National Vitality (1909), which discussed factors associated with poor health among middle-class workers. Although such a national department was not created, over time many of the committee's ideas were incorporated into public health and school hygiene education.* Based upon recommendations in this report, Fisher in 1913 cofounded the Life Extension Institute* as a profit-making venture to provide periodic physical examinations and health education to businesses. As chairman of the Institute's Hygiene Reference Board, Fisher coauthored, with Eugene Fisk,* How to Live, a popular health-education manual and text. For treating tuberculosis, he espoused establishment of sanatoriums and so-called fresh-air cures, and made prevention presentations in which he championed proper diet, exercise, and personal hygiene. In 1902 he advocated Fletcherism*—thorough mastication of food—and rest as a cure for TB. Over a period of twenty years, Fisher gravitated from tolerance of moderate alcohol consumption to a position of total abstinence and national prohibition. He wrote more than a hundred publications discussing the subject and increasingly saw the liquor traffic* as an enemy of public health and alcohol as a racial poison.* In 1916, during World War I,* Fisher volunteered to serve on the Council of National Defense. In that capacity he was asked to organize a conference to address the effects of alcohol and venereal disease* on military efficiency. Once the nation was under the Eighteenth Amendment,* Fisher defended it in two popular books, Prohibition at Its Worst (1927) and The Nobel Experiment (1930), which he coauthored. In the earlier work he concluded, "Prohibition is here to stay. If not enforced, its blessings will speedily turn into a curse."
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Fisher was a major force in the eugenics movement.* He greatly influenced the integration of eugenics as an underlying theme into several health-reform crusades, including the temperance and school hygiene movements. He favored eugenical laws* that included sterilization and the segregation of "defectives" in institutions. Fisher supported positive eugenic education programs such as the fitter families campaign.* He held leadership positions in most eugenics organizations. At the Second International Eugenics Congress* (1921), Fisher spearheaded a committee that evolved into the American Eugenics Society;* he was the society's first president (19221926). He was vice president of the Third International Congress, served on the executive committee of the National Conferences for Race Betterment,* was president of the Eugenics Research Association* (1920), and a member of the Eugenics Registry's* governing committee. Fisher tended toward nativism.* He supported the immigration restriction movement* and was opposed to birth control* unless it was extended to "inferior racial stocks." Fisher's fortune and reputation were marred by the 1929 Wall Street crash. Several days before the crash he had reassured investors that stock prices had achieved a new and permanent plateau and were not overpriced. In 1935 he retired from Yale. Over his lifetime he published more than 2,000 works and received many awards. He married Margaret Hazard in 1893, who died in 1940; they had three children. Fisher died in New York city of inoperable colon cancer. His son commented that "it was an ironic fate for one who had so steadfastly obeyed all the health rules and been such a devotee of periodic medical examination." References: Fisher, Irving, Bulletin 30 of the Committee of 100 on National Vitality, Being a Beport on National Vitality, Its Wastes and Conservation (1909), The Effect of Diet on Endurance ([1907] 1918), "Impending problems of eugenics," Scientific Monthly 13 (September 1921), 214-231, Prohibition at Its Worst (1927); Fisher, Irving, and Brougham, H. Bruce, The "Noble Experiment" (1930); Fisher, Irving Norton, My Father, Irving Fisher (1956); Hirshbein, Laura Davidow, "Masculinity, Work, and the Fountain of Youth: Irving Fisher and the Life Extension Institute, 1914-31," Canadian Bulletin of Medical History 16 (January 1999), 89-124; Kerr, K. Austin, Organized for Prohibition: A New History of the Anti-Saloon League (1985); Whittaker, Christine R., "Chasing the cure: Irving Fisher's experience as a tuberculosis patient," Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 48 (Fall 1974), 398-415; Whorton, James C , "'Physiologic optimism': Horace Fletcher and hygienic ideology in progressive America," Bulletin of the History of Medicine 55 (Spring 1981), 59-87; ANB 8 (1999), 12-15; DAB sup. 4 (1974), 272-276; DATB (1984), 165-167; SEAP 3 (1926), 996; obituary, NYT, April, 30 1947.
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Fisk, Eugene Lyman (January 1,1867-July 5,1931) A physician and medical director of the Life Extension Institute (LEI)* of New York city, Fisk developed the first periodic medical examination as an aspect of preventive medicine.* He promoted healthy living as a method for longevity and opposed the use of alcohol* and tobacco.* Fisk saw the interconnectedness of many health issues and supported campaigns devoted to diet and nutrition,* eugenics,* physical education,* social hygiene,* and public health.* A descendant of AngloAmerican* colonial stock, Fisk was born in Brooklyn, New York, to an Episcopalian family; his father was a physician. Following in his father's footsteps, he attended Trinity School, a private school, then graduated with honors from New York Medical College (1888). Fisk practiced medicine in Brooklyn until 1891, when he became director of the western medical division for the Equitable Life Assurance Society. After seven years of service, during which he discovered physical disabilities in many individuals who applied for life insurance, he became medical director of the Provident Savings Life Assurance Society of New York (1898-1910) and organized the first periodic medical examination and health-education program at a life insurance company. Fisk then worked for the Postal Life Insurance Company (1910-1913). His experiences convinced him of the importance of educating the public in personal hygiene* and conducting routine medical examinations. When the Life Extension Institute was organized in 1913, Fisk was selected as medical director. Under his leadership, the institute became widely known in business and health circles and examined more than a half million people. Fisk worked closely with Irving Fisher,* chair of the LEI's public health advisory group, and the Hygiene Reference Board. Together they coauthored How to Live (1915), a popular health book, and Health for the Soldier and Sailor (1918), in which they championed venereal disease* prevention, among other health concerns. Fisk authored many health-education booklets, including Food, Fuel for the Human Engine (1916), Alcohol—Its Belation to Human Efficiency and Longevity (1916), and Health Building and Life Extension, and contributed to both scholarly and popular magazines. He also was editor of the Life Extension periodical, How to Live. Fisk was a strong supporter of many health reforms during the Progressive era's Clean Living Movement* and recognized the link between alcohol and other health issues. He argued, "My interest in alcohol has been the same as in focal infection, in venereal infection, in diet and exercise and a number of other things that have to do with the quality of human life." Fisk was active in numerous health organizations, including the National Tuberculosis Association,* the Committee to Study the Tobacco Problem, the American
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Public Health Association,* and the American Eugenics Association,* for which he served on its advisory council (1923-1930). Fisk married Emma L. Sweet in 1889 and fathered two daughters. While on vacation in Europe he died suddenly in Dresden, Germany, at the peak not only of his career, but also of the LEI's power and influence. After Fisk's death the LEI declined in prestige. References: Fisk, Eugene Lyman, "The relationship of alcohol to society and to citizenship," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 109 (September 1923), 1-14, "Prolonging human life," Yale Beview9 (1919-1920), 699-713, "Is modern health work dysgenic?" Eugenics 2 (June 1929), 3-7; Hirshbein, Laura Davidow, "Masculinity, work, and the fountain of youth: Irving Fisher and the Life Extension Institute, 1914-31," Canadian Bulletin of Medical History 16 (January 1999), 89-124; NatCAB 25 (1936), 425-426; SEAP 3 (1926), 997-998; WhAm 1 (1942), 401; obituary, NYT, July 7, 1931. fitter families campaign A prime example of a positive eugenics* program that emerged near the peak of the eugenics movement* was the "fitter families for fitter future" campaign. Modeled after livestock judging at county fairs, families were judged in terms of mental, emotional, physical, and intellectual fitness. Since it was recognized "that humans and livestock are controlled by the same laws of heredity," it was hoped that young adults who knew their personal eugenical history would be more prudent in their selection of mates, thus leading to a "fitter human-stock." The campaign evolved out of the better babies* movement, popular in the p r e World War I* years, and the first National Conference for Race Betterment. At this 1914 conference, hosted by John Harvey Kellogg,* "mental and physical perfection contests" were held. Several thousand school children and about 600 babies were tested as to their "mental and physical efficiency." Prizes were awarded to children scoring highest in each age group, from six months to nineteen years. In connection with the contests, educational literature was distributed to mothers concerning diet* and hygiene.* Children found to be sick were referred to their physicians. The conference and the contest attracted wide media attention throughout the United States and laid the groundwork for the fitter families contests. Mary Watts (d. 1926) and Florence Brown Sherbon (1869-1944), two pioneers of the health examination for babies movement, organized the first fitter families contest at the 1920 Kansas State Fair. The aim of the program was to introduce the concept of eugenics and periodic health examination for all family members. Healthy children would grow up to provide "fitter families for the future!" For the examination, a form was adopted from the Life Extension
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Institute* and the Eugenics Records Office.* The forms included family history, as well as medical, physical, dental, psychiatric, and other examinations. The examination was free to contestants. In 1924 sponsorship of the contest was taken over by the American Eugenics Society* and extended to other states. It became so popular that most fairs had to limit entries. Families were classified according to size and given a letter grade; the winning family in each class was given a trophy. All contestants with a B+ or better were given a bronze medal bearing the inscription, "Yea, I have a goodly heritage," the logo for the cover of Eugenics.* In 1928 the Race Betterment Foundation* took over sponsorship of the project. The contests were held into the late 1930s. References: "Fitter families," Eugenics 2 (June 1929), 32-33; Holt, Marilyn Irvin, Linoleum, Better Babies, and the Modern Farm Woman, 1890-1930 (1995); Johnson, Hildegarde Walls, "Fitter families for future firesides: The Kansas Eugenics Contest," Journal of Heredity 16 (December 1925), 457-460. Fletcher, Horace (August 10, 1849-January 13, 1919) A wealthy entrepreneur and advocate of New Thought* ideas, Fletcher was a dietary reformer well known during the first decade of the twentieth century. As the man who "taught the world to chew," he advocated a low-protein diet and thorough mastication of food. Fletcher was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, the youngest of four children. His father, a stone contractor, could trace the family's ancestry to colonial settlers. Fletcher was educated in local schools, but because of chronic restlessness became a persistent traveler. In 1859, at age fifteen, he shipped out on a whaling ship, and for the next ten years worked as a clerk and sailor, traveling worldwide, particularly in the Far East. He received only one year of higher education (18671868) at Dartmouth College. Through various business ventures Fletcher had become a prosperous San Francisco businessman by the late 1870s. In 1881 he married Grace Adelaide Marsh, who already had a daughter, and they moved to New Orleans in 1889. When he was turned down for life insurance in 1895 for obesity, he retired and moved back to San Francisco. His ill health, including severe indigestion, motivated him to try several cures without results. He became involved with the New Thought movement. Inspired by this religious philosophy, he published Menticulture (1895), in which he argued that poor health is the result of poor attitude. Two years later he wrote Happiness as Found in Forethought Minus Fearthought (1897), in which he suggested that anger and worry caused by fear led to ill health and recommended mental science or mind cure* for many illness. Simultaneously, he developed a dietary system that included a low-protein diet and thorough mastication of food. Fol-
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lowing his own system he was able to cure his ills and gained strength. He then began to lecture and write on the subject and in 1898 published What Sense? or Economic Nutrition, which elaborated on his dietary system. In 1900 Fletcher moved to Venice, Italy, with his family. He extensively toured Europe until 1904 and wrote about his adventures. In the meantime he published the A.B.-Z. of Our Own Nutrition (1903), which expanded his dietary and health philosophy, and for which John Harvey Kellogg* contributed the introduction. By 1904 Fletcher had come to the attention of the scientific world. Russell H. Chittenden,* professor of physiology at Yale University, researched Fletcher's system. Chittenden and other researchers, including Irving Fisher,* supported the premise that lower amounts of protein produce stronger endurance; in middle-aged sedentary men, they contended, it resulted in better overall health. These results helped change dietary recommendations for good health as part of the diet and nutrition movement.* Fletcher's demonstration of his own superior strength and endurance by following his own diet also influenced the physical education movement.* Fletcher, nicknamed "the Great Masticator," traveled frequently to the United States from 1904 to 1910, where he lectured and wrote prolifically on food reform. During this time his dietary regimen peaked in popularity. Fletcher did not limit himself to dietary reform. He was a member of the Committee of One Hundred* and the National Mental Hygiene Committee.* He also supported the temperance* movement and warned against the dangers of alcohol* and smoking,* but admitted to enjoying an occasional cigar or glass of wine. By 1910 Americans had become weary of Fletcherism.* In Fletcher's personal life he became tired of his wife, and, estranged from her, moved to Copenhagen, accompanied by Helen, the Marquise de Chamberay. When World War I* broke out, Fletcher joined the Commission for Relief in Belgium and helped this organization through 1916. After more travels, he returned to Copenhagen but died of bronchitis near the end of the Spanish influenza* epidemic. For years after his death Fletcherism continued to be used as a synonym for thorough chewing. References: Berry, Elmer, "The effects of a high and a low proteid diet on physical efficiency," American Physical Education Beview 14 (May 1909), 288-298; Engs, Ruth Clifford, Clean Living Movements: American Cycles of Health Beform (2000); Fletcher, Horace, The A.B.-Z. of Our Own Nutrition (1910); Green, Harvey, Fit for America (1986); Whorton, James C , "'Physiologic optimism': Horace Fletcher and hygienic ideology in progressive America," Bulletin of the History of Medicine 55 (Spring 1981), 59-87, Crusaders for Fitness: The History of American Health
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Beformers (1982); ANB 8 (1999), 116-117; DAB 3 (1957), 464-465; obituary, NYT, January 14, 1919. Fletcherism This term, coined by John Harvey Kellogg* around 1903, referred to a method of chewing food developed by Horace Fletcher. * It was popularized by Kellogg's Battle Creek Sanitarium,* the popular press, and by Fletcher's many lectures and articles. The technique was also extolled by Bernar Macfadden* in his writings and found its way into some school hygiene texts. The method advocated not eating unless one was hungry, thoroughly masticating every mouthful of food until it had lost its flavor, eating whatever appealed to the appetite, and eating only when free from anxiety and depression. Fletcher summed this up as "'Chew,' 'masticate,' 'munch,' 'bite,' 'taste' everything you take in your mouth (except water, which has no taste) until it is not only thoroughly liquified and made neutral or alkaline by saliva, but until the reduced substance all settles back in the . . . folds at the back of the mouth and excites the Swallowing Impulse into a strong inclination to swallow." Between 1906 and 1910 Fletcherism was a popular fad and "munching" clubs became the rage among the American and European elite. Fletcherism, or "Fletcherizing," was an aspect of the diet and nutrition movement,* but its popularity began to wane in the second decade of the century. References: Fletcher, Horace, TheA.BZ. of Our Own Nutrition (1910); Green, Harvey, Fit for America (1986); Whorton, James C , '"Physiologic optimism': Horace Fletcher and hygienic ideology in progressive America," Bulletin of the History of Medicine 55 (Spring 1981), 59-87, Crusaders for Fitness: The History of American Health Beformers (1982). Flexner, Abraham (November 13, 1866-September 21, 1959) An educational researcher and reformer, Flexner was instrumental in facilitating a drastic change in medical education through his report that targeted North American medical schools. He also investigated prostitution.* Flexner was born in Louisville, Kentucky, the sixth of nine children. His parents were pious orthodox Jewish* immigrants. His father, a hat maker, was ruined by the economic depression of 1873. Although the family struggled financially, Flexner, while attending a Louisville high school, began at age fifteen to work at a private library, where he did much reading. After graduating from high school his oldest brother helped him to attend Johns Hopkins University, where he received a B.A. (1886) after three years. For a brief period after college he flirted with law and economy, but returned to Louisville to teach Latin and Greek at his old high school (1886-1890). After four years he started his own progressive sec-
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ondary school to prepare students for college. His students were successful and both he and his school drew the attention of Charles Eliot,* president of Harvard University. After visiting with Eliot, Flexner in 1899 wrote "A Freshman at Nineteen," which keynoted his educational philosophy. Becoming bored with teaching, Flexner closed his school in 1905 and went to Harvard where he finished an A.M. (1906) in psychology and philosophy and observed teaching methods at leading private schools. After graduating he studied for a year at the University of Berlin (1906-1907) and then moved to Heidelberg to write his first book, The American College: A Criticism (1908). Upon completion of the book, he returned to the United States. This book caught the eye of H. S. Pritchette, president of the newly formed Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, who asked Flexner to make a similar survey of medical education. Beginning in December 1908 Flexner began his investigation of 155 medical schools. He noted that his alma mater, Johns Hopkins, had a medical curriculum similar to the German medical education system and used it as a model. The resulting publication, known as the Flexner Report,* Medical Education in the United States and Canada, upset the medical world and instituted a wave of reform. Flexner argued, "The curse of medical education is the excessive number of schools. The situation can improve only as weaker and superfluous schools are extinguished." For the Carnegie Foundation he then studied medical schools in Great Britain, Germany, and France, leading to the publication of Medical Education in Europe (1912). In 1912 the Bureau of Social Hygiene* asked Flexner to investigate the white slave trade* in Europe. His Prostitution in Europe (1914) gave ammunition to the social hygiene movement* and to efforts to abate prostitution in the United States. Flexner found that prostitution was linked to alcohol,* poverty,* and broken homes. This publication led to another transition. In 1913 he took a position at the General Education Board, created by the Rockefeller Foundation in 1902 to improve the educational standards of the nation and the education of African Americans* in the South. Flexner worked on many educational projects, including reorganizing medical education and raising endowments to fully equip and upgrade medical schools. He served on this board for fifteen years. He went from assistant secretary (1913-1917), to secretary (1917-1925), and then to head of the Division of Studies and Medial Education from 1925 until he "retired" in 1928, after which he wrote and lectured. In 1930 he was given an endowment to establish the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University, which gave scholars freedom to pursue conceptual research. He served as its first director
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until his retirement in 1939, but continued to write and lecture on educational reform into his later years. Flexner, a prolific writer, published many other reports, as well as articles in popular magazines to explain his scholarly works and an autobiography, J Bemember (1940). Flexner married Anne Laziere Crawford (1898), who had been his first female student in Louisville. They had two daughters. He died at his home in Falls Creek, Virginia, outliving his wife by four years. References: Collier, Peter, and Horowitz, David, The Bockefellers: An American Dynasty (1976); Flexner, Abraham, "Fewer and better doctors," American Beview ofBeviews 42 (JulyDecember 1910), 203-210, Medical Education in the United States and Canada, Bulletin no. 4 (1910), "The suppression of prostitution," Social Hygiene 2 (April 1916), 164,1Bemember: The Autobiography of Abraham Flexner (1940); Hudson, Robert P., "Abraham Flexner in perspective: American medical education 1865-1910," Bulletin of the History of Medicine 46 (November-December 1972), 545-561; AB (1985), 295-298; CurBio (1941), 289-291; DAB sup. 6 (1980), 207-209; obituary, NYT, September 22, 1959. Flexner Report (1910) This study, carried out by Abraham Flexner* and sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation for Advancement of Teaching, was a major investigation of medical education and a master plan to reform the training of medical doctors in the United States. A struggle for control over medicine emerged at the turn of the twentieth century between orthodox allopathic, or "regular," physicians, who believed in a biomedical approach to treatment, and "irregular" physicians, who considered medicine a healing art. Besides homeopathy, these latter practitioners included chiropractic,* osteopathic,* and eclectic schools of thought. In addition, many medical schools were proprietary colleges that operated primarily for profit and paid little attention to actual education. Due to concern over the poor quality of medical education and as a way to wrest control over medicine and medical education, the American Medical Association* in 1904 established a Council on Medical Education to rate medical schools. In that year the number of medical schools had reached an all-time high of 166. By 1910, as the result of inspection and rating of the schools, many proprietary colleges closed. The national concern for the quality of medical education, a classic Progressive-era health reform, prompted the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in 1908 to commission Flexner to conduct a comprehensive, independent study of medical schools in North America. The study included both regular and irregular institutions. Flexner's 1910 report, Medical Education in the United
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States and Canada, revealed the discrepancies between academic catalogue descriptions of courses and clinical opportunities and the realities of medical training in schools throughout the United States and Canada. The report ranked medical schools and hospitals into three categories, from the best to the worst, giving them each a letter: A, B, or C, respectively. Flexner was most impressed with Johns Hopkins University, whose curriculum was based upon biomedicine and similar to German medical schools, known for their rigorous scientific base. Flexner recommended fewer and better schools. He suggested that the first-class schools be strengthened on the model of Johns Hopkins, the middle-ranking ones be raised to a high standard, and the remainder eliminated. He found thirty-five in the latter category. He argued for the placement of medical education within the structure of North American universities, higher standards of admission, elimination of practitioners' control over education, and hands-on clinical training. Based on studies of the physician-to-population ratio in Germany, Flexner estimated that one doctor for every 1,500 persons was an appropriate ratio to use in determining the number of physicians needed to provide medical care in the United States. He suggested that the "155 American medical schools now existing should be reduced to 31," with an annual output of about 2,000 physicians, for an average class of about seventy each. He recommended that thirty institutions merge with other schools and that schools be distributed in different geographic areas, depending upon their present and future population. In the aftermath of the Flexner report, inferior schools and "diploma mills" closed or joined other institutions in an effort to meet the new standards for accreditation. By 1915 there were 95 institutions; by 1929, the low point, 76. The number of schools then stayed around 77 until 1950, when they began a steady climb to 124 in 1990. However, several schools were not happy with the report and sued the AMA and Flexner. In particular, these included colleges based upon alternative medical philosophies, including the homeopathic Kansas City Hahnemann Medical College and the Central College of Osteopathy in Kirksville, Missouri. Some of the osteopathic institutions fought to continue their traditional focus but incorporated a biomedical base. The report ultimately upgraded the standard of medical education and allowed for the control of medicine in the United States by orthodox physicians in conjunction with state medical societies and the AMA. References: Flexner, Abraham, "Fewer and better doctors," American Beview ofBeviews 42 (July-December 1910), 203-210, Medical Education in the United States and Canada, Bulletin no. 4 (1910); Hudson, Robert P., "Abraham Flexner in per-
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spective: American medical education 1865-1910," Bulletin of the History of Medicine 46 (November-December 1972), 545-561; Fishbein, Morris, A History of the American Medical Association, 1847 to 1947 (1947); Flower, B. O., Progressive Men, Women and Movements of the Past Twenty-Five Years (1914); Haller, John S., Jr., American Medicine in Transition, 1840-1910 (1981); Young, James Harvey, The Medical Messiahs (1967); "Attacks medical colleges," NYT, June 11,1910. Flick, Lawrence Francis (August 10, 1856-July 7, 1938) Flick, a physician and historian, was a pioneer in the tuberculosis movement.* He founded a voluntary agency that became a model for future health societies. In addition, he agitated for tuberculosis* prevention, education, and treatment programs. Born in Carrolltown, Pennsylvania, the son of a prosperous second-generation Catholic* Alsatian farmer, Flick was one of many children. As a boy he was sickly but attended local schools. At age thirteen he entered St. Vincent's, a Benedictine college, in what is now Latrobe, Pennsylvania. However, during his senior year he was sent home due to a mild attack of consumption. * He recovered by living out of doors. Flick then taught school but relapsed again. At this point he decided to study medicine, hoping to find a way for his own tuberculosis cure. In 1877 Flick entered Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia and graduated two years later. After a year of internship at Philadelphia Hospital, he took up a general practice. He also studied law. Stress from work caused another relapse and he was advised to go west for his health. By 1883, after much rest and working as an orange packer in California, living largely on a diet of oranges and milk, he improved and returned east to resume his practice in 1883. He increasingly focused on treating consumption patients. Based upon his experiences, diet, fresh air, and rest were the basis of his treatment regimen. In the 1880s Flick began espousing two themes that became central to the tuberculosis movement: that the disease was communicable and not inherited, and that it was preventable, not inevitable. In 1888 Flick presented and published a paper that supported the premise that tuberculosis was an infectious disease* based upon a study he had conducted. Flick advocated the registration and reporting of tuberculosis cases by municipal health boards and pensions for the poor with the disease. He suggested measures to combat the disease, including rigid inspection of meat and dairy herds, systematic disinfection of consumptive victims' houses, and education to inform families how to protect themselves from contracting the illness. However, Philadelphia physicians considered these suggestions radical and unacceptable, as many medical authorities still
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considered consumption an inherited illness. Flick also proposed free hospitalization for the poor. Some colleagues agreed that isolation of the sick might be beneficial and in 1890 Flick and others established the Rush Hospital for Consumption and Allied Diseases. However, due to personal conflicts Flick resigned from the hospital board in 1893. He did successfully aid Hermann Biggs* in establishing registration in New York state. In 1895 Flick helped found an organization that arranged free hospital care for the poor and in 1901 this organization founded the White Haven Sanatorium to treat poor people. He remained its president until 1935. In 1903 Henry Phipps,* a wealthy industrialist who admired Flick's work, established the Henry Phipps Institute for the Study, Prevention, and Treatment of Tuberculosis, which engaged in research and treated the poor without charge. Flick was its medical director until 1910, when the institute was turned over to the University of Pennsylvania. Flick helped found several pioneer anti-tuberculosis organizations. He was the first to label the struggle against tuberculosis a "crusade." In 1892 he formed the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Tuberculosis, the first volunteer society of its kind in the United States. Among the society's goals were teaching consumptive patients and their families how to stop the spread of infection and teaching the public how to protect themselves through personal hygiene. This society set the pattern of medical and lay cooperation that became characteristic of the tuberculosis movement. In cooperation with Edward Trudeau,* Hermann Biggs,* S. Adolphus Knopf,* William Welch (1850-1934), a Johns Hopkins University physician, and others, Flick helped organize the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis in 1904. It later became the National Tuberculosis Association (NTA).* Flick was vice president from 1905 to 1908. Through its auspices, Flick took a leading role in bringing the International Congress on Tuberculosis to the United States for the first time in 1908. However, following the Congress he retired from active participation in the national tuberculosis campaign. Flick, who had strong convictions about organizational methods, sometimes alienated colleagues. In 1911 he severed relations with all the organizations he had helped organize, except for the White Haven Sanatorium. However, he remained active in medical practice in Philadelphia into the 1930s. Flick published over 200 articles that helped further the tuberculosis movement. His Consumption, a Durable and Preventable Disease—What the Layman Should Know about It (1903) helped popularize the movement. Later he published Development of Our Knowledge of Tuberculosis (1925), in which he discussed the history of tuberculosis, its manifestations, and cure. He unsuccessfully
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attempted to launch a Catholic daily newspaper in Philadelphia just before World War I.* He also wrote on Catholic historical subjects. Flick married Ella J. Stone in 1885 and reared seven children. He died at his home in Philadelphia, of heart disease. References: Bates, Barbara., Bargaining for Life: A Social History of Tuberculosis, 18761938 (1992); Flick, Lawrence, "The contagiousness of phthisis," in Transactions of the Medical Society of the State of Pennsylvania at Its Annual Session (1888), 164-186; Knopf, S. Adolphus, "Lawrence F. Flick, M.D.," in A History of the National Tuberculosis Association: The Anti-Tuberculosis Movement in the United States (1922), 427-427; Shyrock, Richard H., National Tuberculosis Association 1904-1954: A Study of the Voluntary Health Movement in the United States (1957); Teller, Michael E., The Tuberculosis Movement: A Public Health Campaign in the Progressive Era (1988); ANB 8 (1999), 128-129; NatCAB 28 (1940), 434-435; obituary, NYT, July 8, 1938. Flower, Benjamin Orange (October 19, 1858-December 24, 1918) Flower, a journalist and editor, was a keen observer of the Progressive movement and influenced a number of health and social crusades through his periodicals and writings. He championed birth control,* eugenics,* prohibition,* purity,* and woman suffrage,* and led a crusade against public health* and preventive medicine.* As an ardent nativist,* he condemned the Catholic* hierarchy and championed the immigration restriction movement.* He was born in Albion, Illinois, a town founded by his English grandfather. His father was a Disciples of Christ minister. After his family moved to Evansville, Indiana, he was educated in public schools there and later attended Transylvania College (now University), a Disciples of Christ college in Lexington, Kentucky. At first he considered entering the ministry, but underwent a change in theological views, becoming a Unitarian. He believed journalism would afford him a better vehicle for changing society. Flower was also interested in esoteric religions and the New Thought movement.* He helped organize the American Psychical Society in 1891, of which he became president and held other offices. Over the years he began to champion Christian Science* as a healing alternative, even though he was not a member of that church. After leaving college, Flower moved back to Albion. At age twentytwo he and a friend founded a weekly family newspaper, the American Sentinel (1880-1882), but he soon left and joined his brother in Philadelphia. His brother, an alterative physician, ran a mail-order business that sold patent medicines.* Flower became secretary for the business and launched a family periodical, The American Spectator, to advertise the medicines. This arrangement was soon dis-
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continued in light of his brother facing frequent fraud charges. In 1889 the magazine was merged with another to form The Arena.* Flower married Hattie Cloud in 1885. Eleven years later he suffered a nervous breakdown and left The Arena in December 1896. Simultaneously his wife became incurably mentally ill and was institutionalized for the rest of her life. During the next two years Flower coedited several "social progress" magazines as well as The Arena. When one magazine, Coming Age, merged with The Arena in the fall of 1900, he became its coeditor. After the magazine changed hands several times, Flower again became editor-in-chief in 1904 until it folded in 1909. Two months later he founded Twentieth Century Magazine (1909-1913), a reform monthly. As a health reformer in particular, Flower championed the temperance* and purity movements and saw the two issues as interconnected. He was vehemently against saloons* and the liquor traffic* on grounds they fomented most social problems. He wrote numerous articles that supported prohibition, raising the age of consent,* a "single standard" of sexual behavior, and other purity issues. He was a delegate to the National Purity Congress* (1895), where he suggested that the banishment of the saloon and prostitution would reduce all kinds of immorality. He served on the executive board of the American Purity Alliance.* In the last years of his life, Flower published material out of the mainstream of Progressive thought and health reform. In 1910 he founded and became president of the National League for Medical Freedom,* which he organized to fight the American Medical Association* and the establishment of a national health department. For the league he wrote several controversial articles and pamphlets and discussed the danger of immunizations* and the public health monopoly. He became a virulent nativist, obsessed by the notion that the Roman Catholic hierarchy was attempting to eliminate democracy in the United States. To fight this alleged threat, he founded the Menace Publishing Company in 1911, which published an antiCatholic journal, Menace. Flower died in a Boston hospital, convinced that the Pope had caused World War I.* References: Cline, H. F , "Benjamin Orange Flower and The Arena, 1889-1909," Journalism Quarterly 17 (June 1940), 139-150; Fairfield, Roy P., "Benjamin Orange Flower, father of the muckrakers," American Literature 22 (November 1950), 272-282; Flower, B. O., "Some causes of present day immorality and suggestions as to practical remedies," in Powell, Aaron Macy, ed., The National Purity Congress: Its Papers, Addresses, Portraits 1896 (1976), 311-312, Progressive Men, Women, and Movements of the Past Twenty-Five Years (1914); Frederick, Peter J., Knights of the Golden Bule (1976); Mott, Frank L., History of the
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American Magazine: 1885-1905, vol. 4 (1957); ANB 8 (1999), 139140; AB (1985), 298-299; DAB 3 (1957), 477-478; obituary, NYT, December 25, 1918. Folks, Homer (February 18, 1867-February 13, 1963) Folks, a pioneer in social work, influenced the public health* and tuberculosis movements.* He also promoted the concept that diseases, alcoholism,* and poverty* were interlinked and could be prevented. The fourth of seven children, he was born in Hanover, Michigan, to a farm family of English birth with a strong sense of social responsibility. Until he entered Hanover High School, from which he graduated (1883), he was educated in a rural one-room school. After high school, Folks graduated from Albion College with a B.A. (1889). Not sure about his life work and considering the ministry, he went to Harvard College, where he received a second B.A. (1890). Influenced by Francis Peabody,* he decided to devote his life to social welfare. After graduation, Folks became general superintendent of the Children's Aid Society of Pennsylvania in 1890 and held that post until 1893. He then joined the State Charities Aid Association in New York, a voluntary statewide health and welfare organization, as executive secretary. In this position he became a national leader in child welfare and charity programs. Folks retained this job until his retirement in 1947. He also served a term as commissioner of public charities of New York city (1902-1903) and assisted the American Red Cross in Europe during the final stages of World War I.* Through his position and contacts at the Charities Aid Association, Folks influenced the public health movement and, in particular, the tuberculosis movement. In 1902 he organized in New York city the first municipal tuberculosis sanatorium* in the United States. Within two years it developed into a hospital with nearly 500 patients. His Charities Aid Association in 1907 began agitating outside New York city for the prevention of tuberculosis* in the state. Working with Hermann Biggs* and other public health leaders, he was successful in campaigning for the enactment of numerous statutes, in addition to the establishment of state-supported tuberculosis hospitals and dispensaries and employment of visiting nurses. A byproduct of the tuberculosis campaign in New York state was the establishment of a special public health commission in 1913 to recommend full-scale revision of public health laws. This led to reorganization of the state health department to give it the power to enforce sanitary regulations throughout the state, which became a model for other states. Folks, in opposition to the Social Darwinism* philosophy, felt that disease and social problems could be eliminated through education
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and prevention programs. He realized that poverty and disease were "mutually cause and effect" and suggested that the tuberculosis movement was also a temperance movement.* Folks was concerned about the prevention of "insanity" and promoted venereal disease* and temperance* education through educational leaflets distributed through churches, the YMCA,* and other organizations in the first two decades of the century. He was involved with many social work associations and health-reform organizations on the national level. In 1904 he helped create the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis (later the National Tuberculosis Association*), serving on its governing board for many years; in 1912 he was the first layman to be elected president of the association. He wrote numerous tracts and several books on social welfare and also received numerous awards. In 1909 he was instrumental in launching the American Association for the Study and Prevention of Infant Mortality, which influenced the founding of the Children's Bureau and the initiation of the better babies campaign.* In 1891 he married Maude Beard, his high school sweetheart, with whom he had three daughters. After a long and productive life, Folks died at the home of a daughter in Riverdale, New York. References: Folks, Homer, "Social aspects of alcoholism," Survey 25 (October 1910), 14-16, "The prevention of insanity," American Beview of Beviews (May 1911), 597-602; Knopf, S. Adolphus, "Homer Folks, LL.D," A History of the National Tuberculosis Association: The Anti-Tuberculosis Movement in the United States (1922), 351-354; Trattner, Walter I., Homer Folks: Pioneer in Social Welfare (1968), "Homer Folks and the public health movement," Social Service Beview 40 (December 1966), 410-428; ANB 8 (1999), 172-174; NatCAB 48 (1965), 447448; obituary, NYT, February 14, 1963. fundamentalist movement This was the conservative and evangelical religious manifestation of the Third Great Awakening.* The term "fundamentalism" was not used until around 1920. It traces its roots to The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth, consisting of twelve volumes published between 1909 and 1912. The work rigorously defended the infallibility of views expressed in the Bible. As the fundamentalist term became popular, it was often used alternately with "evangelicalism" and "revivalism." Three factions made up this Christian revivalist movement, which surged from approximately 1880 until the mid-1920s. In the last two decades of the nineteenth century, "holiness revivals" seeking perfection in the Methodist tradition led to the formation of a number of new Holiness denominations, such as the Pilgrims Holiness church, the Salvation Army (from England], and the Nazarenes. Holiness groups tended to win con-
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verts among immigrants* and the working class. During the first decade of the new century, Pentecostalism emerged. Pentecostal denominations emphasized supernatural experiences such as "speaking in tongues" and faith healing and tended to attract converts from the ranks of the very poor. They often formed separate African-American* and European-American denominations. The third group was "dispensational" fundamentalism, arising from a Baptist tradition. It stressed the necessity of adhering to the right doctrine, "the fundamentals, and the importance of organizing against modern and worldly trends." Although these groups had inherent doctrinal differences, they shared common traits. They opposed modern science, emphasized the complete authority of the Bible, considered a conversion experience necessary for salvation, and stressed the importance of a life free from "barroom vices such as drinking, dancing, card-playing, and lasciviousness." Fundamentalists were against saloons,* Mormons,* tobacco,* and large cities. However, the different factions coalesced as a distinct interdenominational movement after World War I* to fight for the retainment of perceived lost "American values." Fundamentalist leaders clashed with leaders of the more liberal middle-class denominations. Middle-class Anglo Americans,* for the most part, looked down upon revivalists as ignorant. Even Billy Sunday,* the foremost revivalist of the movement, was scorned. However, both mainstream and fundamentalist churches agreed on some health-reform issues, including the institution of national prohibition* and the elimination of prostitution.* Nativism* was an aspect of the movement. Followers were against immigrants* and Catholics.* The revised Ku Klux Klan* drew its membership largely from fundamentalist sects. By the 1920s fundamentalism had become associated with revivals, "camp meetings," mass conversions, and Bible schools. The movement began to wane after the Scopes trial, in which a Tennessee schoolteacher was prosecuted for teaching Darwinian evolution in 1925, and the death of William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925), a politician and the intellectual firebrand of the movement. References: Anderson, Robert M., Vision of the Disinherited: The Making of American Pentecostalism (1979); Atkins, Gaius Glenn, Modern Beligious Cults and Movements ([1923] 1971), Beligion in Our Times (1932); Marsden, George M., Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism (1991); Phillips, Paul T., A Kingdom on Earth: Anglo-American Social Christianity, 1880-1940 (1996); Quebedeaux, Richard, The New Charismatics II {1983); Strong, Josiah, Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis (1885).
G Galton Society (1918-C.1939) The Galton Society was the most elitist and nativistic* eugenics* group to emerge during the eugenics movement* at the end of the Progressive era. The society was founded April 2,1918, by Charles Davenport,* its first president, along with Henry F. Osborn* and Madison Grant.* The society was dedicated to "the promotion of study of racial anthropology, and the origin, migration, physical and mental characters, crossings and evolution of human races, living and extinct." Financed by Mrs. E. H. Harriman (1851-1932), widow of a well-known railroad magnate, the Galton Society was highly exclusive and admitted only elite native-born Americans. Its prestige arose from its noted members, who gathered at its luncheons and dinners at the American Museum of Natural History to hear papers and discuss the problems of heredity and race. The group advocated eugenical laws* including immigration restriction,* sterilization programs, and legislation against racial intermarriage to promote racial purity and to prevent reproduction among the unfit. The society had formal ties with the Eugenics Research Association* and the Eugenics Record Office,* and was a financial sponsor of the Third International Congress of Eugenics,* held in New York in 1932. In the late 1920s it began to avidly support Nazi race-hygiene views through its official journal Eugenical News.* These sentiments raised concern among some geneticists and eugenicists, many of whom disassociated themselves from the organization in the mid-1930s. By World War II the society had lost its leadership and credibility as a scientific body and ceased to be active. References: Allen, Garland E., "The Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor, 1910-1940," Osiris, 2d ser., 2 (1986), 225-264, "The Galton Society, N.Y.," American Journal of Physical Anthro-
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pologyA (January-March 1921), 77; Haller, Mark H., Eugenics: Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought (1963); Laughlin, Harry H., "Historical background of the Third International Congress on Eugenics," in Perkins, Harry F., ed., A Decade of Progress in Eugenics: Scientific Papers of the Third International Congress of Eugenics (1934). Gaston, Lucy Page (May 19,1860-August 20,1924) Gaston was the prime mover of the Progressive era's antismoking movement,* and with her death the movement died with her. Born in Delaware, Illinois, Gaston was the daughter of staunch abolitionist, woman suffrage,* and prohibitionist parents who were friends of Frances Willard.* Gaston attended the Illinois State Normal School, where she led raids on saloons,* gambling dens, and tobacco* shops as an active member of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union.* She taught both public school and Sunday school for about ten years and worked on the local WCTU editorial staff. Gaston gave anticigarette lectures and lobbied the state legislature to ban cigarettes* when she moved with her parents to Harvey, Illinois, a planned "teetotallers" town, in 1893. As part of her campaign in the 1890s, in imitation of the "cold-water armies" of the antebellum Clean Living Movement* she urged children to sing antitobacco songs, wear pins, join parades, and take a "Clean-Life Pledge."* Legend suggests that she snatched cigarettes out of young boys' mouths and gave them graham crackers to eat instead. In 1899 a group of businessmen helped Gaston form the Chicago Anti-Cigarette League, which spawned similar organizations throughout the Midwest. That same year Gaston founded a monthly called The Boy, aimed at preventing young boys from using "coffin nails," a term she coined to refer to cigarettes. In 1901 several hundred anticigarette leagues were loosely aligned as the National Anti-Cigarette League. In 1910 it was renamed the Anti-Cigarette League of America. This organization, along with Gaston herself, strove to secure laws to prohibit the manufacture and consumption of cigarettes and to prosecute violators of the law. Her lobbying for antismoking legislation was sometimes successful, as states began enacting laws against cigarettes and other tobacco products. Gaston brought her antitobacco message to schoolchildren and national conferences, including the first Race Betterment* Conference, where she discussed a correlation between prostitution* and tobacco use. She claimed to have taken to court over 700 Chicago tobacco dealers for selling to schoolboys. Due to her alleged fiscal mismanagement and combative style that generated lawsuits against the league, Gaston was forced to resign from the group in 1919. Soon after her resignation she announced
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her candidacy for president of the United States against Warren G. Harding, a smoker whom she nicknamed "Cigarette Face." Since Gaston looked somewhat like Lincoln, she reasoned she might as well run for the presidency. She declared herself a Republican candidate in the South Dakota primary on a platform of "clean morals, clean food, and fearless law enforcement," but shortly thereafter withdrew. Gaston went on to found leagues in Kansas and Chicago, from which she was also dismissed because of her strident behavior. Besides anticigarette organizations, Gaston and physician D. H. Kress (b. 1883?) in 1913 founded a smoking-cure clinic for women at the Anti-Cigarette League's Chicago headquarters. Soon other clinics were opened around the country, where young boys, as well as a few adults, were treated. This consisted of swabbing the throat with a silver nitrate solution and having the patient chew on gentian root whenever the smoking urge arose. During America's involvement in the World War I* cigarettes were sent to troops by the Red Cross, YMCA,* churches, and other groups that previously had been opposed to smoking. Because most Americans viewed this as a patriotic gesture, Gaston's stand against this practice taxed her credibility with the public. During her lifetime Gaston enjoyed being referred to as the "Carry Nation* of cigarettes." Gaston was impoverished at the end of her career and legend suggests she primarily subsisted on graham crackers and milk. She died of throat cancer, which, ironically, is often associated with smoking. Her death brought the end of the anticigarette campaign. References: Dillow, Gordon L., "Thank you for not smoking," American Heritage 32 (1981), 95-96, 101-107; Kluger, Richard, Ashes to Ashes: America's Hundred-Year Cigarette War, the Public Health, and the Unabashed Triumph of Philip Morris (1996); Tate, Cassandra C , The American Anti-Cigarette Movement, 1880-1930 (1995); Warfield, Frances, "Lost cause: A portrait of Lucy Page Gaston," Outlook 154 (February 12, 1930), 244-247; WWWA (1914-1915), 317-318; obituary, NYT, August 21, 1924. Germans and German Americans Most Germans who migrated to the United States in the years leading up to the Progressive era did so in search of a better way of life. Emigration from Germany came in several waves in the years after 1840,1848, and 1864 in the wake of economic and political crisis at home. Between 1880 and 1892 approximately 100,000 German immigrants* surged into the United States each year, but after this date until the beginning of World War I* immigration declined to about 30,000 per year and then slowed to a trickle. German immigrants, compared to other immigrant groups,
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assimilated more quickly into the dominant Anglo-American* culture. However, like other immigrant groups, the Germans formed neighborhoods with their fellow countrymen. They established German-language churches and schools. Germans migrated primarily to the Middle-Atlantic or Midwest regions, where they could acquire reasonably priced farmland. Many became prosperous farmers within a generation. A large proportion of German immigrants were skilled craftsmen, shopkeepers, and businessmen. Some vocations were almost exclusively German, including brewers* and distillery workers. Family immigration was common up to about the turn of the twentieth century. After this time more immigrants were unmarried industrial workers or laborers, many of whom at first sought only seasonal work and intended to return to Germany. Immigrants in many communities with large German-American populations, such as Chicago, Cincinnati, and Milwaukee, introduced turnverein or gymnastics societies. This form of physical activity proved to be of interest in the physical education movement* and became adapted to the emerging physical culture* and education regimens. In terms of religion, about one-third of German immigrants were Catholic* and the remaining were predominantly Lutheran or Reformed. For many German immigrants, the church was the center of their social lives. Catholic Germans, perceiving animosity from the American church dominated by Irish-American* Catholics, built their own German churches and parish schools. They also built hospitals and seminaries. By 1910 those of German descent numbered 8.4 million. Many quickly assimilated into the culture. Several German immigrants, including Adolphus Knopf* and George Kober,* became leaders in the public health* and tuberculosis* movements. Beer* and wine drinking was a way of life and part of German culture. Since many German Catholics and Lutherans were saloon* owners or managers in Midwestern communities, they opposed the prohibition movement.* They formed organizations in several communities to fight against prohibition* and the Anti-Saloon League.* When World War I broke out in Europe in 1914, anti-German feelings surfaced. The Anti-Saloon League, in particular, initiated attacks against "foreign" brewing interests inasmuch as many large breweries that controlled the urban beer industry had been founded by Germans. In many large German-American communities such as Cincinnati, Ohio, antialcohol forces described both breweries and Germans as engaging in unpatriotic, un-American activities. Wayne Wheeler,* leader of the Anti-Saloon League, initiated a Senate investigating committee to examine "subversive" activities of German brewers and other German organizations. As anti-German sentiment
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accelerated following the U.S. entry into the war in 1917, breweries and Germans were increasingly eyed with suspicion. In most communities "beer gardens" were closed down, German-language instruction in the schools was terminated, and German-language publications ceased. Sauerkraut was renamed "liberty cabbage," and some German Americans were detained. Some historians contend that anti-German hysteria may have been a factor in the War Prohibition Act,* the Lever Food and Fuel Control Act,* and the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment.* By the end of the twentieth century German immigrants had blended into American culture to the point that the 1990 Census suggested that more Americans claimed German "ancestry or ethnic origin" than any other. They made major contributions to society in all realms of activity. References: U.S. Bureau of the Census, "Immigrants, by country: 1820 to 1970," in Statistical History of the United States: From Colonial Times to the Present (1976), 105-106; Detjen, David W., The Germans in Missouri, 1900-1918: Prohibition, Neutrality, and Assimilation (1985); Dobbert, G. A., "The Cincinnati Germans, 1870-1920," Cincinnati Historical Society Bulletin 23 (January 1965), 229-242; Rippley, La Vern J., The German-Americans (1984); Galicich, Anne, The German Americans (1989); Wagner, Jonathan F., "Prohibition and North Dakota's Germans," North Dakota History 56 (Summer 1989), 31-39. Gladden, Solomon Washington (February 11, 1836-July 2, 1918) Gladden, a Congregational minister and pioneer of one faction of the Social Gospel movement,* promoted temperance* and purity* reform. He was born in Pottsgrove, Pennsylvania, and came from "old but undistinguished New England stock." His father, a teacher, died when Washington was six. Gladden was raised on his uncle's farm, in Oswego, New York, and became a newspaper reporter at sixteen. Around this time he also started to use his middle name, Washington. Gladden studied at Owego Academy in the 1850s and later received an A.B. from Williams College (1859), Williamstown, Massachusetts. He was ordained a minister of the Congregational Church in 1860 and worked in various clerical positions from 1860 until 1882, when he became minister of the First Congregational Church, Columbus, Ohio, and remained there until his retirement in 1914. The Social Gospel movement,* of which Gladden was a major leader, was considered a liberal theology concerned with applying "practical" Christian principles to eliminate social problems. Similar to many other leaders of this movement, Gladden considered the saloon* to be an evil influence, leading to moral and social decay. He had been involved with the temperance movement* since he was a boy, when he joined the fraternal Independent Order of Good
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Templars and was an abstainer. Although he denounced the use of distilled spirits* and the saloon, he never joined any other formal antialcohol group. He was more moderate in his approach to solving the "liquor problem" compared to members of the Anti-Saloon League,* the Prohibition Party,* and Woman's Christian Temperance Union* but supported local option. He also realized that when the saloon was eliminated that some type of recreational activity needed to take its place. He was a member of the Committee of Fifty* during its twelve-year study of alcohol.* Gladden supported the purity cause and considered the "social vice," prostitution,* a major problem of society. He favored shelters for young prostitutes and unwed mothers as a method of rescuing them from "this pit" and making them "clean and pure." Disturbed about the decline in marriage and birthrate among the middle class, he toyed with emerging eugenics* concerns and considered that peopled needed to "lead clean, vigorous, healthy lives" for the good of the nation. Gladden championed other social causes. He fought for workers and against the segregation of African Americans.* He battled against the nativistic American Protective Association anti-Catholic rhetoric. This stand cost him the presidency of Ohio State University. Later the University of Notre Dame, in South Bend Indiana, a Catholic* school, conferred upon him an honorary doctorate for his stand against anti-Catholicism. He was in favor, however, of some immigration restriction* laws. A prolific writer, he authored about forty books. His work Social Salvation (1902) discussed health and social problems, including prostitution, intemperance, and gambling. In 1860 Gladden married Jennie O. Cohoon; they had three children. He died In Columbus, Ohio, of a stroke, active to the end of his life. References: Bos, A. David, "Washington Gladden versus anti-Catholicism," Journal of Ecumenical Studies 18 (Spring 1981), 281-292; Dorn, Jacob H., Washington Gladden: Prophet of the Social Gospel (1967), 116121, 309; "The social gospel and socialism: A comparison of the thought of Francis Greenwood Peabody, Washington Gladden, and Walter Rauschenbausch," Church History 62 (March 1993), 82-100; Gladden, Washington, Applied Christianity (1886), 187, Social Salvation (1902), 141-143,165-168, Becollections (1909), 50-51; Handy, Robert T., The Social Gospel in America 1870-1920 (1966), 17-170; DAB 4 (1931), 325-327; DATB (1984), 188-190; NatCAB 10 (1900), 256; SEAP 3 (1926), 1109-1110; obituary, NYT, July 3, 1918. Goddard, Henry Herbert (August 14,1866-June 18,1957) Goddard, a psychologist, was a pioneer and leader of mental assessments and testing. His history of the Kallikak* family helped popularize eu-
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genics* and gave support for eugenics sterilization, segregation, and immigration restriction* laws. Goddard was born in East Vassalboro, Maine, into a Society of Friends (Quaker) farming family descended from early Anglo-American* settlers. His father died when he was nine and his mother became a traveling missionary. Goddard attended Quaker boarding schools and graduated with a B.A. from Haverford College (1887) in Pennsylvania. He taught briefly at the University of Southern California and returned to Haverford, where in 1889 he earned a M.S. in mathematics and married Emma Florence; it was a happy, albeit childless marriage. He and his wife spent the next seven years teaching in small Quaker academies in Ohio and Maine. In 1899 he received a Ph.D. in psychology from Clark University, Worchester, Massachusetts. His dissertation addressed the psychological principles behind faith healing, concluding that mind cures* should be used in conjunction with drug therapies. Goddard then taught pedagogy and psychology at the State Normal School in West Chester, Pennsylvania, until 1906, when he became director of psychological research at the Training School for FeebleMinded Girls and Boys in Vineland, New Jersey. Seeking new ways to study mentally retarded children, Goddard toured Europe in 1908 and was introduced to a standardized intelligence test developed in 1905 by Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon. In 1909 Goddard interacted with Charles Davenport,* prime leader of the eugenics movement,* and learned about the rediscovered Mendelian* genetics theory. Using the Binet-Simon test along with family history research methods developed by Davenport, Goddard investigated the hereditary nature of feeblemindedness. Based upon his research with pupils at the training school, he published a series of works. His first report, The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of Feeble-Mindedness (1912), was a generational study of a "good" and a "bad" branch of a family. He considered this work "a natural experiment in heredity." Goddard further concluded that mental retardation resulted from a simple recessive trait and that the feebleminded were responsible for most social ills. This work was followed by Feeblemindedness: Its Causes and Consequences (1914) and The Criminal Imbecile (1915). During the 1920s and 1930s the Kallikak study was widely disseminated and the Kallikaks became an icon of the eugenics movement. Based upon his research, Goddard championed both eugenic sterilization and segregation in state-run institutions for mentally deficient individuals, as he considered them a "menace to public health" and overall morality. He contended that the elimination of this subgroup would prevent alcoholism,* pauperism,* crime,* and prostitution.* Prior to World War I,* Goddard also worked at Ellis Island
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for the Eugenics Record Office,* testing for "mental defectives" among potential immigrants.* He asserted that mental defectives, or "morons," a term he coined for higher functioning mentally disabled persons, could be detected among immigrants. This study gave support for the immigration restriction movement and legislation of the 1920s. In 1918 Goddard left Vineland, and after brief employment with an Ohio government agency became professor of clinical and abnormal psychology at Ohio State University in 1922 until he retired in 1938. During his academic career he concentrated on clinical and childhood psychology. Goddard was a member of several eugenics organizations. In 1910 he was appointed chair of the Committee on Heredity of the FeebleMinded for the American Breeders Association* and the joint committee. In the late 1920s he was a member of the advisory board of the American Eugenics Society* and was a member of the central committee for the Race Betterment* Conference held in 1928. Eugenic theories, along with Goddard's early research, began to be challenged in the 1920s. During his lifetime his early works became increasingly controversial. His reputation became tarnished as environmental theories of development and intelligence became prevalent, although he did repudiate some of his earlier claims. In 1947 Goddard moved to Santa Barbara, where he died ten years later. References: "Association matters," American Breeders Magazine 1 (third quarter 1910), 235-236; Goddard, Henry H., "The elimination of feeble-mindedness," The Annals 37 (March 1911), 261-272, "Mental tests and the immigrant," Journal of Delinquency 2 (September 1917), 243-277, "Hereditary mental aptitudes in man," Eugenics 2 (April 1929), 3-6; Laughlin, Harry H., "The progress of American eugenics," Eugenics 2 (February 1929), 3-16; Ryan, Patrick J., "Unnatural selection: Intelligence testing, eugenics, and American political cultures," Journal of Social History 30 (1997), 669-685; ANB 9 (1999), 133-135; NatCAB 15 (1916), 236-237; DAB sup. 6 (1980), 240-241; obituary, NYT, June 22, 1957. Gordon, Anna Adams (July 21,1853-June 15,1931) An active temperance reformer,* Gordon was a long-time companion of Frances Willard.* Gordon was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the daughter of a banker of old Anglo-American* stock. Although she was raised a Congregationalist, she later became a Methodist and her religious commitment bolstered her work on behalf of the temperance movement.* She attended local grade schools, Mount Holyoke (18711872), and Lasalle Seminary in Auburndale, Massachusetts. In 1875 she spent a year abroad preparing for a musical career in organ. Upon
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her return to Boston, she met Frances Willard of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union* in 1877 at a Boston revival meeting. Within a short time she moved to Evanston, Illinois, to live with Willard and became her private secretary and intimate friend for twenty-one years. Gordon's career in temperance* rose with the fortunes of Willard. On frequent antiliquor crusades around the country she played the organ and Willard spoke. Gordon also composed and published many children's temperance songs and was involved with the WCTU's children's branch, the Loyal Temperance League. She was appointed superintendent of youth activities for the World's WCTU in 1891. After Willard's death in 1898 Gordon authored an idealized biography of her friend, The Beautiful Life of Francis Willard (1898), but destroyed correspondence relating to other health and social reform issues that did not specifically address alcohol* issues. Gordon became vice president of the national WCTU upon Willard's death. In 1910 she founded a youth group, Young Campaigners for Prohibition, and became president of the WCTU in 1914. Upon her presidency she joined forces with the Anti-Saloon League* in a campaign for a federal prohibition* amendment, was involved with several temperance organizations including the National Temperance Council, and was one of four presidents of the World League Against Alcoholism.* She pushed for inclusion of hygiene in the school curriculum, with special reference to the effects of narcotics* and total abstinence. She also supported the woman suffrage movement* inasmuch as she felt women's votes would help suppress the liquor traffic* During World War I* she was instrumental in persuading President Woodrow Wilson to take various steps that included the Lever Food and Fuel Control Act* of 1917 and the War Prohibition Act* of 1918, which prohibited the use of foodstuffs for the manufacture of all alcoholic beverages. With the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment* in January 1919, Gordon urged the WCTU to press for implementation of the Volstead Act,* the enforcement arm of national prohibition. After successful implementation of prohibition in the United States, Gordon's interests shifted to the international temperance movement. She was elected president of the World's WCTU in 1921. In 1925 she resigned as head of the WCTU to devote full time to the world crusade. She worked until her health began to fail, declaring a few weeks before her death that "alcohol is an arch enemy of the human race and neither by individuals nor by government should it be treated as a friend or business partner." Gordon died in 1931 of myocarditis in a sanatorium* at Castle, New York. References: Bordin, Ruth, Woman and Temperance: The Quest for Power and Liberty, 1873-1900 (1981);
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Dillon, Mary Earhart, Frances Willard from Prayers to Politics (1944); ANB 9 (1999), 281; DATB (1984), 196-197; SEAP (1926), 1119-1120; NatCAB (1926), 295-296; obituary, NYT, June 16, 1931. Gosney, Ezra Seymour (November 6, 1855-September 14, 1942) Gosney, a businessman, philanthropist, and eugenicist,* became a financial supporter of eugenic, social hygiene,* and educational causes. He was born in Kenton, Kentucky, of French Huguenot descent, and received his preliminary education in the local schools and at Caddo Grove, a Texas seminary. He worked his way through college and received a bachelor's degree from Richmond, Missouri College (1877) and a law degree from Washington University in St. Louis (1880). Gosney then established a successful law practice with the Missouri railroads, but moved to Flagstaff, Arizona, around 1888 due to illness, probably tuberculosis.* He continued his law practice and also became a successful banker. Gosney became involved with the bitter struggle over grazing rights between cattlemen and sheep ranchers and organized the Arizona Wool Growers' Association in 1898. In 1905 he semiretired to Pasadena, where he became a leading civic figure and launched a successful citrus fruit growing business. He founded a polytechnical elementary school, the local Boy Scouts chapter, and helped support physical education,* health, and character-building organizations. Through his agricultural interests Gosney became interested in eugenics* and began to correspond with Charles Davenport* at the Eugenics Record Office.* In 1926 Gosney founded the Human Betterment Foundation,* which was incorporated in 1928 for the study of eugenics sterilization. Paul Popenoe,* his neighbor, became head of research. Gosney supported the birth-control movement* and favored voluntary birth control* for responsible individuals and compulsory sterilization for the mentally ill and disabled. He was involved with many health-reform organizations, including the American Eugenics Association,* the American Social Hygiene Society,* the Eugenics Research Association,* and the American Genetics Association (formerly the American Breeders Association*). He coauthored with Popenoe Sterilization for Human Betterment (1929) and was editor or author of other foundation publications. Gosney was married three times, widowed twice, and fathered two daughters. His wives included Tyrene Noyes (1886), Mae Hawkey (1893), and Sarah Hunt Dearborn (1924). He died after a short illness. After his death the Human Betterment Foundation was liquidated to establish a research fund at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. References: "The Human Betterment Foundation," Eugenics 2 (March 1929), 17-21; Gosney, Ezra S., "Human Betterment Foun-
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dation," institute archives, California Institute of Technology, (visited January 3, 2000); NatCAB 31 (1944), 504-505; WhAm 2 (1963), 216; obituary, NYT, September 16, 1942. Grant, Madison (November 19, 1865-May 30, 1937) Grant was a leader in the eugenics,* immigration restriction,* and conservation movements. He was born in New York city, the son of a socially prominent physician from an old New York Episcopalian family. He had a privileged childhood and received a bachelor's degree from Yale University (1887) and a law degree from Columbia University (1890). Independently wealthy, he put his energies into Progressive era causes. Grant became a noted naturalist. He helped found the New York Zoological Society (1895), was a trustee of the American Museum of Natural History, and collaborated with Henry Fairfield Osborn* in forming the Save-the-Redwoods League (1919). Besides conservation, Grant was a major player in the nativist* faction of the eugenics movement.* Along with Osborn and Charles Davenport,* he cofounded the Galton Society.* He was a charter member of the American Eugenics Society,* a charter member and president (1919) of the Eugenics Research Society,* and a major player in all three International Eugenics Congresses.* As a eugenicist, Grant was most noted for his polemic, The Passing of the Great Bace (1916). In this best-selling work that influenced the direction of the eugenics movement, Grant argued for the superiority of the Nordic race, which he suggested was a "master race." He expressed concerns about race suicide* among this group from war, alcoholism,* tuberculosis,* and a low birthrate. He stated that "the laws of nature require the obliteration of the unfit." To decrease the number of unfit, he recommended eugenical laws* and favored restricting immigrant* groups, whom he felt were "polluting the racial blood lines" of Anglo Americans.* Many of Grant's views and prescriptions were later found in the racial policies of Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Grant's book was acclaimed as an important work by both the popular press and scientific journals. By 1921 it had gone through six printings and was widely read by academics, politicians, reformers, and the educated public. His other major work in eugenics and immigration restriction was Conquest of a Continent (1933), which was largely ignored due to a change in the intellectual climate. As a nativist, Grant was also a leader in the immigration restriction movement. He used his legal skills to help write and pass the Johnson-Reed Immigration Restriction Act of 1924.* He became vice president of the influential Immigration Restriction League* from
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1922 until his death. Although he advocated a high birthrate for old-stock Americans, Grant never married nor had children. He died in New York city of heart disease after a long illness. References: Alexander, Charles C , "Prophet of American racism: Madison Grant and the Nordic myth," Phylon 23 (Spring 1962), 73-90; Grant, Madison, The Passing of the Great Bace (1916); Higham, John, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925 (1955); Solomon, Barbara Miller, Ancestors and Immigrants: A Changing New England Tradition (1956); DAB 11 (1964), 256; NatCAB 29 (1941), 319-320; obituary, NYT, May 31, 1937. Great War (1914-1918) The Great War was the term used for what now is commonly called World War I.* During World War II the term Great War went out of general usage. Gulick, Luther Halsey (December 4,1865-August 13,1918) Gulick, a leader of the physical education* and recreation movements, championed many health reforms of the Progressive era's Clean Living Movement.* These included eugenics,* diet and nutrition,* personal hygiene,* tuberculosis,* and public health causes. Gulick was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, the son of Congregational missionary parents. As a child he spent time in Spain, Italy, Switzerland, and Japan, resulting in uneven schooling. Due to "heart trouble," he studied intermittently at Oberlin College between 1880 and 1886. Becoming interested in physical education and hygiene, he attended the Normal School of Physical Training (1886) at Harvard University, run by Dudley Sargent,* and then became a part-time student at New York University's School of Medicine. In 1887 he married Charlotte Vetter; with whom he had four living children. Two years later he finished his medical degree. Gulick paid his way through medical school by teaching and organizing physical educational activities in several schools, including the newly established YMCA* training school in Springfield, Massachusetts (1886-1900). He was also secretary of the YMCA's International Committee of Physical Training Department (1887-1903). While at the YMCA, Gulick guided it to offer competitive sports and exercise programs as methods to prevent moral and physical degeneracy among young men. To symbolize the YMCA's "Muscular Christianity"* and "whole man" philosophy, Gulick created the triangular emblem for the organization that defined health and fitness as the integration of mind, body, and spirit. In 1894 he collaborated with James Naismith (1861-1939) in developing the game of basketball. Gulick became principal of Pratt High School in Brooklyn, New York (1900-1903), and three years later became president of the
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American Physical Education Association* (1903-1906) and director of physical training in New York city public schools, where he established daily physical education and hygiene instruction. He left this position to become director of the Department of Child Hygiene of the Russell Sage Foundation (1907-1913), where failing health caused him to resign. Gulick's love of the outdoors and concern about the lack of adequate play space for urban children prompted him to cofound the Playground Association of America (1906). By 1910 thousands of playgrounds across the country had been established with organized programs for children. He also helped found the Boy Scouts of America (1910), as well as, with his wife, the Camp Fire Girls (1910), of which he was president until his death. In addition to physical education and recreation organizations, he was a member and president (1910-1911) of the American School Hygiene Association,* a delegate to the International Congress of School Hygiene (1907), and a member of the Committee of One Hundred,* among other groups. Gulick became a spokesperson for many health issues of the day. He was insightful enough to realize that reform efforts were part of a cycle that was on the upsurge. Increased interest in "physical wellbeing," national concern for public health, sanitation,* personal hygiene, passage of pure food laws, and wide interest in temperance,* diet, and nutrition were cited as examples of this surge. Gulick recommended changes be instituted while the reform "pulse" was at its peak and suggested the establishment of a National Bureau of Health, government-sponsored health services, temperance* legislation, and measures to ensure the rearing of healthy children. Gulick championed the tuberculosis movement* and recommenced detection, education, and prevention efforts in the public schools. Like many other reformers of the Progressive era, he was concerned about race degeneracy* and supported eugenic concepts. At the National Race Betterment* Conference (1914), he suggested the formation of a "race betterment league" to collect information for "better mating" and child rearing. His promotion of a well-balanced diet for children was expressed in Food and Life (1920), published posthumously. During World War I,* despite the fact his health was failing, Gulick championed social hygiene and encouraged athletics and physical exercise programs for military personnel to keep them away from prostitutes* and venereal disease.* He helped direct YMCA programs in France. Gulick was a prolific writer. He wrote two books concerned with physical fitness and purity* issues, Dynamics of Manhood (1917) and Morals and Morale (1919). His most noted work was Efficient Life (1906), which embodied his philosophy of health and fitness. Contrary to many other health reformers of the period,
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Gulick smoked cigarettes,* drank wine, and promoted moderation in their use; however, he opposed saloons* on grounds they led to immoral behavior. He was also considered independent and impulsive. Although his health was failing during the last few years of his life, he still kept active in health causes. Gulick died of an apparent heart attack at the relatively young age of fifty-two in South Casco, Maine, at the children's camp he had founded. References: Dorgan, Ethel Josephine, Luther Halsey Gulick, 1865-1918 (1976); Gulick, Luther H., The Efficient Life (1906), "Tuberculosis and the public schools," Charities and the Commons 21 (November 1908), 2 5 3 258, "The high tide of physical conscience," The World's Work 16 (June 1908), 10383-10386, "Physical fitness in the fighting armies," American Physical Education Beview 23 (June 1918), 341-354, Morals and Morale (1919); ANB 9 (1999), 720-722; AB (1985), 384-387; DAB sup. 8 (1932), 47-48; NatCAB 26 (1937), 371; obituary, NYT, August 14, 1918.
H Hague Convention (January 23,1912) This treaty was signed to curb the international traffic in narcotics.* During the first decade of the twentieth century, concern mounted over the use of opiates. In 1909 the Smoking Opium Exclusion Act* banned all imports of opium except those by registered pharmaceutical firms and imposed stiff penalties on traffickers. However, this led to increased use of other forms of the drug and a thriving international black market. During the winter of 1911-1912 a meeting convened at The Hague in The Netherlands. It drafted the first treaty, which attempted to control opium* through worldwide agreement. This agreement was signed January 23,1912. However, World War I* intervened before it could be ratified. During the course of the Versailles peace treaty processes following the war the Hague Convention was ratified. The treaty mandated that, aside from medical purposes, nations collaborate in seeking to regulate, control production, and curb the trade of opium products, and to penalize unauthorized possession of opiates. Addressing trafficking on the international level, the Hague Convention was aimed specifically at solving the opium problems of the Far East. However, it led to the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914 to curb domestic drug use. References: Booth, Martin, Opium: A History (1996); Courtwright, David T., Dark Paradise: Opiate Addiction in America before 1940 (1982); Low, A. Maurice, "To make opium contraband," Harper's Weekly 57 (May 31,1913), 8; Weir, Hugh, "The American opium peril," Putman's Magazine 7 (December 1909), 329336; Zentner, Joseph, "Opiate use in America during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: The origins of a modern scourge," Studies in History and Society 5 (Spring 1974), 40-54.
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Hamilton, John Brown (December 1, 1847-December 24, 1898) Hamilton, a physician and the second U.S. Surgeon General, used political maneuvering to prevent the formation of a national board of health during the early Progressive era. He was involved with various facets of the public health* movements. Born in Jersey County, Illinois, the son of a clergyman from an old-stock New England family, his early education was obtained in the private Hamilton school, run by his parents. When he turned sixteen he was apprenticed to a local physician. He joined a Civil War regiment and after the war entered Rush Medical College in Chicago, from which he graduated (1869) with high honors. After graduation he returned to his hometown area and practiced medicine until 1874. Tired of rural life, he returned to the army, serving as a surgeon in Missouri and Washington state. In 1896 he accepted an appointment to the Marine Hospital Service as an assistant surgeon; a year later was put in charge of the Marine Hospital in the Port of Massachusetts. At the hospital he worked to improve the sanitation and ventilation systems. In this job he reported to John Woodworth (18371879), who had become the nation's first surgeon general in 1871. When Woodworth died Hamilton was appointed to succeed him thanks to his high civil-service scores. He proceeded to reorganize the service on the same footing as the Army and Navy medical services. He was instrumental in halting several epidemics through better sanitation and mosquito control. In his new position Hamilton stepped into a decade-old battle to keep the powers of public health in the Marine Hospital Service. He regarded John Shaw Billings's* fledgling National Board of Health as a rival, and with the help of states-rights advocates succeeded in getting Congress to reduce its powers, thus destroying it. Hamilton suddenly resigned in June 1891 as surgeon general when Congress refused to make the salary of his office the same as that of the surgeon generals of the Army and Navy. He then accepted a surgery faculty position at Rush Medical College and served as editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, the official organ of the American Medical Association,* from 1893 to his death. Although retired, he helped to manage the 1892 cholera epidemic in New York city and established Camp Low for the Quarantine of immigrants.* Hamilton married Mary L. Frost (1871), with whom he had two children. In 1896-1897 he was superintendent of the Northern Illinois Insane Asylum in Elgin. He died in Elgin of complications from surgery. References: Duffy, John, The Sanitarians: A History of American Public Health (1992); Mullan, Fitzhugh, Plagues and Politics (1989); ANB 9 (1999), 923-925; NatCAB 23 (1933), 245-246; TCDNA 5 (1904); obituary, Chicago Times-Herald, December 25, 1898.
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Harrison Narcotics Act (December 17, 1914) This law, the domestic implementation of the international movement to check the use of habit-forming drugs, required physicians and other medical personnel to account for their distribution of addictive drugs. It led to the criminalization of drug users and a large black market to supply illegal drugs to Americans. The Harrison Narcotics Act evolved out of the Smoking Opium Exclusion Act* of 1909 and the Hague Convention* of 1911-1912. The U.S. Congress ratified the Hague Convention in 1913. However, Europe was soon plunged into World War I,* which interrupted the antinarcotic movement on an international level. In the early years of the Progressive era's Clean Living Movement,* education and moral suasion efforts to warn the public about the dangers of addicting drugs in patent medicines* were championed by many reformers, including Harvey Wiley,* father of the pure food and drug movement,* and leaders of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union.* However, by the second decade of the twentieth century the perception arose that both cocaine and heroin use were increasing among criminal elements and minorities, such as Chinese* opium* smokers and African-American* cocaine users, and spilling over into the more affluent social classes. Consequently, reformers called for more coercive measures to curb the traffic. This undercurrent was a factor in passage of the Harrison Narcotics Act. A bill, ostensibly to fulfill U.S. international obligations under The Hague Convention, was introduced by Francis Harrison (18731957), a New York Congressman, in 1913. Senator James R. Mann (1856-1922) and Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan (18601925), major supporters of the measure, focused on international obligations rather than domestic morality. The act was passed December 17, 1914, and signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924). The law went into effect March 1, 1915, requiring that anyone who imported, manufactured, sold, or gave away opium or coca leaves or any drug derived from them must register with the Collector of Internal Revenue and pay a "small special tax." Druggists, physicians, dentists, and veterinarians were required to use government forms for every transaction. However, soon after passage of the act a black market to supply drugs emerged and addicts were increasingly seen as criminals rather than being sick. This resulted in efforts to tighten up the Harrison Act over the next decade. In 1919 an amendment to the Harrison Act made it more difficult to export bulk morphine for reimportation into the United States and made it illegal to sell, purchase, or dispense cocaine except in its original government-stamped package. During this same year the Supreme Court ruled it illegal to prescribe narcotics* for known
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addicts unless they were being treated in federally licenced clinics. However, just three years after the first clinic was opened, the Supreme Court ruled that it was illegal to prescribe drugs in maintenance clinics after all. This change in the law forced drug users further into the criminal underworld. In 1922 importation of cocaine and coca leaves, other than as a small amount for medical purposes, was prohibited under the Narcotic Drug Import and Export Act. This act also established the Federal Narcotics Control Board. Congress outlawed all domestic use and production of heroin in 1924. However, heroin use and smuggling continued. These laws and increased hostility toward control were factors in a backlash against many laws passed during the Progressive era, including the Eighteenth Amendment* for national prohibition* and antismoking measures. References: "A year of the Harrison narcotic law," Survey 36 (April 8,1916), 58-60; Booth, Martin, Opium: A History (1996); Courtwright, David T., Dark Paradise: Opiate Addiction in America before 1940 (1982); Musto, David F., The American Disease: Origins of Narcotic Control (1987). Hitchcock, Edward (May 23, 1828-Febmary 15, 1911) An educator, physician, and the first professor of physical education at an American college, Hitchcock was a leader of the physical education movement* in the early years of the Progressive era. He also supported the personal hygiene* and public health* movements. Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, to a devout old-stock old New England family, Hitchcock was the son of a professor. Other than for a few years as a young man, he spent his entire life at Amherst. As a youth he attended Amherst Academy, Williston Seminary, and graduated from Amherst College (1849). Subsequently he completed an M.D. at Harvard University (1853). He then taught natural sciences and elocution at Williston Seminary until 1860. That same year he went to England to study comparative anatomy. On his return in 1861 he was asked to chair the recently organized Department of Hygiene and Physical Education at his old alma mater, Amherst. Hitchcock became the first professor of physical education in the country and held this position for fifty years. He considered good health a duty to God and a prerequisite for effective Christian service. With this Muscular Christianity* philosophy, he introduced an exercise schedule of light gymnastics drills. His encouragement of physical culture and education* as part of the college curriculum and as essential to good health helped to fan a physical fitness movement. Hitchcock was instrumental in founding the Association for the Advancement of Physical Education* (1885), along with Dudley Sargent* and William Anderson (1860-1947), a physical educator. Hitchcock served as president of this organization from 1885 to 1888.
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In the 1890s Hitchcock championed athletic competitions and sports as part of the school curriculum. He devoted many years to the study of anthropometry to quantify the beneficial effects of regular exercise, and published An Anthropometric Manual (1887). In 1853 he married Mary Lewis Judson, and fathered ten children, seven of whom survived him. He died at his home in Amherst after a long devoted career. References: Hitchcock, Edward, "The gymnastic era and the athletic era of our country," Outlook51 (May 18,1895), 816-818; Miller, Kenneth D., "Edward Hitchcock," Journal of Health Physical Education and Becreation 31 (April 1960), 35, 132; Whorton, James C., Crusaders for Fitness: The History of American Health Beformers (1982); NatCAB 13 (1906), 95-96; DAB 5 (1932), 71-72; DAMB 1 (1984), 352-353; obituary, NYT, February 16, 1911. hookworm This parasitic disease disables rather than kills by weakening resistance and causing anemia, resulting in increased susceptibility to other diseases and morbidity. Its eradication became a campaign of the Progressive era's public health movement. * Hookworm was indigenous to the warm and tropical areas of the Old World; however, the particular species found in the American South is believed to have been imported by slaves, since it is the dominant species in equatorial Africa. In the American South the parasite thrived well in the soil and spread throughout the region due to a lack of sanitation facilities. Because many poor blacks and whites went barefoot, the worm infected its victims by boring through the skin around the toes and caused an irritation called "ground itch" or "dew poison." Once in the intestines, it sucked the blood of the victim. Its eggs passed from the body and hatched in moist sandy soil. The disease was easily cured by drugs and prevented through the use of privies and wearing shoes. It had been noted for decades that poor southern whites, or "crackers," were considered lazy by the wealthier middle class. In the last decade of the nineteenth century Charles Wardel Stiles (1867-1941) proposed that hookworm could be causing anemia and general malaise among poor white southerners. The worm was first identified as causing anemia in 1899 in Puerto Rico. Stiles first described the new species in 1902, and in 1903 the federal government published Stiles's report. During early investigations it was discovered that many southern blacks, though asymptomatic, carried the parasite in their intestines and that whites were more likely to become debilitated by the worm. Stiles spent over ten years attempting to generate interest in a campaign against the parasite in the South and his efforts paid off with the creation of the "Hookworm Commission,"* formally called the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission for the Eradi-
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cation of Hookworm Disease, in 1909. A major public health campaign of the second decade of the twentieth century was the prevention of this disease through education and the construction of sanitary facilities in rural homes and schools. References: Chandler, Asa Crawford, Hookworm Disease: Its Distribution, Biology, Epidemiology, Pathology, Diagnosis, Treatment and Control (1929); Nesbitt, Charles T., "The health menace of alien races," The Worlds Work 27 (November 1913), 74-78; Stiles, Charles Wardel, Beport upon the Prevalence and Geographic Distribution of Hookworm Disease (Uncinariasis or Anchulostomiasis) in the United States (1903), "Early history in part esoteric, of the hookworm (uncinariasis) campaign in our Southern United States," Journal of Parasitology 25 (August 1939), 285-300. "Hookworm Commission" (1909-1914) The Rockefeller Sanitary Commission for the Eradication of Hookworm Disease—the "Hookworm Commission"—attempted to prevent and eliminate hookworm* in the rural South through educational programs and sanitation. Charles Wardel Stiles (1867-1941), a zoologist and physician, became convinced in the 1890s that hookworm was widespread in the South. He first described the parasite in 1902, although it was first identified in 1899 in Puerto Rico. In 1904 the U.S. Army began a campaign against hookworm in that territory that served as a model for subsequent state programs in the South. In 1909 lobbying efforts by Stiles resulted in the creation of the Hookworm Commission on October 26,1909. This commission grew out of President Theodore Roosevelt's* 1908 Country Life Commission for studying ways to improve rural environments and extend opportunities to farms. The purpose of the Hookworm Commission was to bring about cooperation between the medical profession, public health officials, boards of trade, churches, schools, and the press for the cure and prevention of the disease. Offices were open in January 1910 in Washington, D.C, and the commission's work became an experiment in public health promotion. The campaign became a major program of the Progressive era's public health movement.* The crusade had three steps: to determine the geographic distribution of the worm, to treat infected individuals, and to remove the source of infection. Each state was to have a sanitary director, field inspectors, and laboratory staff for the program. To accomplish this mission, it first was necessary that education be provided to participating teachers, physicians, and other health workers. In several states surveys were organized, along with health conferences to explain the project to local medical societies. For the diagnosis and treatment of the disease, the county dispensary, first tried in Missis-
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sippi, was successfully instituted. Public officials promoted testing by sending in their own samples to be examined. The results of the surveys showed more than 90 percent of the rural population and about 43 percent of the total southern population had been infected. County boards of health were convinced that the appropriation of money for the prevention, control, and treatment of the disease fell into the jurisdiction of their mission. A large aspect of the hookworm campaign was educational. It taught people what the disease was and how it could be prevented. However, the patent medicine* lobby and the National League for Medical Freedom* fought in some states against bills for state laboratories and medical inspection of school children. Treatment of hookworm was of little value if reinfection occurred; thus, the education of schoolchildren as a means of reaching parents was considered vital. At the end of the five-year campaign, most children knew what hookworm was, how it was spread, and how it could be prevented. Besides education and treatment, prevention by more adequate sanitation was necessary. By 1911 model privies for rural homes and schools had been designed. Because the housefly had recently been found to carry disease, adequate privies were also fly-proof. Some states required all new schools to have sanitary privies. At the end of this five-year crusade much had been accomplished. State boards of health had been strengthened, county health units were better organized, and local physicians were alerted, not only to hookworm, but also to a whole spectrum of diseases related to soil pollution. A decrease in the infection rate among children was noted. At the beginning of 1915 the International Health Commission was created that extended the hookworm campaign throughout the world. References: Boccaccio, Mary, "Ground itch and dew poison: The Rockefeller sanitary commission 1909-1914," Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 27 (January 1972), 30-53; Duffy, John, The Sanitarians: A History of American Public Health (1992); Glasson, William H., "The Rockefeller commission's campaign against hookworm," South Atlantic Quarterly 10 (April 1911), 142148; Williams, Greer, The Plague Killers (1969). Human Betterment Foundation (1926-1942) The Human Betterment Foundation, founded and funded by Ezra Gosney* in 1926 at the peak of the eugenics movement,* focused upon eugenics* sterilization in California. This private organization was formally incorporated in 1928 with twenty-five members. Its purpose was "educational efforts for the protection and betterment of the human family in body, mind, character, and citizenship," and it pressed for state sterilization laws. Members and advisors included noted birth-control,* so-
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cial hygiene,* and eugenic reformers. Charter members included Paul Popenoe,* David Starr Jordan,* and University of California zoologist Samuel J. Holmes (1868-1964). The foundation, under Popenoe, its research coordinator, compiled statistics concerning eugenic sterilization in California over a twenty-five-year period. It examined the mental, physical, and social effects of sterilizations from July 1909 through 1929 of more than 6,000 "insane and feeble-minded wards of the state." The foundation sponsored numerous tracts and articles in the support of eugenic sterilization laws over the later years of the eugenics movement. Its most noted works were a book for the general public, Sterilization for Human Betterment (1929), and a collection of scientific papers upon which the popular book was based, Collected Papers on Eugenic Sterilization in California (1930). It rivaled the Eugenics Records Office* and the American Eugenics Society* in terms of influence, both in the United States and abroad. Writings from the foundation helped shape the opinions of the Nazi sterilization program of the 1930s. The foundation died with the death of its founder, Gosney, in 1942. Its assets were liquidated by his daughter and the proceeds were contributed to the California Institution of Technology to establish a research fund. References: "Gosney, Ezra S. (1855-1942)/Human Betterment Foundation." institute archives, California Institute of Technology, (visited March 1, 2000); Gosney, E. S., and Popenoe, Paul, Sterilization for Human Betterment (1929), "The Human Betterment Foundation," Eugenics 2 (March 1929), 1 7 - 2 1 ; Pickens, Donald, Eugenics and the Progressives (1968), 94-95; Selden, Steven, Inheriting Shame: The Story of Eugenics andBacism in America (1999); NatCAB 31 (1944), 504-505; WhAm 2 (1963), 216. Hunt, Mary Hannah Hanchett (June 4,1830-April 24,1906) A temperance* crusader, Hunt led the campaign that resulted in the mandatory teaching of temperance and hygiene in the public schools. Born in Canaan, Connecticut, she was the daughter of an ironworker from old Colonial stock who was involved with the abstinence crusade of the early nineteenth-century Clean Living Movement.* Hunt attended local schools and then graduated from Patapsco Female Institute (1851), near Baltimore. Upon graduation she taught chemistry and physiology at the school and worked as a governess on a plantation until 1852, when she married Leander B. Hunt. The couple moved to Hyde Park, Massachusetts, where she lived the rest of her life. For twenty years after her marriage she engaged in church and volunteer work. Hunt joined the Woman's Christian Temperance Union* movement and became vice president of the state organization in 1878.
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In the early 1870s Hunt had discovered information regarding the physiological effects of alcohol.* Convinced that scientific rather than moral arguments should be used to promote abstinence among youth "before drinking habits were formed," she conceived a "graded lesson plan" for the schools based upon scientific principles regarding hygiene and temperance. She termed this educational philosophy "scientific temperance instruction."* In 1878 Hunt successfully prevailed upon her local school board to require instruction in the physiological effects of alcohol and then extended her campaign to other parts of the state, convinced that state laws were necessary to make the subject mandatory. At the invitation of Frances E. Willard,* she addressed the WCTU's national conference in 1879 to promote a similar curriculum nationwide. At the convention she was appointed chairwoman of the "committee on temperance textbooks in schools and colleges" to put her plan into action. In 1880 the national WCTU created the "department of scientific instruction," with Hunt as superintendent, a post she retained until her death. In 1881, under Hunt's leadership, the WCTU resolved to seek compulsory state temperance education laws by political pressure and lobbying by WCTU workers in their communities and states. She delivered hundreds of addresses across the country and earned the nickname, "Queen of the Lobby." In 1886 she secured from Congress a law requiring temperance instruction in all schools under federal control. By 1904, under Hunt's leadership, every state mandated some form of temperance instruction, as endorsed by the WCTU. From Hunt's Hyde Park headquarters she founded a newsletter, Science Temperance Monthly Advices, for teachers in 1892, which two years later became the School Physiology Journal, which she edited until her death. Hunt began to endorse textbooks for use in the school hygiene course. To receive the WCTU's approval, it was necessary to assert that alcohol was a poison and harmful, even in minute amounts. Due to successful lobbying on the part of the WCTU, texts that were not endorsed were not adopted by school boards. Hunt created the Scientific Temperance Association (later the Scientific Temperance Federation*) to study and endorse temperance education texts. From her evaluation of materials, Hunt received part of the royalty, which caused disputes over property rights upon her death. In 1890 Hunt was appointed international superintendent of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of the World. She represented the United States at the International Congress against Alcoholism in 1897 and again in 1903. Hunt, however, clashed with physiologists and other scientists, notably the Committee of Fifty* in 1903, over the content of public school instruction regarding alcohol and its
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effect upon the human system. Members of the committee, including Russell Chittenden,* Charles Eliot,* and Francis G. Peabody,* argued that information provided by the WCTU was not factual. For over twenty-five years Hunt worked without salary and assumed a large part of the financial burden for her department. She published numerous pamphlets and articles defending scientific temperance instruction. She helped foster the school hygiene education movement* and the teaching of personal hygiene,* as well as information concerning alcohol and narcotics.* Her husband died in 1887; one child was produced from the marriage. Hunt died at her home in the Boston area. References: Hunt, Mary H., A History of the First Decade of the Department of Scientific Temperance Instruction in Schools and Colleges of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in Three Parts (1891); Zimmerman, Jonathan, " T h e queen of the lobby': Mary Hunt, scientific temperance and the dilemma of democratic education in America, 1879-1906," History of Education Quarterly 32 (Spring 1992), 1-29; ANB 11 (1999), 4 9 8 499; DAB 5 (1932), 388-389; NatCAB 9 (1899), 156-157; SEAP 3 (1926), 1268-1270; obituary, NYT, April 25, 1906.
I immigrants and immigration The massive flow of immigrants into the United States during the Progressive era strongly affected a number of health-reform crusades. In particular, rising immigration had direct bearing on the antismoking,* eugenics,* prohibition,* purity,* and public health* movements. During this era public opinion about immigration became ambivalent. Immigrants were needed for cheap labor, but on the other hand they were seen as a major cause of many health, social, and political problems. Before the Civil War the English, Scots, and Irish* were the most common immigrant groups. In the postwar era, Scandinavians and Germans* and more Irish dominated the flow. Until 1881 most immigrants were Protestant.* They arrived in the United States as families, settled on farms, and soon assimilated as Americans. In the 1800s immigration patterns changed. The new immigrants were mostly unskilled young single males from Southern and Eastern Europe. These new aliens poured into northern industrial cities at a time when Americans already feared that urban problems were eroding the fabric of American life. The peak year for immigration was 1907, when 1,285,349 arrived. By 1910, 35.2 percent of the population were first- or second-generation Americans and 68.1 percent were residing in cities. Russian Jews* and Italian Catholics* clustered in ghettos. Accustomed to a tightly knit and well-ordered society where social status was fixed, these newcomers found it difficult to adapt to the American ideal of social mobility and self-reliance. Likewise, their customs were alien to middle-class Protestant values. In the eyes of nativist* reformers, these immigrants were illiterate peasants, the absolute dregs of society, making America a "dumping ground for the refuse of Europe." Since these new immigrants appeared to resist becoming American-
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ized, the Anglo-American* establishment registered increased animosity toward them. Eugenic* and nativist reformers, most of whom were of Northern and Western European heritage, feared that these Eastern and Southern European immigrants lacked the biological wherewithal to adapt to American culture and climate. They were concerned that these aliens would dilute the genetic makeup of the nation and lead to racial degeneracy* and racial suicide* of old-line American stock. Studies and reports by Harry Laughlin* and many others suggested that the new immigrants were less healthy and robust than other groups. They had lower life expectancies, higher death rates* from infectious* and degenerative diseases, and were more likely to be mentally ill, compared to Anglo Americans. These immigrants were accused of bringing deadly epidemics into the nation. In early 1892 a typhus epidemic in New York city was traced to a boatload of Russian Jewish immigrants. A few months later cholera was found on ships carrying these emigres. To prevent a typhus and cholera epidemic from entering New York city, Eastern European Jews between 1892 and 1893 were impounded on "quarantine islands" in New York harbor. In turn, nativist reformers, using these epidemics to bolster their argument, demanded immigration restrictions* on Jews and Italians.* The National Quarantine Act of 1893* set up procedures to prevent individuals from entering the nation if suspected of carrying infectious diseases. Quarantining also occurred on the West Coast. In 1900, after the bubonic plague appeared in San Francisco's Chinatown, public health officials quarantined Chinese* residents. In the second decade of the century it was argued that "the most serious problem that Americans face when any large numbers of an alien race enter this country is the menace to the health of the people of the entire nation." Antialcohol and antitobacco crusaders blamed immigrants for bringing health and social problems related to these substances. Hostility toward immigrants because of their drinking patterns increased over the decades of the Progressive movement. Crusaders noted that much of the liquor trade* and many saloons* were in the hands of "low-class foreigners" such as the Irish and Germans. Fear of urban immigrants by more rural middle-class Protestants increased agitation for prohibition* measures as a way of social control over immigrant behaviors. Antialcohol laws were enacted in several cities, aimed specifically at them. Congress passed a measure in 1913 that prohibited "intoxicating liquors" from being sold at immigrantprocessing stations such as Ellis Island; five years later it passed the Eighteenth Amendment* for national prohibition. Antagonisms also arose against cigarettes* on grounds they were of "foreign origin"
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and because immigrants smoked inexpensive machine-rolled varieties. This hostility helped fuel the antismoking movement* and antismoking laws. On the West Coast the Chinese also resisted Americanization. Fear of their opium* habit and cheap "coolie" labor also fanned anti-immigrant feelings, resulting in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1892.* The antiprostitution crusade of the purity movement* also had anti-immigrant undertones. Between 1909 and 1914, novels, silent films, and religious tracts warned young, native-born white women of foreigners lurking in cities to entice them into brothels. Yellow journalism portrayed white women being victimized by Catholic, Jewish, and Chinese immigrants. In reality, the chief victims of prostitution* were poor, young immigrant women. Over the long run, anti-immigrant sentiments based upon health and social fears led to the formation of the Immigrant Restriction League,* the revival of the Ku Klux Klan,* and passage of the Johnson-Reed Immigrant Restriction Act of 1924.* At the end of the Progressive era, open immigration had been eliminated. References: Dublin, Louis I., "The mortality of foreign race stocks," Scientific Monthly14 (January-June 1922), 94-104; Kraut, Alan M., Silent Travelers: Germs, Genes, and the "Immigrant Menace" (1994); Markel, Howard, Quarantine! East European Jewish Immigrants and the New York City Epidemics of 1892 (1997); Nesbitt, Charles, "The health menace of alien races," The World's Work 27 (November 1913), 74-78; Timberlake, James H., Prohibition and the Progressive Movement, 1900-1920 (1963). Immigration Restriction League (1895-c. 1931) One of the first groups to organize specifically for immigrant* restriction laws in the Progressive era was the Immigration Restriction League. It was a forerunner of the more strident voices for immigration reform that emerged on either side of World War I.* The league was formed by five Harvard University undergraduates in 1894. The group, through its powerful upper-class connections, spearheaded a move for legislation to exclude all adult immigrants unable to read or write. In 1896 Congress overwhelmingly passed an immigrant restriction bill, but it was vetoed by President Grover Cleveland (1837-1908). Although bills to restrict immigration were introduced on several occasions, not until a quota act in 1921 and the Johnson-Reed Immigration Restriction Act of 1924* were severe restrictions enacted. Founders of the league were concerned about the high incidence of pauperism,* crime,* infectious disease,* and insanity among Eastern and Southern European immigrants, in addition to race suicide* among old-stock Anglo Americans.* The coleaders of the league, Robert DeCourcy Ward (1867-1931) and Prescott F. Hall (1868-1921), were
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Harvard classmates of Charles Davenport,* one of the pioneers of eugenics.* Ward and Hall became active in the more nativistic* faction of the burgeoning eugenics movement.* Ward, who taught climatology at Harvard, and Hall, a Boston attorney, assumed control of the Immigration Restriction Committee of the Eugenics Records Office* and the American Breeders Association.* Ward became the immigration editor of Eugenics,* the organ of the American Eugenics Society.* Hall, in his work Immigration and Its Effects on the United States (1906), suggested that immigrants were the cause of many health and social problems. Their publications gave input into the immigration restriction movement.* References: Haller, Mark H., Eugenics: Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought (1963); Higham, John, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925 (1955); Kevles, Daniel J., In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity (1985); Reilly, Philip R., The Surgical Solution: A History of Involuntary Sterilization in the United States (1991); Solomon, Barbara Miller, Ancestors and Immigrants: A Changing New England Tradition (1956); DAB 10 (1936), 436. immigration restriction movement (1880-1930) The Progressive era's movement to restrict immigration* into the United States began in the 1880s and peaked in the late 1920s. Nativistic,* eugenic,* prohibition,* and public health* interests, in addition to political and economic factors, helped drive this movement. Public opinion on immigration was ambivalent. It wavered between a desire for cheap immigrant labor and nativistic demands to keep America free from aliens who were perceived as the major cause of crime,* poverty,* disease, and the degeneration of old-stock Anglo-American* Protestant* values and bloodlines. Italian,* Polish,* and Russian Jewish* immigrants, in particular, were seen as weakening the nation. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1892* was enacted to stem the tide of cheap Chinese* labor and opium.* In the early 1890s immigrants with contagious diseases, mental illness, or retardation were denied entry into the United States. In 1894 the Immigration Restriction League* formed and lobbied for a literacy test as a criterion for immigration. Although a bill to this effect was passed by Congress in 1896, it was vetoed by the president. In 1907 Congress established the Immigration Commission, which also recommended literacy tests. Bills passed by Congress in 1913 and 1915, however, were both vetoed. Finally, in 1917, during the tensions of World War I,* Congress enacted a restriction bill over President Woodrow Wilson's (1856-1924) veto. In addition to the literacy test, the law excluded all immigration from Asia; also denied admission were aliens with mental or
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physical defects, contagious diseases, political agitators, paupers, criminals, and immoral persons. When literacy tests were found to exclude few immigrants, a campaign for further restriction, fueled by labor unrest, riots, and fear of a Bolshevik takeover, surged in the immediate post-World War I era. Supporters of this movement included powerful groups such as the revitalized Ku Klux Klan.* The eugenics movement* and its activists, including Madison Grant,* Harry Laughlin,* Lothrop Stoddard,* and Henry F. Osborn,* gave justification for exclusion based upon their studies or publications. Prohibition and anti-saloon* workers such as Billy Sunday* blamed immigrant saloons* for many social problems and supported restrictions. The Immigration Act of 1921, introduced by Congressman Albert Johnson,* created a quota system keyed to the percentage of each nationality already residing in the United States in 1910. As American nativism and fear of aliens reached its peak, Congress framed a permanent policy limiting immigration with the Johnson-Reed Immigration Restriction Act of 1924.* This act terminated America's traditional open-door immigration policy. References: Haller, Mark H., Eugenics: Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought (1963); Higham, John, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925 (1955); Laughlin, Harry H., Immigration and Conquest (1939). immunizations A major consideration of the preventive medicine* component of the public health movement* was the crusade for immunizations and vaccinations against infectious diseases.* For centuries it had been known that contracting certain infections, such as smallpox and measles, conferred lifetime immunity. After the discovery of microorganisms in 1882, experiments with animals using different bacteria were launched. Experimenters attempted to determine if immunity could be induced. Louis Pasteur in France found that repeated injections into animals with certain attenuated (weakened) microorganisms caused immunity and prevented illness. Although the exact mechanism for this was not known until later, a crusade for immunization and antitoxin treatment emerged in the late 1890s, resulting in a dramatic decrease of many infectious diseases. Within a decade of the discovery of a causative organism, development of a vaccine against the disease was attempted. Vaccines made from heat-killed or attenuated bacteria, or of antibodies or antitoxins made from animal serum, were injected to either prevent or eliminate the clinical manifestation of a specific disease. In 1890 a diphtheria antitoxin was developed; by 1907 it had reduced the mortality rate by about one-fifth. A tetanus antitoxin decreased deaths from "blank-cartridge wounds" result-
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ing from "glorious Fourth" celebrations; the number of these deaths dropped from 415 in 1903 to 73 in 1907. In 1906 a "serum" to treat meningitis was developed, and the death rate from this disease was also reduced. In 1896 crude preparations of killed typhoid bacteria were used to immunize British soldiers against typhoid fever. After it was improved it was used in 1911 to immunize American military personnel encamped along the Mexican border, all but eliminating the disease. Vaccination against smallpox was introduced into the United States around 1800, but mandatory smallpox vaccination for most communities did not begin until the last decade of the century. Smallpox greatly decreased in New York city, from more than 1,200 cases in 1875 to about 6 per year in 1909 as a result of vaccinations. The few cases reported were due to the "unvaccinated portion of the community which keeps the fire of smallpox alight." The disease was thought to have been one that could be completely wiped out if all citizens were vaccinated. However, some antivaccination groups and Christian Scientists* opposed the practice. The cholera bacillus was identified in 1883, and in 1902 a vaccine to immunize against the disease was developed in Japan. The plague bacillus was identified in 1894, but it took until 1906 to discover the rat-flea connection. In 1907 immunization against the plague in India reduced the attack rate to less than one-third of the non-inoculated. For the infected, there was also a faster recovery rate. Based upon this information, immunization, quarantine, and the elimination of rats were used to control a 1907 plague in San Francisco. Cities along the Mississippi River had frequent typhoid fever epidemics due to contamination of water supplies from river flooding. In 1912 a sudden outbreak of the disease occurred in Memphis. The local health department took measures to stop the pollution of the water supply and citizens were immunized against the disease. These actions halted the epidemic. By the second decade of the century, public health departments found vaccination and other preventive measures to be cheaper than treatment, and as a result mandatory immunizations became common. References: "Smallpox and vaccination," Current Literature (April 1902), 484-485; Hirshberg, Leonard K., "Marvelous preventives of disease," The World's Work 25 (April 1913), 684-694; Rosen, George, Preventive Medicine in the United States, 1900-1975: Trends and Interpretations (1975); Torrey, John C , "The prevention of infectious diseases," Harper's Monthly Magazine 118 (March 1909), 536-544. infectious diseases Until the second decade of the twentieth century, diseases transmitted via food, water, air, or vectors such as the mosquito had been the major cause of illness and death. Health-
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reform crusades during the Progressive era, such as the public health movement,* sanitation, preventive medicine,* personal hygiene,* and the tuberculosis movement,* dramatically improved the health and longevity of Americans through education and health legislation. Decreases in communicable diseases were noticed over the last decade of the nineteenth century. The Survey for August 22, 1901, pointed out that "the statistics of mortality for the year 1900 . . . furnish striking evidence of progress since the census of 1890 in sanitation and medical science." In 1890 the major killer was tuberculosis,* with a death rate of 245.4 per hundred thousand. In 1900 it had fallen to 194.4, in 1910 to 153.8, and by 1925 to 84.8 per hundred thousand. Diphtheria, a major killer of young children, had decreased from 70.1 in 1900, to 40.3 in 1910, to 7.8 per hundred thousand in 1925, due to immunizations.* Typhoid fever, carried by contaminated food and water, decreased from 46.3 to 31.3 to 7.8 per hundred thousand in 1900,1910, and 1925, respectively. On the other hand, death from chronic diseases such as cancer had more than doubled, increasing from 64 in 1900 to 92 per hundred thousand in 1925. Death from pneumonia and influenza* between 1890 and 1900 rose from 193.1 to 215.8 and then fell to 121.7 per hundred thousand in 1925. Infectious diseases sometimes were associated with immigrants* and helped fuel the immigration restriction movement* and the National Quarantine Act of 1893* in the 1890s and 1900s. Jews* were associated with typhus, the Chinese* with plague, and the Irish* with cholera and other infections. One infamous example was "Typhoid Mary" Mallon.* Although bubonic plague was rare, it caused panic in San Francisco in 1900 and 1907 outbreaks. The plague bacillus had been identified in 1894 but it took until 1906 to discover the rat-flea connection. In 1907 immunization against the plague was developed. By 1911, when it was noticed that the death rate was increasing from degenerative disease, public health experts began to address these issues in terms of prevention. References: U.S. Bureau of the Census, "Vital statistics and health and medical care," in The Statistical History of the United States from Colonial Times to the Present (1976), 58; Dublin, Louis I., "The mortality of foreign race stocks," The Scientific Monthly 14 (January-June 1922), 9 4 104; Kraut, Alan M., Silent Travelers: Germs, Genes, and the "Immigrant Menace" (1994); Woodward, R. S., "The progress of science," Popular Science Monthly (October 1901), 600-602. influenza, Spanish After twenty years of optimistic public health crusades to eradicate infectious disease,* the deadly Spanish influenza pandemic erupted in 1918-1919. The epidemic, in three waves,
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raged for about a year and killed ten times more people than World War I.* In its aftermath a centralized national health service with increased powers emerged. The first wave of the epidemic was mild and occurred in the spring and early summer of 1918. It is not clear where the virus originated. Due to war hysteria and nativist* attitudes, some observers conjectured in 1918 that it may have been transmitted by "Germans in Uboats" or by Chinese* laborers traveling by train across the country. The earliest recorded outbreak was in March 1918 among army recruits at Camp Funston, Kansas. It was likely introduced by a rural recruit who caught it from a family farm pig. By the end of the month the flu had spread rapidly to military installations in several midwestern and southeastern states. By early summer it had spread throughout the country. Although it was a mild "grippe," it resulted in a higher mortality rate from pneumonia than usual. In April it spread to France via American troops sent by ship. However, because of wartime censorship newspapers did not discuss the rapid diffusion of the disease across Europe. It reached neutral Spain in May. Since Spain did not censor news, its epidemic was widely publicized, giving rise to the common but totally misleading term "Spanish flu," sometimes called "the Spanish Lady." The deadly second wave began in late August, probably in western France, due to a genetic mutation or recombination with another influenza virus. This wave was accompanied by bacterial pneumonia and a high mortality rate. On August 22 the first reports of the more virulent form occurred in Brest, France, a major port for the disembarkation of troops back to the United States. This deadly mutation arrived August 27 in Boston among sailors and on September 8 among soldiers at Camp Devens, Massachusetts. It then rapidly defused to other military bases as far away as Louisiana, Washington, and California, and to the civilian population across the nation. When it first reached the general population in September, popular magazines reported it. By October various recommendations to prevent and treat the illness were presented, including admonishments to "avoid needless crowding," the "Three Cs: a clean mouth, clean skin, and clean clothes," and "choosing and chewing your food well." Detailed statistics were kept by the military; however, its impact on the civilian population was scattered due to a lack of coordination among public health agencies. Because influenza was not considered a reportable disease at the time, the U.S. Public Health Service* recorded few statistics. Throughout the world the mortality rate was highest among those between twenty and forty. This may have been because younger people had not been exposed to the influenza epidemic of 1889-
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1890, and thus had no partial immunity to the disease. Another interpretation suggested that many who died in the United States tended to be recent immigrants of Italian,* Russian, and Polish* origin. This young immigrant* group largely came from rural areas where they had not been exposed to the previous epidemic. Moving into congested urban tenements, they were an easy target for the disease because of lack of immunity and poor environmental conditions. Ethnic groups that had been in the country longer, such as persons of Anglo-Saxon,* German,* or Irish* extraction, were less susceptible. The death rate from the Spanish Lady was about one in fifty in the United States. So virulent was this infection that some individuals died within forty-eight hours of the first ache and cough. Autopsies often showed lungs filled with frothy, bloody fluid. In many places a third, less well-defined wave erupted in the winter and spring of 1918-1919. However, it did not have the high mortality rate of the deadly second wave. The influenza pandemic took about a half-million lives in the United States and over 22 million worldwide. Since it overlapped with the end of the war, the full extent of the pandemic was not known for several years afterward. To the public and many health reformers, the disaster pointed out the lack of coordination among public health agencies. It persuaded many people to call for extensive research on influenza and led to a centralized national department of health with powers far greater than it had before. References: Collier, Richard, The Plague of the Spanish Lady: The Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919 (1974); Crosby, Alfred W., America's Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918 (1989); Epidemic and Peace, 1918 (1976); Katz, Robert S., "Influenza 1918-1919: A further study in mortality," Bulletin of the History of Medicine 51 (Winter 1977), 617-619; Patterson, K. David, and Pyle, Gerald E, "The geography and mortality of the 1918 influenza pandemic," Bulletin of the History of Medicine 65 (Spring 1991), 4-21; Walters, Karen A., "McLean County and the influenza epidemic of 1918-1919," Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 74 (Summer 1981), 130-144. intemperance "Intemperance," "drunkenness," or "inebriation" was the condition of consuming alcohol* to the point of intoxication. The terms "drunkard" or "inebriate" was used synonymously with alcoholic. In this era it was believed that the causes of intemperance included such factors as an inherited condition, a disease, the result of damage to the "germ-plasm," or a "moral failing." Reformers involved with the temperance movement* assumed that if alcohol and saloons* were eliminated from society, alcoholism,* as well as most health and social problems, would disappear. References: Gusfield,
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Joseph R., Symbolic Crusade: Status Politics and the American Temperance Movement (1986); Rorabaugh, William J., The Alcoholic Bepublic: An American Tradition (1979); Timberlake, James H., Prohibition and the Progressive Movement, 1900-1920 (1963). international congresses of eugenics (1912, 1921, 1932) Three international eugenics congresses during the surge of the eugenics movement* served to interconnect American eugenicists* with colleagues in Europe and Australasia. The most influential eugenicists and eugenics organizations served as organizers of the conferences. The Eugenic Records Office* at Cold Spring Harbor, New York, its director Charles Davenport,* and the Eugenic Section of the American Breeders Association,* of which Davenport was secretary, provided the link between the growing American and international eugenics movements. The First International Eugenics Congress was held in London during the summer of 1912. Most of the noted pioneer American eugenicists were represented at the conference in some fashion. Papers at the First International Congress focused on differential birthrates among immigrants* and the native born, racial suicide* among Northern Europeans, sterilization of the unfit, and family histories. Health topics related to eugenics, such as alcoholism,* tuberculosis,* venereal diseases,* and physical fitness, were discussed. In attendance were 324 individuals from around the world; Leonard Darwin, son of Charles Darwin (1809-1882), was chairman. Two volumes were published from the congress: volume 1, Problems in Eugenics, which contained the scientific papers presented at the congress, and volume 2, the Proceedings of the Congress. The Second International Eugenics Congress was scheduled for 1915 in New York. Bell was elected honorary president, Osborn president, Grant treasurer, Davenport director, and C. C. Little* secretary-general. However, due to World War I* it was canceled. The Second Congress was finally held in the fall of 1921 at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. A total of 312 persons attended the conference. Two volumes were published from the conference presentations. The first volume, Eugenics, Genetics, and the Family, included topics such as inheritance of physical fitness, mental disorders, musical traits, predisposition to cancer, the relation of heredity to tuberculosis, and human mutations. The second volume, Eugenics in Bace and State, included articles on racial intermarriage, mortality of different racial groups, eugenic aspects of population growth, the status of eugenic sterilization in the United States, racial poisons,* venereal disease, and health and eugenics. Out of the Second Congress in the fall of 1921 came the formation of an ad interim committee to guide, promote, and educate Americans about eugenics. This group evolved into the American Eugenics Society.*
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A Third International Congress was held in 1932 in New York at the Museum of Natural History. The committee for planning the congress was drawn from the leadership ranks of the American Eugenics Society, the Galton Society,* and the Eugenics Research Association.* The latter two organizations, along with the Eugenics Record Office and the American Museum of Natural History, sponsored the conference. Topics for presentations included anthropometric methods and tests, race amalgamation, education and eugenics, positive and negative eugenics, disease and infertility, and differential fecundity and human genetics. Exhibits included the heredity of families, social hygiene, and population analysis. Reflecting the decline of the movement and worldwide economic depression, a total of only seventy-three persons attended this meeting. References: "International Eugenics Congress," American Breeders Magazine 3 (first quarter 1912), 75-76; "International Eugenics Congress," Journal of Heredity 4 (March 1914), 138; "News and notes," Eugenics 3 (September 1930), 349 and (December 1930), 467; "Notes," Eugenics Beview4 (April 1912-January 1913), 217; Eugenics Education Society, Problems in Eugenics, vol. 2, Beport of Proceedings of the First International Eugenics Congress, University of London July 24th to 30th 1912 (1913); Davenport, Charles, ed., Eugenics, Genetics, and the Family, vol. 1 of Scientific Papers of the Second International Congress of Eugenics (1923), Eugenics in Bace and State, vol. 2 of Scientific Papers of the Second International Congress of Eugenics (1923); Haller, Mark H., Eugenics: Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought (1963); Perkins, Harry E, ed., A Decade of Progress in Eugenics: Scientific Papers of the Third International Congress of Eugenics Held at American Museum of Natural History, New York, August 21-23, 1932 (1934). Irish and Irish Americans The largest proportion of Irish immigrants* arrived in the United States in the years prior to the Progressive era. They were received with ambivalence due to their health and social problems. Immigration from Ireland peaked between 1846 and 1854, when well over 100,000 emigres arrived each year due to poverty and starvation from the potato famine. By the Progressive era, migration from Ireland had slowed; between 1890 and 1915 an average of 35,000 were entering each year. The 1910 census recorded 4.6 million persons of Irish birth or parentage. After Anglo-Saxons,* the Irish were the second largest European group to immigrate to the United States. However, America's establishment was ambivalent toward these newcomers, who often lived in squalid conditions, were blamed for bringing the three major cholera epidemics into the country, and had a high rate of alcoholism.* Temperance* crusaders noted that much of the liquor trade* was in the hands of "low-
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class foreigners" such as the Irish. On the other hand, the Irish were perceived as hard workers and provided needed labor for America's massive growth. They worked as laborers on the railroads and helped build America's infrastructure. Irish women often worked as maids, house servants, cooks, and laundresses. Although they were heavily concentrated in the working class, many had moved into the middle class through careers in religion, labor, politics, and businesses such as saloons* by the turn of the twentieth century. The Irish were closely identified with Catholicism* and ruled the American Catholic hierarchy. These Irish Catholics, however, often clashed with other Catholic immigrants groups, such as the Italians,* with their differing customs. When the Irish were able to move out of the tenements into better housing, impoverished Jews,* Italians, and other Eastern and Southern European groups replaced them in the slums of the large urban centers. By the beginning of the twentieth century, Americanization of the Irish had been noted and recognized by the Anglo-American establishment and their former anti-Irish hostility began to shift from the Irish to the Eastern and Southern European immigrants. Compared to other immigrant groups, however, the Irish had more health problems than most immigrant groups of the Progressive era. Irish immigrants had the lowest life expectancy and the highest death rate* of any white ethnic group. In 1910 their death rate was about twice as high as their countrymen back home in Ireland. In New York state those of Irish stock comprised 12.2 percent of the total white population in that year. Their life expectancy at age ten was 38.7 years for males and 45.9 years for females. Tuberculosis* was the principal cause of death, followed by heart disease, pneumonia, and violence for males and kidney disease for females. The death rate from tuberculosis was the highest of all white groups. For males born in Ireland it was almost 480 and for females 240 per hundred thousand. By the third generation, the death rate had dramatically decreased and the Irish had become assimilated into the dominant Euro-American culture. References: Byron, Reginald, Irish America (1999); Drudy, P. J., ed., The Irish in America: Emigration, Assimilation and Impact (1985); Dublin, Louis I., "The mortality of foreign race stocks," Scientific Monthly 14 (January-June 1922), 94-104; Shannon, William Vincent, The American Irish (1963); Timberlake, James H., Prohibition and the Progressive Movement, 1900-1920 (1963). Italians and Italian Americans The largest group of Italian immigrants* arrived in the United States during the Progressive era. The peak years for Italian immigration were between 1901 and 1914, when an average 200,000 Italians entered the United States each
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year. The 1910 census recorded 2.1 million people of Italian birth or parentage. Most came to the new world to escape deteriorating economic conditions and poverty. During this era of migration, 85 percent of these immigrants were from southern Italy and swarmed into the crowded tenements of New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia. They often worked as contract unskilled labor at the mercy of a "padroni," who often controlled their lives through extortion. The earliest immigrants tended to be young males; in later years families migrated. Some became prosperous by developing vineyards and market gardens in rural California, New Jersey, Texas, and other southern states; others became fishermen. Since many Italian immigrants did not plan to stay in America, but only to improve their fortunes and emigrate back to their home country, they kept within their own communities. Some acted as migrant laborers and traveled back to Italy during the winter. Due to language barriers and traditions different from Northern European settlers, they often had difficulty assimilating. Northern Italians tended to be skilled workers and were generally literate. They used their trades in many industries, including the granite and marble industries of Vermont. These northerners were generally not under the control of a "padroni" and tended to "look down upon" their southern brethren. Most Italians were Roman Catholic* They found discrimination and prejudice, not only from the Protestant* Anglo-American* establishment, but also from within their own religious group, inasmuch as the American Catholic Church was dominated by Irish Americans.* Resenting the Irish-controlled church, they formed their own parishes and built their own churches and schools to improve their communities, based upon strong family values. However, nativist* reformers often labeled these immigrants as breeders of vice* and crime* because of alleged "mafiosi" and "black-hand" criminal gangs. Eugenicists* viewed the southern, but not the northern Italians, as being of "inferior" racial stock who would cause racial degeneracy* due to their high birthrate. Distrust of these immigrants and their religion, business practices, and political system fanned the nativistic and immigration restriction* movements. These attitudes led to the revival of the Ku Klux Klan* and implementation of the Johnson-Reed Immigration Restriction Act of 1924.* Italians continued the drinking patterns of the old country. Although considered temperate by reformers, their daily consumption practices alarmed antialcohol crusaders. Prohibition* measures were a way of controlling their behavior. Illness abounded among Italian immigrants, who lived in crowded tenements. Children were subjected to rickets and women to iron-deficiency anemia. Although most lived in unsanitary conditions, they had one of the lower mor-
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tality rates for tuberculosis* of all immigrant groups. The 1910 census reported that 5.3 percent of the white population in New York state was from Italy. Their life expectancy was higher than for Italians in Italy; males were expected to live to fifty-five and females to fifty-three years of age. Their death rate from tuberculosis was relatively low: about 120 out of 1,000 for males and 150 out of 1,000 for females. Heart disease, pneumonia, and violence were the next most common means of death for males. For females, heart disease was the most common, followed by pneumonia and tuberculosis. Like other immigrants before them, most Italians after several generations became healthier, became Americanized, moved into the middle class, and contributed greatly to enriching American culture. References: Dublin, Louis I., "The mortality of foreign race stocks," Scientific Monthly 14 (January-June 1922), 94-104; Grossman, Ronald P., The Italians in America (1975); McLaughlin, Allan, "Italian and other Latin immigrants," Popular Science Monthly 65 (August 1904), 341-349; Tomasi, Silvano M., and Engel, Madeline H., eds., The Italian Experience in the United States (1970); Timberlake, James H., Prohibition and the Progressive Movement, 1900-1920 (1963); Tomasi, Lydio E, The Italian in America: A Progressive View 18911914 (1972); Marchione, Margherita, Americans of Italian Heritage (1995).
J Jacobs, Philip Peter (March 28, 1879-June 12, 1940) Assistant secretary and director of training and publicity for the National Tuberculosis Association,* Jacobs was instrumental working behind the scene in the tuberculosis movement.* He penned many of the publications that originated with the association and helped popularize prevention programs through articles in the popular press. Born in Syracuse, New York, the family moved to Binghamton when he was a boy. Educated in the local schools, he graduated from Syracuse University with an A.B. (1903). He worked as a newspaperman in Binghamton (1904-1905) and then earned a B.D. (1908) from Drew Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. (1910) in sociology from Columbia University. Likely influenced by the Social Gospel* philosophy of service to humanity, he began to work with the tuberculosis* movement. In 1906 Jacobs became the first secretary of the hospital committee of the New York State Charities Aid Association and two years later joined the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis, renamed the National Tuberculosis Association in 1918, where he remained for the rest of his career. From 1908 to 1915 he was assistant secretary of the association and focused attention on publicity and organization. He helped popularize the Christmas Seals* campaign in 1912 and the Modern Health Crusade,* a hygiene campaign for schoolchildren, in 1917 through magazine articles. After 1915 Jacobs also conducted institutes for training tuberculosis workers in New York state. As a supporter of the sanatorium movement,* he reflected that "the sanatorium became the most important institution in the campaign against TB as it promised to restore patients to wage-earning capacity. This had great appeal to both legislators and private philanthropy." As part of
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his work Jacobs interfaced with and assisted many pioneers of the tuberculosis, sanatorium, and other health movements, including Hermann Biggs,* Eugene Fisk,* Homer Folks,* Edward Janeway,* and George M. Kober,* among others. Jacobs helped organize state and local tuberculosis societies. Over his lifetime he produced more than thirty publications and assisted in writing many others. He was a charter fellow of the American Public Health Association* and was honored by the Danish king in 1924 for his work with tuberculosis. He married Lizzie Williams, but they had no children. Jacobs died in Morristown, New Jersey, after a three-month illness. References: Jacobs, Philip P., The Campaign against Tuberculosis in the United States (1908); Knopf, S. Adolphus, A History of the National Tuberculosis Association (1922); Shryock, Richard H., National Tuberculosis Association 1904-1954: A Study of the Voluntary Health Movement in the United States (1957); CurBio (1940), 429; obituary, NYT, June 13, 1940. Janeway, Edward Gamaliel (August 31, 1841-February 10, 1911) A physician and early pioneer of the tuberculosis movement,* Janeway was one of the first to suggest that tuberculosis* was communicable and that it should be considered a reportable disease. He was also involved with the public health movement.* Janeway was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, the son of a physician from an old-line New York family. Educated in the local schools, he received an A.B. from Rutgers University (1860) and immediately started medical school. However, for two years during the Civil War he served as a medical cadet at the U.S. Army Hospital in Newark, New Jersey (1862-1863). After graduating with an M.D. from Columbia (1864), he settled in New York city, where over the next decade he developed a popular practice and had several hospital appointments. Beginning in 1871 he joined the medical faculty at the Bellevue Hospital Medical School. In addition, he was appointed health commissioner of New York city in 1875 and served until 1882. In 1892 Janeway was appointed to the faculty of the New York University Medical School and later was its dean (1898-1905). Although he was heavily involved in the tuberculosis movement in his later years, his concern for infectious disease* and sanitation led to his appointment as an advisor to the city during the cholera epidemic of 1892, which was blamed on immigrants.* He was the first to describe the differential diagnosis of chronic syphilitic fever and tuberculosis (1898). Janeway was concerned about unhealthy tenements and considered that tuberculosis would not be eliminated "unless at the same time measures are taken to secure the avoidance of overcrowding by the obtaining of suitable dwelling places for the
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masses." As an early pioneer of the tuberculosis movement, Janeway published an article, "The Possible Contagion of Phthisis," in 1882, just prior to Koch's discovery of the tubercle bacillus. Janeway argued that the disease was communicable and recommended that it should be reportable. However, many physicians considered it an inherited illness and Janeway's report was ignored. Based upon increased information and others' writings, including those of Lawrence Flick,* the New York City Health Department in 1897 required the mandatory notification of pulmonary tuberculosis. Despite opposition from the New York Medical Society, Janeway advised Hermann Biggs* on establishing an effective program of tuberculosis surveillance. Janeway served as an examining physician for several sanatoriums* from 1895 until his death and was on the board of directors of many tuberculosis sanatoriums. In 1901 he was made an honorary vice president of the British Tuberculosis Association and was vice president of the clinical section of the International Tuberculosis Congress* in Washington in 1908. In 1902 he supported the development of a local tuberculosis committee that evolved into the Committee on Prevention of Tuberculosis of the Charity Organization Society* of New York city, of which he was an active member the rest of his life. Janeway was an early member of the National Tuberculosis Association* and was its fifth president (1909-1910). Compared to other physicians of his stature, he published few papers. He married Frances Strong Rogers in 1871, with whom he had four children. He died at his country home in Summit, New Jersey, of gout and kidney complications after an illness of a few days. References: Knopf, S. Adolphus, A History of the National Tuberculosis Association (1922); ANB 11 (1999), 855-856; DAB 5 (1932), 607608; NatCAB 13 (1906), 499; obituary, NYT, February 11, 1911. Janney, Oliver Edward (March 8,1856-November 17,1930) A physician and leader of the purity movement,* Janney campaigned against prostitution* and for raising the age of sexual consent specified in legislation. He supported the anti-saloon movement* and woman suffrage.* Born in Washington, D.C, the youngest child of a merchant from an old-stock Quaker family, he spent his childhood years in the country. His primary education was largely at home under the tutelage of an aunt and his older sister. He attended the Friends Elementary and High School in Baltimore and the State Normal School at Millersville, Pennsylvania, where he graduated (1875). Janney then became an apprentice in a Baltimore drugstore, where he worked six years. Graduating in pharmacy from the University of Maryland (1879), he entered the medical department of
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that institution and received an M.D. (1881). That same year he joined the senior class of Hahnemann Medical College, Philadelphia, from which he graduated in 1882. Returning to Baltimore, he started up a medical practice. In 1891 he was appointed to the faculty of the Southern Homeopathic Medical College. Janney was a deeply religious man and in 1895 was recommended for the ministry with the Society of Friends. In 1907 he gave up his medical practice to devote his time and energy to health and social reform and to religious work. During the Spanish influenza* epidemic of 1918 he briefly resumed his practice as acting assistant surgeon of the U.S. Public Health Service.* Janney was concerned that low age-of-consent* legislation was leading to the transmission of venereal disease* to young girls and their offspring. He joined a written symposium in B. O. Flower's* Arena* condemning the low age at "which a girl may consent to her own ruin." He advocated a single standard of sexuality and was active in the work of the American Purity Alliance.* At the National Purity Congress* in 1895, he spoke out against state regulation of prostitution and recommended that physicians "with high moral courage demand the abolition of the whole evil system of social wrong!" Upon the death of the president of the alliance, Aaron M. Powell,* Janney assumed the presidency and served four years (1900-1904). He took this position at the height of the purity movement, but under his reign the APA declined. Hoping for revitalization, he focused his attention on the white slave traffic* In 1906, at Grace Dodge's* home in New York city, Janney and other purityreform leaders founded the National Vigilance Committee* to lobby for the suppression of the white slave traffic. Janney became chairman. That same year, while serving as chair of the committee, he successfully encouraged President Theodore Roosevelt* to ratify an international agreement for suppressing the international white slave trade. He helped organize the First International White Slave Congress, held in Madrid in October 1910, to which he was an official delegate. Janney, as chairman of the National Vigilance Committee, played an important role in securing passage of the Mann Act of 1910,* which prohibited interstate traffic in women and girls. He also took an active part in the work of the Society for the Suppression of Vice in Baltimore, which abolished legalized prostitution. Janney was concerned with other issues of the day, including temperance* and woman suffrage. For many years he was an active member of the headquarters committee of the Anti-Saloon League* of Maryland. He took part in several Quaker social-activist groups and helped form the American Friends Service Committee in 1917. Janney wrote several pamphlets and books concerning health and social problems. These included The White Slave Traffic in America
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(1911), in which he discussed prostitution and efforts to eradicate it. He married Anne B. Webb (1885), by whom he had three children. To nearly the very end of his life, he lectured and traveled. He died in Baltimore, Maryland, of pneumonia that he developed six months beforehand while traveling in Britain. References: Clarke, Charles Walter, Taboo: The Story of the Pioneers of Social Hygiene (1961); Janney, O. Edward, "A physician's view of these laws," Arena 11 (January 1895), 206-209, "The medical profession and morals," in Powell, Aaron Macy, The National Purity Congress, Its Papers, Addresses, Portraits ([1896] 1976), 160-165; Pivar, David J., Purity Crusade: Sexual Morality and Social Control, 1868-1900 (1973), Purity and Hygiene: Women, Prostitution, and the "American Plan," 1906-1930 (2002); DAB 5 (1932), 610-611; NatCAB 33 (1947), 577; obituary, Baltimore Evening Sun, November 18, 1930. Jews and Jewish Americans The Jewish population in the United States expanded greatly during the Progressive era. In 1880 there were about a quarter of a million Jews in the nation. Most were of German-Jewish ancestry and were well-established and relatively prosperous. They practiced Reform Judaism, the more liberal branch of the religion, and had more or less assimilated into American culture. They spoke English or German, in contrast to later immigrants,* who primarily spoke Yiddish. Because of persecution, discrimination, and economic problems, approximately 2.5 million impoverished Russian, Polish,* and other Eastern European Jews migrated to the United States between 1880 and 1914. They tended to be of the Orthodox or more conservative branch of the religion. The majority of these immigrants flooded into the already overcrowded tenements of New York city. They found work in the garment industry or other dimly lit "sweat shops," or developed their own businesses. Although they planned to make America their permanent home, they did not readily assimilate and kept to themselves. Social welfare and health agencies within the Jewish community took care of their needs. A high proportion of these immigrants were craftsman who had worked in small Russian villages and were literate. By 1915 Jews comprised almost 28 percent of the New York city population. Eastern European Jewish immigrants were blamed for bringing typhus and a cholera epidemic to New York city in 1892. This fear led to the National Quarantine Act of 1893* to restrict sick immigrants from entering the country. In March 1892 typhus was traced to recent Jewish immigrants living in a New York city boarding house. This disease, associated with dirt and filth, stigmatized all Eastern European Jews as "undesirable." A few months later cholera was found among Russian and Polish Jews on an incoming ship and they
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were blamed for spreading the disease. To prevent the epidemic from taking hold in New York city, immigrants in steerage class were impounded in quarantine stations or detained on their ships for three weeks. Many died from the deplorable conditions. Cabin-class passengers were allowed to stay in isolated hotels. Public misconception fed by nativists,* including Edward Ross,* described Jews as more likely to carry diseases. They incorrectly inferred that tuberculosis* was a "Jewish disease" and stereotyped Jews as pale and thin and incapable of hard labor. However, health statistics of the time did not support high rates of death among this group. They had the lowest tuberculosis rate and the highest life expectancy of all immigrant groups in 1910. At age ten the life expectancy for Russianborn male Jews was 53.4 years, and for females 55.8 years. References: Dublin, Louis I., "The mortality of foreign race stocks," Scientific Monthly 14 (January-June 1922), 94-104; Dwork, Deborah, "Health conditions of immigrant Jews on the lower east side of New York: 1880-1914," Medical History 25 (January 1981), 1-A0; Jacobson, Matthew Frye, Special Sorrows: The Diasporic Imagination of Irish, Polish, and Jewish Immigrants in the United States (1995); Kraut, Alan M., Silent Travelers: Germs, Genes, and the "Immigrant Menace" (1994); Markel, Howard, Quarantine! East European Jewish Immigrants and the New York City Epidemics of 1892 (1997). Johnson, Albert (March 5, 1869-January 17, 1957) A Congressman and nativist,* Johnson used the philosophy of eugenics* to support his position of immigration restriction.* He sponsored two successful immigration* quota laws during the early 1920s. Johnson, born in Springfield, Illinois, was the son of a lawyer. As an infant his family moved to Hiawatha, Kansas, a frontier town. After attending the local schools he became a reporter and then editor for several newspapers. Johnson moved to the state of Washington in 1898. Based upon negative experiences with Japanese immigrants and alien union agitators, he became convinced that Japanese and Eastern and Southern Europeans should be prohibited from immigrating on grounds they threatened American democratic values. In 1913 he began a twenty-year tenure in the House of Representatives and joined the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization. He was made chair in 1919 after he had served a few months in the Army during World War I.* Johnson had close ties to leading members of the eugenics movement.* He used the studies of Harry Laughlin* to justify immigration restriction for eugenic reasons and used the legal skills of Madison Grant* to draft and push through restriction legislation. Johnson and Senator David Reed (1880-1953) introduced the sue-
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cessful Johnson-Reed Immigration Restriction Act of 1924. * Johnson was elected president of the Eugenics Research Association* in 1923; he also was a member of the advisory council for the American Eugenics Society.* In 1932 he was swept out of office in the Democratic landslides. Johnson married Jennie S. Smith in 1904 and together they had one child. He retired frQm publishing in the late 1930s and died in a veterans' hospital near Tacoma, Washington, in 1957. References: Higham, John, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925 (1955); ANB 12 (1999), 32-33; DAB sup. 6 (1980), 319-321; obituary, NYT, January 19, 1957. Johnson, "Pussyfoot" William Eugene (March 25, 1862-February 2, 1945) A militant prohibitionist* and journalist, Johnson was a noted crusader for the temperance* cause. He was one of the prohibition movement's* more colorful individuals and worked fifty years on both the national and international level to promote abstinence. In investigations of alcohol* activities, he used dubious tactics such as "entrapment" and wrote in the sensationalist style of the muckraker.* He freely admitted he "lied, bribed and drank" to "put over prohibition on America." Johnson was born at Coventry, New York, the son of old-stock Anglo-American* Presbyterians. His parents were strident temperance advocates and he followed in their footsteps. Johnson was educated in the public schools of Smithville, New York, and also spent time at what became Case Western Reserve University and the University of Nebraska in the 1880s. He was employed for a year as a teacher, became a journalist with the Lincoln Daily News (1884-1886), and subsequently manager of the Nebraska News Bureau (1886-1887). Johnson then worked for the next eight years as a traveling correspondent for various western newspapers. He moved to New York city in 1896 and became an investigative reporter for the Voice, a temperance magazine. In this assignment he investigated corruption in the liquor trade* and wrote exposes about the alcohol industry. Johnson traveled to Europe (1899-1900) as a correspondent for the New Voice and studied alcohol laws in England and Sweden. As a traveling correspondent, he exposed various "liquor scandals" associated with the American Army of Occupation in Asia and discovered officially sanctioned prostitution* in the Philippines. After this assignment he moved to Maryland, where he uncovered the sale of alcohol without a license in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives in Washington, D.C. These exposes led to his unsuccessful bid for Congress as a nominee of the Prohibition Party* in 1903. In 1906 Johnson was appointed special agent of the Department of Interior (1906-1907) and then chief special officer of the U.S. In-
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dian Service (1908-1911) to enforce alcohol laws in all Indian territories. In this capacity he secured more than 4,000 convictions for alcohol violations. During these years he earned the name "Pussyfoot," from his stealthy posture in pursuing lawbreakers by pouncing upon them during night raids. In 1911 he resigned from government service because the new administration did not support his zealous methods. Johnson moved to Westerville, Ohio, and became managing editor (1912-1916) of the Anti-Saloon League's* American Issue Publishing Company. In 1916-1918 he was the league's publicity manager and European representative. He was also managing editor of the Standard Encyclopedia of the Alcohol Problem, edited by Ernest Cherrington.* Johnson traveled and lectured frequently for the league. In 1919, while visiting England, he lost an eye after a stone was thrown at him during a debate. He was considered a martyr to the cause among American temperance reformers.* In 1922 Johnson became director of the London-based World League Against Alcoholism* and traveled extensively during the 1920s, taking the antialcohol message to numerous countries. He retired in 1930 and moved back to New York state. He married Lillian M. Trevitt in 1886, with whom he had two children. She died in 1927. The following year he married Mary B. Stanley. Johnson died in 1945 at his home in Smithville Flats, New York, of post-heart-attack complications. References: McKenzie, Frederick Arthur, "Pussyfoot" Johnson: Crusader, a Beformer, a Man among Men (1920); DATB (1984), 2 6 1 263; NatCAB 35 (1949), 502; SEAP 3 (1926), 1408-1413; obituary, NYT, February 3, 1945. Johnson-Reed Immigration Restriction Act of 1924 The Immigration Restriction Act of 1924 culminated a series of state and federal laws that had begun in the 1880s. It established a quota system based upon country of origin and shut the door on America's traditional open-door immigration* policy. In the immediate p r e - and postWorld War I* years, a rapid influx of Catholic* and Jewish* immigrants poured into the country from Southern and Eastern Europe. This led to a surge of nativism* among Anglo Americans* and the revitalization of the Ku Klux Klan.* Nativistic, prohibition,* public health,* and eugenic* interests called for restriction of these "undesirable" aliens. To address the immigration problem, Congressmen Albert Johnson,* chair of the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, was charged with introducing a new immigration restriction bill. Leaders of the eugenics movement* including Madison Grant* and Harry Laughlin,* had input into this process. Laughlin testified as an "expert witness" in 1920. Laughlin suggested, based upon his 1914 survey of "feebleminded" residents of state
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institutions, that aliens from Southern and Eastern Europe were hindering rather than helping American society inasmuch as they were overrepresented among institutionalized people and did not readily adapt to American life. In 1921, after Johnson unsuccessfully tried to suspend immigration for two years, Congress passed and President Warren Harding (1865-1923) signed a bill that created a quota system. It limited the annual immigration of people from each European country to 3 percent of the number of foreign-born persons counted in the 1910 census. This law was passed as a temporary measure. After public hearings, more surveys, and compromises, Johnson adopted Senator David A. Reed's "national origins plan." This plan had also been discussed the previous year by the Klan's Imperial Wizard Hiram Evans (1881-1966) in The Menace of Modern Immigration (1923). The 1924 bill, cosponsored by Johnson and Reed, was overwhelmingly passed by both houses. Signed by Calvin Coolidge on May 26, 1924, it shifted the base year for the immigration quota from 1910 to 1890. Until 1927, 2 percent of foreign born from each country could be admitted, which favored Northern European immigrants. In 1927 it was changed to a total of 150,000 immigrants per year, prorated according to the national origins of the population in 1920. Due to various delays the law did not take effect until July 1, 1929, and remained in effect until 1965. References: Higham, John, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925 (1955); Evans, Hiram W., The Menace of Modern Immigration (1923). Johnson, Roswell Hill (October 9,1877-January 17, 1967) A biologist and geologist, Johnson in later life became a sociologist and marriage counselor. He was an early proponent of eugenics* and also championed birth control* and sex education.* Born in Buffalo, New York, Johnson was the son of an oil producer and a descendent of old-stock New England families. Religiously he was Unitarian. He attended Brown and Harvard Universities in the late 1890s and graduated with a B.S. from the University of Chicago (1900) and a M.S. from University of Wisconsin (1903). Besides working as a high school teacher and then a biology instructor in Wisconsin (1901-1903) and Washington state (1903-1905), Johnson worked as a research assistant at the Carnegie Institution of Washington's* Station for Experimental Evolution in Cold Spring Harbor (1905-1908) under Charles Davenport,* the leading spirit of the eugenics movement.* There he studied geology part time at Columbia and in 1908 moved to Oklahoma and became a consulting oil geologist. In 1913 he joined the University of Pittsburgh's School of Mines. He was a geology professor at the university from 1916 to around 1933, when
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the department was abolished. Johnson then completed his sociology Ph.D. on "International Eugenics" in 1934 at Pittsburgh. Simultaneously with his geological career, Johnson became a pioneer of the eugenics movement and helped popularize the subject. He was a member of the American Breeders Association's* eugenics committee, created in 1906. In 1912-1913 he organized one of the first university eugenics courses at the University of Pittsburgh. In 1914 Johnson established a lifelong friendship with Paul Popenoe,* editor of the ABA's Journal of Heredity. Five years later the two men published Applied Eugenics (1918), which became a popular text used for many years in the classroom and helped popularize eugenics. Johnson advocated eugenics as part of the college curriculum. From 1929 to 1931 he gave a well-liked lecture series for the American Eugenics Society* on "Some Problems in Eugenics" to help stimulate courses in eugenics in colleges and universities around the country. Johnson took active leadership roles in several eugenics organizations and conferences, including the Race Betterment Foundation's* conference in 1914, sponsored by John Harvey Kellogg,* and the Second International Congress of Eugenics.* He was a founding member of the American Eugenics Society,* its second president (1926-1927), and a director for a number of years. Johnson was on the editorial board for Eugenics* (1929-1931), the official journal of the AES. He was also involved with the Eugenic Research Association.* Johnson supported the availability of birth control and gave credibility to the emerging birth-control movement. * At the First American Birth Control Conference* in 1921 he argued for legal access to contraception as an eugenics measure. Johnson, in a 1922 work, observed that "we have an alarmingly low birth rate from intellectually superior persons. We have on the other hand a disproportionate contribution from the inferior. Our most pressing problem is to increase the birth rate from the superior and to decrease that from the inferior." Along with birth control, Johnson was concerned about venereal diseases* and promoted social hygiene* education. In 1934 he spent a year as director of a newly organized social hygiene society in Honolulu. When this position ended a year later, he joined Popenoe's Institute of Family Relations and became director of its counseling department from 1936 until his retirement in 1959. In his later years he published numerous works on marriage counseling and was considered an expert in the area. Over his lifetime he had three marriages and fathered five children. His marriages included Mary Simmons (1900), Mary Brenk (1937), and Lois Blakey. He died in Los Angeles, probably of a stroke, in his home. References: "The Institute of Family Relations," Journal of Heredity 21 (April 1930), 173-174; Allen, Garland E., "The Eugenics Record Of-
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fice at Cold Spring Harbor, 1910-1940," Osiris, 2d ser., 2 (1986), 225-264; Johnson, Roswell H., "Eugenic aspects of birth control," Birth Control Beview (January 1922), 16; Little, Clarence C , "The Second International Congress of Eugenics," Eugenics Beview 13 (January 1922), 511-524; Popenoe, Paul, "Roswell Hill Johnson," FamilyBelations 27 (March 1967), 1-3, "Professor Johnson lectures," Eugenics 4 (February 1931), 69; AMS, 5th ed. (1933), 585; WhNAA (1976), 785; obituary, Los Angeles Times, January 19, 1967. Jordan, David Starr (January 19, 1851-September 19, 1931) A renowned educational leader and biologist, Jordan was a powerful and pivotal leader of many health-reform movements of the Progressive era. In particular, he was a leader of the eugenics movement* and integrated eugenic* concerns into other health and social causes. Jordan, the fourth of five children, was born in Gainesville, New York, the son of two teachers from proud, old-stock New England families. They also owned a prosperous farm, where Jordan learned about nature as a child. Religiously, they were Universalists. His father was strictly against tobacco* and alcohol.* As a child, Johnson was educated at home and in the local ungraded school, and at fourteen enrolled in a Gainesville seminary. At seventeen he taught in a village school near home for one term and then entered Cornell University on a full scholarship, which he received through competitive examination. He was so advanced in his knowledge of biology that he was appointed an instructor in biology in his junior year and rewarded an M.S. (1872) instead of a B.S. During the summers he went to the Penikese, New York, biological station. For most of the rest of his life he generally spent each summer collecting fish and other specimens from various parts of the world. Following graduation he held a series of short teaching positions and received an M.D. from the Indiana Medical College (1875). In 1879 he became head of biological science at Indiana University in Bloomington (1879-1885) and then university president (1885-1891) until he went to Stanford to become the first president of the recently established Leland Stanford Junior University. He built this institution into the world renowned Stanford University (1891-1913), where he felt "responsible for direct personal influence toward clean living among college students." Over his lifetime Jordan garnered an international reputation in ichthyology (the study of fishes) and won many honorary awards. Jordan, a pioneer of the eugenics movement, held leadership positions in the major eugenics organizations. In 1906 he chaired the eugenics committee of the American Breeders Association.* When this committee was raised to a full-fledged section in 1910, he became its chair, in addition to chair of the board of the Eugenics Record Office.* He was president of the board of the Eugenics Registry,*
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which evolved from the Second Race Betterment Conference* in 1915 as a measure to systematize family records, and was an early member of the American Eugenics Society.* Jordan supported eugenics legislation such as segregation and sterilization. He was concerned about race degeneracy* and race suicide* as a result of war due to the "fittest" men being drafted. He wrote many eugenics articles and books, including The Heredity ofBichard Boe: A Discussion of the Principles of Eugenics (1911), in which he presented his eugenics theory. His nativistic* leanings intertwined with eugenics, which led to his opposition to unrestricted immigration.* As a leader of the social hygiene movement,* Jordan developed a lecture and booklet, The Strength of Being Clean—A Study of the Quest for Unearned Happiness: A White Cross Address (1900), which he presented on numerous occasions under the auspices of the White Cross Society.* He was made honorary president (1912) of the American Vigilance Society, which became the American Social Hygiene Association,* and coined the term "red plague"* for venereal diseases.* He considered the transmission of these diseases a "hideous and dastardly crime" and argued for medical test of all males before marriage. Jordan was a friend of the pure food and drug,* public health,* antismoking,* and temperance* movements. He considered "nerve foods, tonics, and appetizers," and drugs poisonous. He repeatedly spoke out against alcohol and tobacco use and contended that "boys who smoke cigarettes are like wormy apples that fall from the tree before they are ripe." Jordan was a founder and board member of Charles Pease's* Non-Smoking Protective League (1911-c. 1929). He voiced his disapproval of the saloon,* as it was associated with prostitution* and sexually transmitted diseases. He supported the formation of a public health department at the federal level. Jordan supported other causes, including woman suffrage* and physical education.* He believed that the YMCA* prevented moral collapse among young men. In his latter years Jordan became a crusader for international peace. He received numerous honorary degrees and belonged to many societies. He was a member of the board of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene* and the Carnegie Foundation. Jordan was a prolific writer, publishing over 1,000 articles and books on a variety of subjects, including a two-volume autobiography, The Days of a Man (1922). He married Susan Bowen in 1875, who died ten years later; in 1887 he married Jessie Knight. The two marriages yielded six children. Jordan died of a stroke related to heart disease and diabetes at his home at Stanford. References: Gray, H. S., "The boy and the cigarette habit," Education 29 (January 1909), 294-315; Jordan, David Starr, The Blood of the Nation: A Study of the Decay of Baces Through the Survival of the Unfit (1902), "By President
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Jordan of Stanford," Association Men (February 1906), 203, "Cretinism in Aosta," Eugenics Beview 2 (April 1910-January 1911), 247248, The Days of a Man, vols. 1-2 (1922), The Heredity ofBichard Boe (1911), "What nationality are saloon-keepers," Independent 84 (December 6, 1915), 387, "Pioneer experiences," Journal of Social Hygiene 5 (October 1919), 572-573; DAB 5 (1932), 211-214; DSB 7 (1973), 169-170; obituary, NYT, September 20, 1931. The Jungle This pivotal novel, concerning the Chicago meat-packing industry, helped solidify passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.* Upton Sinclair,* a socialist writer, was assigned to investigate the conditions of workers in the meat-packing industry in an effort to draw attention to the plight of meat packers and to further the socialist cause. Sinclair spent several weeks in Chicago during 1904 gathering information. Discovering unsanitary and deplorable working conditions in the industry, he described situations that became symbolic of meat-packing conditions and the adulterated food* problem. These included a workman falling into a vat of lard and a pig slipping off the production line into the men's privy. Sinclair's novel was first printed serially in Appeal to Beason, a socialist publication. After five rejections, The Jungle was published February 1906 by Doubleday, Page. Sinclair sent a copy to President Theodore Roosevelt.* The book fermented national outrage against the meat industry. Roosevelt, responding to pressure generated by the horrendous conditions described in the book, sent a commission that included James Reynolds,* a New York attorney, to Chicago to investigate Sinclair's claims. When the commission confirmed the filthy conditions, Roosevelt initially attempted to withhold the results, but Sinclair and other writers launched an exposure campaign. These writers became known as muckrakers* after Roosevelt chastised them. In the aftermath of the novel and other reports, meat consumption fell. Both the public and professional groups such as the American Medical Association* and the American Public Health Association* pressured Congress to enact legislation for sanitary foods. The meat and patent medicine* manufactures for several years, through lobbying, had prevented any legislation to tighten food and drug laws. The Jungle tipped the balance in favor of the pure food and drug movement* and the passage of the Pure Food and Drug and the Meat Inspection* acts in June 1906. References: Dell, Floyd, Upton Sinclair: A Study in Social Protest (1927); Sinclair, Upton, The Jungle (1906); Young, James H., "The pig that fell into the privy: Upton Sinclair's The Jungle and the meat inspection amendments of 1906," Bulletin of the History of Medicine 59 (Winter 1985), 467-480.
K Kallikak, Jukes, and Nam FamiliesThese fictitious names were assigned to "degenerate" families investigated by eugenicists.* During the Progressive era the Kallikak, Jukes, and Nam families popularized the conception that alcoholism,* pauperism,* insanity, feeblemindedness, and criminality were inherited. These names became symbols of race degeneracy* and the need for eugenics laws such as sterilization and institutionalization to prevent further reproduction of the "unfit." The first study to explore the inheritance of feeblemindedness was The Jukes (1877) by Richard Dougdale (1841-1883). After tracing several generations of this family, he concluded that feeblemindedness, shiftlessness, and pauperism were inherited. In 1906 the Training School for Backward and Feeble-Minded Children at Vineland, New Jersey, opened a laboratory for the study of feeblemindedness. Henry H. Goddard,* its director, after several years of research published The Kallikak Family (1912), the most famous of all the eugenic family investigations. The name Kallikak came from the Greek words kalos (good) and kakos (bad). This study purported to show two branches of the same family over six generations. One branch was descended from Martin Kallikak, "of a good family," and a "nameless feeble-minded girl." The other branch was decended from Martin and an upstanding "Quakeress" whom he married. Goddard maintained that the many descendants of the feebleminded girl also exhibited feeblemindedness in addition to being alcoholics, criminals, and paupers. However, descendants of his legitimate family produced many upstanding citizens and professionals. Based upon his study, Goddard concluded that feeblemindedness was likely inherited through simple Mendelian inheritance* and recommended that these unfit individuals be prevented from reproducing.
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Charles Davenport,* director of the Eugenics Record Office,* coauthored with one of his field workers, Florence H. Danielson (b. 1886), The Hill Folk. This study investigated two family trees in a small Massachusetts town spawned from the union of two "defective" individuals. They noted that "feblemindedness, immorality, and alcoholism were rife" among this group. During the same year, Davenport coauthored with Arthur Estabrook* The Nam Family: A Study in Cacogenics (1912), concerning an inbred rural community in New York state. They concluded that laziness, alcoholism, and pauperism were inherited. When notes of Richard Dougdale's original study of the Jukes were discovered, Estabrook traced the contemporary decedents of the Jukes family. The Carnegie Institution of Washington* published this study as The Jukes in 1915 (1916). Estabrook concluded from interviews and information from 1,258 descendants that "one half of the Jukes were and are feeble-minded, mentally incapable of responding normally to the expectations of society." More important, the report argued for sterilization and permanent custodial care of feebleminded men and women of childbearing age, in addition to sterilization of those with defects whom society wished to eliminate. In 1917 Estabrook conducted a eugenics survey in Indiana and in the mid-1920s Henry Farnham Perkins* began the Vermont Eugenics Survey. These eugenics reports popularized and reinforced a belief in the inheritance of feeblemindedness. The "menace of the feebleminded" became the battle cry of an intensive crusade to control the mentally deficient through eugenical legislation* over the course of the eugenics movement.* References: Danielson, Florence H., and Davenport, Charles B., The Hill Folk: Beport on a Bural Community of Hereditary Defects (1912); Goddard, Henry H., The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of Feeble-Mindedness (1912); Haller, Mark H., Eugenics: Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought (1963); Kevles, Daniel J., In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity (1985); Pickens, Donald, Eugenics and the Progressives (1968). Keeley Cure This "gold cure" was a popular treatment for alcoholism,* tobacco,* and drug addiction* during the Progressive era. Developed by physician Leslie E. Keeley (1832-1900), the first treatment center was established in Dwight, Illinois, in 1879. Keeley Institutes were franchise facilities and several hundred were established across the country. By the 1890s every state and many European countries had a Keeley Institute. These centers were the first institutions to exclusively treat addictions. The treatment consisted of a "Reconstructive Nerve Tonic having the Double Chloride of Gold and Sodium for its basis, which will in every case, without exception, forever
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relieve the nervous system of the acquired necessity for Alcohol, Opium, Morphine, or any other stimulant or narcotic." At the centers, patients stayed in hotels or boarding houses and went to the clinic four times a day where they were administered a hypodermic injection. In addition, they were directed to take a dose of bichloride-of-gold mixture every two hours when awake. Treatment generally lasted from two to four weeks. Keeley claimed about 95-percent effectiveness. As part of the treatment regimen, group therapy and community involvement were encouraged. "Graduates" of the centers were encouraged to form Keeley Leagues in their local communities. When Keeley died, his partners carried on the work they had helped launch. However, only eleven Keeley institutes survived into the 1920s. The American Medical Association* considered the treatment quackery. References: Mines, John Flavel, "Drunkenness is curable," North American Beview 153 (October 1891), 442-449; White, William L., Slaying the Dragon: The History of Addiction Treatment and Becovery in America (1998). Kellogg, John Harvey (February 26, 1852-December 14, 1943) A physician, eugenicist,* and physical fitness and vegetarian* promoter, Kellogg was a major leader of the Progressive era's healthreform movement. This dynamic reformer with a complex life was a nucleus around which the second Clean Living Movement* evolved. Kellogg profoundly influenced numerous movements, including pure food and drug,* public health,* personal hygiene,* physical culture* and exercise, temperance,* purity,* and eugenics. Born in Tyrone Township, Missouri, the son of a devout Seventh-Day Adventist broom maker and his second wife, a schoolteacher, Kellogg was a sickly child, threatened with an early death from tuberculosis.* He worked in his father's shop and was largely educated at home. At age twelve he apprenticed in an Adventist printing shop and was persuaded to become a vegetarian by reading articles that Ellen White (1827-1915), the Adventist's prophet, submitted for printing. Kellogg's health improved and he rose to editorial assistant at the publishing house, taught school, and attended several schools, including Russell Trail's (1812-1877) hydropathic college. Kellogg then spent a year at the University of Michigan Medical School but transferred to Bellevue Hospital Medical College in New York city, where he received his M.D. (1875). In 1876 he became medical superintendent of the Western Health Reform Institute in Battle Creek, which the Adventists had founded ten years earlier. Kellogg renamed it the Battle Creek Sanitarium.* It was a combination of a European spa, hydrotherapy institution, and hospital. His program of "biologic living" at the "San"—the pet name
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for the institution—banned alcoholic* drinks, meat, tea, coffee, tobacco,* and spices. Besides a vegetarian diet, the daily regimen included proper exercise, sensible clothing, sunshine, bathing, and rest. For the first two decades of his health activities, Kellogg enjoyed wide Adventist support. However, when he attempted to expand his initiatives into other areas, he ran into open conflict with the church leadership over control of the Sanitarium and church doctrine. This animosity eventually resulted in Kellogg becoming disfellowshiped from the church on November 10,1907. However, the Sanitarium prospered under Kellogg's direction. In the early decades of the twentieth century, hundreds of prominent Americans visited the institution for cures. Sometime after 1902, Kellogg adopted a fashion of dressing all in white and it became his trademark. He also had lengthy court battles with his brother, Will Keith Kellogg (1860-1951), over the rights to the Kellogg name for the breakfast cereal* business. The Kellogg brothers had developed precooked cereals at the San in the last two decades of the nineteenth century, but W. K. started his own company in 1906. Court settlements in 1920 eventually resolved that W. K. Kellogg be given the right to the name, and his company grew into the large food conglomerate that prospers today. J. H. Kellogg affiliated with numerous groups and influenced American thinking on many health topics. He presented his health doctrines and promoted his "biologic living" at numerous professional and nonprofessional conferences, meetings, and lectures presented to church groups, universities, the YMCA,* and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union.* His abundant publications were widely disseminated. Kellogg influenced the public health and preventive medicine* movements in the two decades on either side of the turn of the twentieth century. He attended sanitation conventions and gave expert advice on his specialty of proper ventilation and prevention of water contamination. He stressed personal hygiene and taught the germ theory of disease when it was still in its infancy. Kellogg was a member of the Committee of One Hundred,* which pushed for a national department of health. A skilled surgeon, he developed successful surgical techniques. He was a major player in the diet and nutrition,* physical education* and physical culture movements. He collaborated with Horace Fletcher,* Irving Fisher,* and Russell H. Chittenden* in experiments on diet and encouraged Fletcher's system of thorough chewing at the Sanitarium. To encourage regular physical exercise, he developed several series of gymnastics designed to both promote general health and correct specific physiological problems, and developed mechanical exercise equipment. Kellogg promoted the bicycle and personally rode one for most of his life. He was a leading opponent of the corset on
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grounds it restricted women in physical activity and led to pulmonary problems. Kellogg condemned the use of patent medicines,* alcohol,* and tobacco.* He argued that tobacco was a major cause of heart disease. Active in the purity movement, Kellogg and his wife served as superintendents of the department of purity for the WCTU in the early 1880s. He preached against "self-abuse," championed raising age-of-consent* laws, and advocated a single standard of sexuality. He was a member of the National Purity Congress * in 1895, where he expressed concerns about the transmission of venereal disease* to the "progeny of the impure" that caused "general constitutional feebleness, weakness of will, lack of mental, moral and physical stamina, with little resistance to disease." Kellogg was highly influential in the eugenics movement.* He advocated eugenic marriages at the very dawn of the movement in the late 1800s. In his Plain Facts for Old and Young, a sex education* publication first printed in 1877 and reprinted in 1888, he suggested that people suffering with "hereditary" diseases should not marry and have children. These diseases included tuberculosis, syphilis, cancer, leprosy, epilepsy, skin diseases, nervous disorders, and insanity. He argued that transmission of these conditions was a "crime against the race." In addition, Kellogg espoused the doctrine of acquired characteristics* long after other American scientists had refuted the theory. Kellogg continued to suggest that use of alcohol, tobacco, tea, and coffee, improper methods of dress, and unhealthy foods led to feeblemindedness, insanity, crime,* and pauperism* and voiced hope that evidence would prove that correct health habits would improve future generations. To further the eugenics cause, he founded the Race Betterment Foundation* in 1906, which over its lifetime sponsored three Race Betterment Conferences.* At the first conference, in 1914, attended by a variety of health reformers, Kellogg strongly suggested, "We have wonderful new races of horses, cows, and pigs. Why should we not have a new and improved race of men?" He encouraged the establishment of a Eugenics Registry* "to establish a race of human thoroughbreds." This registry was established in 1915 under his guidance, in partnership with the Eugenics Record Office* at Cold Spring Harbor, New York; Kellogg was secretary of the board. He was also a financial sponsor of the Third International Eugenical Congress* in New York city in 1932. A prolific author, Kellogg promoted his health ideas in numerous books and tracts. His first work, The Proper Diet for Man (1874), advocated a vegetarian diet. One of his most popular works was a subscription publication, The "Home Hand-Book" of Domestic Hygiene and Bational Medicine (1880). Kellogg married Ella Ervilla
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Eaton (1879), but their marriage was supposedly never consummated. With no children of their own, they raised over forty foster children. Kellogg actively promoted health causes until the end of his life. He died in Battle Creek from pneumonia after a long, reformist life. References: Carson, Gerald, Cornflake Crusade (1957); Kellogg, J. H., Plain Facts for Old and Young ([1877] 1974); "Needed—a new human race," in Robins, Emily F., ed., Proceedings of the First National Conference on Bace Betterment, January 8, 9,10,11,12,1914 (1914), 431-450; "The Eugenics Registry," in Official Proceedings of the Second National Conference on Bace Betterment, August 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8, 1915. Held in San Francisco, California (1915), 76-87; Schwarz, Richard William, John Harvey Kellogg, M. D. (1981); AB (1985), 494-496; ANB 12 (1999), 499-501; DAB sup. 3 (1973), 409411; DAMB 1 (1984), 408; obituary, Battle Creek Enquirer and News, December 15, 1943. Knopf, Sigard Adolphus (November 27,1857-July 15,1940) A physician and public health leader, Knopf championed tuberculosis* prevention and cure. He also had links with the birth-control,* eugenics,* and social hygiene* movements during the Progressive era. Knopf was born at Halle-on-the-Saale, Germany, and received his early education in the local schools. He came to the United States in 1880 and taught languages in Los Angeles, California. He was a student at the University of Southern California (1884-1886) and received his M.D. from Bellevue Hospital Medical School, New York city. Returning to Los Angeles, he practiced medicine for two years and then in 1890 went to Paris, where he graduated from the Sorbonne at the University of Paris with an A.B. and B.S. (1891). Knopf worked in Paris hospitals for four years while attending medical school at the University of France, where he received his second medical degree (1895). After graduation he worked in a tuberculosis hospital. Upon his return to the United States in 1896, he established a practice in New York city as a specialist in the disease. Over the next twenty years he instructed and consulted in many hospitals and sanatoriums in the city and nearby states. During World War I* Knopf served as a captain in the U.S. Army Medical Corps, designing programs for tuberculosis and pneumonia prevention. Knopf was a pioneer in the American tuberculosis movement.* In 1899 he presented "Tuberculosis as a disease of the masses and how to combat it" at the International Congress to Combat Tuberculosis in Berlin. In 1901 this topic was published in book form and translated into thirty languages. In 1902 he helped form what became the Committee on Prevention of Tuberculosis of the Charity Organization Society* in New York city. Two years later, in 1904, Knopf helped
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form the first dispensary for the treatment of the "consumptive poor" and was on its board of directors. Knopf originated the idea of forming one national tuberculosis association. In 1904 Knopf was one of the founders of the National Tuberculosis Association,* and wrote A History of the National Tuberculosis Association (1922), which became a standard reference for the early history of the association and the tuberculosis movement. Knopf was involved in various other health committees and movements. He was a member of the Committee of One Hundred,* which pushed for a national department of health. He supported temperance* and recommended education, wise legislation, better diet, and recreation to combat the "alcoholic evil." He opposed the saloon* on grounds it had "ruined many a young man and made him a moral and physical wreck." In the second decade of the twentieth century Knopf became involved in the social hygiene, eugenics, and birthcontrol movements. He favored rehabilitation of prostitutes.* He viewed birth control* and eugenics* as interlinking concepts and saw tuberculosis as a racial poison* that contributed to race degeneracy.* Knopf saw tuberculosis as being associated with poverty* and alcoholism.* He argued that large families were associated with poverty, tuberculosis, alcoholism, venereal disease,* and mental defectiveness. To counter these problems and to produce a "better population," Knopf favored the establishment of public birth-control clinics. This philosophy was detailed in his booklet, Birth Control in Its Medical, Social, Economic, and Moral Aspects (1917). A supporter of eugenics,* he was a member of the organizing committee for the First National Conference for Race Betterment in 1914. At this conference he suggested that tubercular parents who bore children were criminals, recommended education to encourage them to refrain from parenthood until they were cured, and championed eugenical laws* such as mandatory sterilization for patients who "procreate wilfully." At the Second International Congress on Eugenics* in 1921 he detailed how eugenics was related to the "tuberculosis problem." Knopf was a prolific writer throughout his life and wrote over 400 books and pamphlets. Many awards and honors were conferred upon him. He married twice, but fathered no children. In 1889 he married Perle Nora Dyar, who died in 1931. In 1935 he married Julia Marie Frederick. Knopf died in a New York city hospital a week after surgery. References: Knopf, S. Adolphus, "Pulmonary consumption and the possibility of its eradication through the combined efforts of a wise government, well-trained physicians and an intelligent people," Maryland Medical Journal 47 (March 1904), 93-114, "Some suggestions for a more rational solution of the tuberculosis problem in the
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United States," in Robins, Emily E, ed., Proceedings of the First National Conference on Bace Betterment, January 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 1914 (1914), 113-136, "An arsenal of argument," Birth Control Beview 1 (April-May 1917), 8, A History of the National Tuberculosis Association (1922); CB (1940), 461; NatCAB 29 (1941), 54-55; obituary, NYT, July 16, 1940. Kober, George Martin (March 28, 1850-April 24, 1931) A physician, Kober was a pioneer of the public health,* preventive medicine,* sanitation,* and tuberculosis* movements. He was born in Alsfeld, Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany, the son of a cloth manufacturer. He was educated locally and emigrated to the United States (1866) upon the insistence of his father, who did not want his sons to serve in the military under the German principality. At age seventeen Kober joined his brother at the U.S. Army Carlisle barracks, where he enlisted and worked in the hospital. He was appointed in 1870 as hospital steward in the Frankford arsenal and in 1871 transferred to the surgeon general's office in Washington, D.C, where he worked with John Shaw Billings* in indexing German medical periodicals. He studied medicine during the evenings at Georgetown University. Kober received his M.D. (1873) and was the first graduate of a postgraduate course in clinical medicine. In 1874 he was appointed acting assistant surgeon for the U.S. Army and was ordered to California. He worked as an army surgeon in several western states, but left the service in 1886. In 1889 he was appointed as a professor of state medicine (hygiene) at Georgetown University Medical School. By 1893, due to investments, he became financially independent and devoted his time to teaching and public health work. In 1901 he was made dean of the medical department of Georgetown University, a position he held until his retirement in 1928. Kober influenced or was a leader in several health-reform movements. He was a pioneer of the tuberculosis movement. In the early 1890s he began to advocate prevention programs. He designed the tuberculosis* hospital in Washington, D.C, in the first decade of the twentieth century and served as president of what became the National Tuberculosis Association* (1915). He gave input to the beginnings of the social hygiene* and purity* movements in articles that discussed the link of prostitution* with venereal disease* and publications that gave advice for the prevention of these diseases. He recommended school hygiene* programs. He was a leader of the preventive medicine and sanitation aspects of the public health movement and advocated immunizations* to prevent disease. He called attention to the pollution of the Potomac River as the cause of typhoid in Washington. He battled for better overall sanitation and
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advocated more stringent sanitation measures to eliminate milk and waterborne disease. He argued, "One of the most pressing needs is an investigation into the pollution of water-supplies when such pollution affects or threatens to affect the sanitary condition of the people of more than one state." He suggested that milk was a major carrier of disease, including typhoid fever, scarlet fever, and tuberculosis, and promoted the inspection of dairies. He also pointed out that the fly was a vector for disease. He was president of several Washington, D.C, and international industrial hygiene and sanitation organizations. He was appointed a member of Committee of One Hundred,* which pushed for a national department of health. Over his lifetime he produced more than 200 publications and received several honorary degrees. Kober never married and died at his home in Washington, D.C, of heart disease. References: "Biography of Dr. George M. Kober," American Journal of Physical Anthropology 3 (March 1920), iii-vi; Kober, George M., "The progress and achievements of hygiene," Science 6 (November 26, 1897), 789-799; DAB 10 (1933), 483-484; DAMB 1 (1984), 421-422; WhAm 1 (1942), 689; obituary, NYT, April 25,1931. Ku Klux Klan (1915-1944) The leading example of a middle-class nativist* organization, the Ku Klux Klan, or Klan for short, was revitalized at the end of the Progressive era. In its peak years of influence during the mid-1920s, clergymen, professionals, businessmen, and politicians were its prominent members. The Klan rallied for prohibition,* eugenics,* purity,* universal health care, and immigration restriction.* It was against birth control,* illegal drugs,* and saloons.* It rose to power in the nativistic and anti-immigrant surge of the immediate p r e - and post-World War I* eras. The Klan furnished an outlet for the militant patriotism aroused by the war in an era when white middle-class men were looking for stability. The original Klan, formed in the post-Civil War reconstruction period, had become defunct by 1870. In 1915 William Joseph Simmons (1880-1945), a former Methodist minister and promoter of fraternal organizations, re-formed the group as the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan on Stone Mountain, Georgia, a week before the release of the much discussed film Birth of a Nation (1915) concerning the earlier Klan. In establishing his "pro-American" Invisible Empire, Simmons had been influenced by the books on which the film was based. Aided by professional promoters, Klan membership spread rapidly through both urban and rural areas in most states by the early 1920s. This new Klan advocated racial purity and old-stock Anglo-Saxon* Protestant* values. Fear of Catholic* and Jewish* immigrants,* who were perceived as attempting to destroy the country, and antipathy
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toward African Americans,* who were attempting to gain civil rights, fanned its popularity. In 1922 Hiram W. Evans (1881-1966), a dentist and national secretary of the Klan, wrested power from Simmons and became Imperial Wizard (president). Evans began to crusade for stringent immigration restriction. In his The Menace of Modern Immigration (1923), based upon the works of eugenicists Harry Laughlin* and Lothrop Stoddard* (who suggested immense health and mental problems among immigrants), Evans advocated a quota system based upon the 1880 census. This approach was adopted the following year in the Johnson-Reed Immigration Restriction Act of 1924.* By the mid-1920s the Klan had between 3 and 5 million members and had gained considerable political power from its "true Americanism" crusade. However, due to its rapid growth the central organization lost control and many members across the nation resorted to acts of violence. In addition to persecuting blacks, Catholics, Jews, and political radicals, Klan members "stood four-square for law enforcement and against bootleggers, moonshiners, and 'wild women.'" The Anti-Saloon League* had strong ties with the Klan and served as a conduit for Klan membership in several states. Several leaders of the league were also Klan members. An adjunct group, Women of the Ku Klux Klan, formed around 1923. It focused on social welfare and purity causes and crusaded against prostitution,* sex outside of marriage, and the double standard. Many members were also active members of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union.* The Klan began to lose members in the late 1920s as the result of scandals, terrorist activities, and changes in public opinion. By 1944 it was defunct. A third but splintered Klan movement emerged during the civil rights era of the 1960s. References: Blee, Kathleen M., Women oftheKlan-.Bacism and Gender in the 1920s (1991); Chalmers, David, Hooded Americanism (1965); Evans, Hiram W., The Menace of Modern Immigration (1923); Jackson, Kenneth T, The Ku Klux Klan in the City 1915-1930 (1967); Mecklin, John M., The Ku Klux Klan (1924); Simmons, William Joseph, The Klan Unmasked (1924); Wade, W. C, The Fiery Cross (1987).
L Laboratory of Social Hygiene (1912-1918) This psychological laboratory was established for determining the causes of prostitution* and the mental and physical status of women prison inmates, many of whom had been convicted of sex offenses. Leaders of the purity* and social hygiene* movements were also interested in possible links between saloons* and prostitution and venereal disease.* In 1911 a pamphlet written by Katharine Davis,* head of the reformatory for women at Bedford Hills, came to the attention of John D. Rockefeller, Jr.* Preliminary field work accomplished by Davis encouraged Rockefeller to establish the Bureau of Social Hygiene,* with Davis as a board member. The bureau bought seventy-one acres of land adjacent to the reformatory and established a psychological research lab. This new facility tested and classified new inmates sent to Bedford Hills in terms of intelligence, heredity, medical, psychiatric, vocational, and predisposing environmental factors. An agreement between the laboratory and the state reformatory to cover a term of five years went into effect in September 1912. Jean Weidensall (1879-1962), a psychologist, was appointed director of the psychology department for the laboratory. The data collectors were trained by two leaders of the eugenics movement,* Charles Davenport* of the Eugenics Research Office* and Henry Goddard.* Data from women at the institution compared to nonprison populations were published in Mentality of the Criminal Women (1916). For six years, before it closed in 1918, the research lab undertook studies of 761 women at six institutions. Although it conducted numerous studies and published many reports, it found no major causes of prostitution. References: Bullough, Vern L., "Katharine Bement Davis, sex research, and the Rockefeller Foundation," Bui-
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letin of the History of Medicine 62 (Spring 1988), 74-89; Davis, Katherine Bement, "Introduction," in Weidensall, Jean, The Mentality of the Criminal Woman (1916), ix-xiv. Lamarckian inheritance (see acquired characteristics) Laughlin, Harry Hamilton (March 11,1880-January 26,1943) Laughlin, a central figure of the eugenics movement,* was a champion of immigration restriction* and sterilization laws and a leader of the nativistic* faction of the movement. Although born in Oskaloosa, Iowa, Laughlin regarded Kirks ville, Missouri, to which his family moved in 1891, as home. His father was a professor of ancient languages and a Disciples of Christ minister. Harry was the only one of five brothers who did not study osteopathy,* opting instead to become a teacher after graduation from North Missouri State Normal School (1900). He taught biology, took biology courses at Iowa State University, and served as high school principal in the Kirksville area (19001905). From 1905 until 1907 he was superintendent of schools and taught agriculture courses at the normal school. Having become interested in breeding experiments, Laughlin, in 1907, contacted Charles Davenport* in Cold Spring Harbor, New York. Davenport, in turn, invited him in 1910 to become superintendent of the new Eugenics Record Office* to teach field-collection techniques and analyze the data. Laughlin stayed in this and other capacities at the ERO for twenty-nine years. During World War I* he completed doctoral work in biology at Princeton University (1917). However, his dissertation was the only rigorous study he undertook in his career. Between 1910 and 1939 Laughlin worked on most aspects of the eugenics movement. In particular, he championed eugenic* sterilization and immigration restrictions to "keep the life stream pure." He was involved with all major eugenic organizations and conferences. He was secretary of the American Breeders Association's* Committee on Sterilization, a member of the elitist Galton Society,* and an organizer of the second and third International Congresses of Eugenics,* at which he oversaw exhibits and was secretary of the publication committee. He was a founding member of both the Eugenics Research Association* and the American Eugenics Society* for which he served a term as president (1927-1929). For these two organizations, respectively, he was the coeditor of Eugenical News* and on the editorial board of Eugenics. Through his involvement with the ABA, Laughlin massed extensive data on sterilization, concluding that 10 percent of the population are an "economic and moral burden" on the rest of society and should be sterilized. This position was published by the ERO as
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Legal, Legislative, and Administrative Aspects of Sterilization (1914). Thanks to the notoriety he received from this and other works, he was seen as an expert in this field. This work was sent to Eugene Fischer, a leader of the German eugenics movement. It later became a major component of the Nazi race-hygiene program. In the United States Laughlin successfully lobbied for the passage of eugenical laws;* by 1935 some thirty states had passed sterilization laws. Besides advocacy for sterilization, Laughlin became increasingly involved in the immigration restriction movement and began to collect data on immigrants* under the auspices of the ABA committee. Albert Johnson,* chairman of the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, asked Laughlin to testify concerning the eugenic consequences of immigration in 1920. These comments were published by the Government Printing Office as Biological Aspects of Immigration (1921). Johnson appointed Laughlin "expert eugenical witness," with the assignment of comparing alien and Anglo-American* inmates in state institutions. The survey, published as Analysis of America's Modern Melting Pot (1923) as part of a hearing before the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, showed a disproportionate share of socially inadequate citizens from Southern and Eastern European extraction. This report played a crucial role in the Johnson-Reed Immigration Restriction Act of 1924.* In the 1920s and 1930s Laughlin, as primary editor of Eugenical News, published laudatory articles about the Nazi race-hygiene program. These publications embarrassed the Carnegie Institute of Washington,* and Carnegie officials began to investigate Laughlin's research in 1935. The institution found that the ERO's total collection of records was unsatisfactory for the study of human genetics. In 1936 Laughlin was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Heidelberg, then under Nazi control, which caused further embarrassment to the institute. After involved negotiations, Laughlin was asked to resign in 1937 and he retired to Kirksville, Missouri. He married Pansy Bowen (1902) but had no children. Laughlin had epileptic seizures, one of the traits that he and other eugenicists had wanted to purify out of the population. In his later years his health deteriorated and he died in Kirksville six years after his forced retirement. References: "The progress of American eugenics," Eugenics 2 (February 1929), 3-16; "Eugenical sterilization in Germany," Eugenical News 18 (September-October 1933), 90-93; "Moron marriage," Eugenical News 19 (July-August 1934), 109; Allen, Garland E., "The Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor, 1910-1940," Osiris, 2d ser., 2 (1986), 225-264; Laughlin, Harry H., The Scope of the Committee's Work, Eugenics Record Office bulletin no. 10A (1914), 12-14, Eugenical Sterilization in the United States (1922);
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Reilly, Philip R., The Surgical Solution: A History of Involuntary Sterilization in the United States (1991); DAB sup. 3 (1973), 4 4 5 446; ANB 13 (1999), 252-253; obituary, NYT, January 28, 1943. Lever Food and Fuel Control Act (August 10,1917) This act was an emergency food and natural resources conservation measure at the beginning of World War L* An amendment to the act banned the use of grains and foodstuffs for the production of distilled spirits.* The law was enacted to encourage production, conserve supply, and control distribution of foods, fuel, and many other commodities deemed vital to the war effort. An amendment to the food-control bill in June 1917 forbade "the use of all food and feed products in the manufacture of alcoholic beverages during the period of the war"; it was passed by the House due to lobbying efforts on the part of the Anti-Saloon League.* However, because the amendment also forbade producing beer* and wine, the Senate refused to pass it. Following a letter from President Wilson (1856-1924) to the league on the importance of passing this emergency wartime bill, they agreed not to obstruct its passage in either house if brewers* and wineries were exempt. The passage of the bill and the amendment, effective September 8, 1917, until the end of the war, effectively shut down the distilling industry. However, prohibition* forces, spurred by antiGerman* and nativist* sentiments, lobbied for more restrictive laws. Further legislation, commonly known as the War Prohibition Act,* passed the following year, forbidding the manufacturing of beer and wine in the summer of 1919. The Lever Act was the first step toward national prohibition before passage of the Eighteenth Amendment.* References: "Distilleries interned for the war," Literary Digest 55 (September 22, 1917), 18; "President Wilson secures a reprieve for beer and wine," Current Opinion 63 (August 1917), 71-72; Blocker, Jack S., Jr., American Temperance Movements: Cycles of Beform (1989); Hamm, Richard E, Shaping of the Eighteenth Amendment: Temperance Beform, Legal Culture, and the Policy, 1880-1920 (1995); Kerr, K. Austin, Organized for Prohibition: A New History of the Anti-Saloon League (1985); Odegard, Peter H., Pressure Politics: The Story of the Anti-Saloon League (1928); Timberlake, James H., Prohibition and the Progressive Movement, 1900-1920 (1963). Life Extension Institute (LEI) (1913-present) The Life Extension Institute was a commercial venture that promoted annual physical examinations and the prevention of disease through healthy living as a way to improve the health and life expectancy of productive members of society. It championed the principles of many Progressiveera health reform movements, including the antitobacco cause, eu-
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genics,* temperance,* physical education,* public health,* and pure food and drugs.* The stated aims of the organization were "(1) to provide the individual and the physician with the latest and best conclusions on individual hygiene; (2) to ascertain the exact and special needs of the individual through periodic health examinations; (3) to induce all persons who are found to be in need of medical attention to visit their physicians." The LEI was founded December 29, 1913, in New York by Harold Ley (1872-1956), a wealthy Massachusetts businessman, and Irving Fisher,* who was involved with many health-reform issues. Eugene Fisk* was hired as its medical director. Former President William Howard Taft (1857-1930) was appointed honorary chairman of the board. The organization created a "hygiene reference board" to obtain the latest scientific information to help it in its health campaign, with Fisher as chair. This board included the leaders of many healthreform movements of the Progressive era. A major function of the institute was to perform physical examinations through contracted physicians for insurance policy holders. Insurance companies such as Metropolitan Life, one of the institute's major clients, considered that "periodic examinations" and then referral to physicians for treatment of illness saved lives and money. Another function of the institute was to organize hygiene workshops for corporate clients and to publish health-promotion materials. Its most noted work was How to Live, written by Fisher and Fisk. This popular manual was published from 1915 until 1942, went through twenty-one editions, and was also used as an educational text. The book promoted the principles of diet, eugenics, physical education, preventive medicine,* and rest, and eschewed the use of tobacco,* alcohol,* and narcotics.* It relied on the expertise of several members of its hygiene board. Davenport wrote the eugenics section and Kellogg provided input to many other sections of the book. From its founding until Fisk's death in 1931, the institute was widely known in business and health circles. After Fisk's death it declined in influence. In the early 1930s the organization was forced, through a lawsuit, to cease offering annual physical examinations to clients because of opposition from physicians who saw it as competition to their private practices. In addition, corporations began to provide their own physical examinations. In the 1950s the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company ceased to provide examinations to its policyholders. The LEI still exists and contracts with businesses to provide preventive medicine and health promotion. References: Fisher, Irving, and Fisk, Eugene Lyman, How to Live: Bules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science (1916); Hirshbein, Laura Davidow, "Masculinity, work, and the fountain of youth: Irving Fisher and the
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Life Extension Institute, 1914-31," Canadian Bulletin of Medical History 16 (January 1999), 89-124; NYT, December 30, 1913. Lincoln-Lee Legion Pledge This abstinence pledge for children was prevalent in the first three decades of the twentieth century. The Lincoln Legion was founded by Howard Russell* in 1903 as a moralsuasion pledge-signing program. Its goal was to get schoolchildren to sign a pledge to abstain from all alcoholic* beverages. At an AntiSaloon League* meeting in 1912, the pledge crusade was renamed the Lincoln-Lee Legion to honor a son of the south. Both General Robert E. Lee and President Abraham Lincoln had advocated a temperate lifestyle free from intoxicating liquors. Pledge signing was promoted through Sunday schools and temperance* meetings. Girls who signed the pledge were "Willards," named after Francis Willard.* Northern boys were "Lincolns," and southern boys "Lees." By 1925 over 5 million had signed the total-abstinence pledge cards. The pledge reads as follows: "Whereas, the use of intoxicating liquors as a beverage is productive of pauperism, degradation and crime; and believing it our duty to discourage that which produces more evil than good, we therefore pledge ourselves to abstain from the use of intoxicating liquors as a beverage." References: Odegard, Peter H., Pressure Politics: The Story of the Anti-Saloon League (1928); SEAP 1 (1926), 184. liquor traffic or trade "Liquor traffic" was a term that referred to all aspects of the alcohol* beverage industry. It included "all those men, moneys, interests, organizations and other business accompaniments necessary to the production and sale of intoxicating liquors of any kind." Increased hostility toward the industry on the part of middleclass Americans was a factor on the road toward national prohibition.* Like other enterprises, the alcohol industry had undergone expansion in the last decades of the nineteenth century. Brewers* enjoyed spectacular gains and were the richest and most powerful producers in the industry, compared to distillers and vintners. Like other big businesses during the Progressive era, however, this industry came under fire for its monopolistic tendencies and unethical practices, contributing to antialcohol sentiments. Alcohol and the saloon* were considered to be the root causes of many social problems, including crime,* prostitution,* poverty,* venereal disease,* and family and racial degeneration.* Temperance reformers* reasoned that if saloons were closed and the alcohol beverage industry curtailed, many of society's ills would disappear. In the earlier phases of the temperance movement,* distilled spirits* were the prime targets of temperance reformers; beer* and wine were of-
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ten considered temperance* drinks. However, as the movement gravitated toward prohibition, all alcoholic beverages and anyone associated with the alcohol beverage industry became demonized. Nativistic* and anti-immigrant* sentiments also helped fuel antipathy toward the industry. Reformers noted that much of the trade was "in the hands of low-class foreigners" with German* and Irish* backgrounds. Anti-German sentiments in the World War I* era, fanned by the Anti-Saloon League,* brought hostility toward the breweries, which were often owned by German Americans. As a result, "beer gardens" were forced to close. Under the War Prohibition Act* and the Eighteenth Amendment,* all legal liquor traffic ceased and many businesses were forced to close or find other enterprises. References: Higham, John, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925 (1955); Jordan, David Starr, "What nationality are saloonkeepers," Independent84 (December 6,1915), 387; Timberlake, James H., Prohibition and the Progressive Movement, 1900-1920 (1963); Rumbarger, John J., Profits, Power, and Prohibition: Alcohol Beform and the Industrialization of America 1800-1930 (1989); Warner, Harry S., Social Welfare and the Liquor Problem: A Series of Studies in the Sources of the Problem and How They Belate to Its Solution (1909). Little, Clarence Cook (October 6, 1888-December 22, 1971) A university president, geneticist, and cancer researcher, Little was a leader in the social hygiene,* birth-control,* and eugenics* movements. He was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, to an old-stock AngloAmerican* Episcopalian family. His father was an architect and businessman. Little attended private schools, graduated from Harvard University with both a B.A. (1910) and a Ph.D. (1914), and began to be involved with administration positions at the university. He also bred mice and over his career developed special strains for cancer and other research. From 1921 to 1922 he served as assistant director of the Station for Experimental Evolution of the Carnegie Institution of Washington* under the direction of Charles Davenport.* Little was president of the University of Maine (1922-1925) and then president of the University of Michigan (1925-1929). He was forced to resign the Michigan presidency because he supported the teaching of birth control* and was against alcohol* and automobiles on campus. He also believed women should have a different curriculum so as to prepare them for motherhood. This philosophy of education is explained in his book, The Awakening College (1930). In later life, against prevailing opinion that smoking was associated with disease, he became scientific director of the Tobacco Research and Industry Organization in 1954.
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The year 1929 was significant for Little. Besides resigning from the University of Michigan, he was appointed head of the American Society for the Control of Cancer (changed to American Cancer Society in 1944), a post he retained until retirement from the society in 1945. He helped found and became director of the Roscoe B. Jackson Experimental Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, and was its director until his retirement in 1956. In 1929 he obtained a divorce from Katharine Andrew, whom he married in 1911; they had three children. The following year he married his laboratory assistant, Beatrice Johnson, with whom he had two children. Little actively promoted birth control, social hygiene,* and eugenics* and saw the three as interlinking issues. Like many others in the first few decades of the century, he was convinced that injury to the "germ plasm" could be caused by racial poisons* such as venereal diseases.* This damage to genetic material, in turn, was thought to lead to race degeneracy. * Over his lifetime he held leadership positions and belonged to numerous eugenics, social hygiene, birth-control, and other health organizations. He was committed to Margaret Sanger's* birth-control movement and served as the scientific director of the American Birth Control League* for twenty years (1925-1945). In New York city during 1921, he was general secretary of the Second International Congress of Eugenics* and involved with the First American Birth Control Conference.* Little was a member of the Galton Society,* the Eugenics Research Association,* and on the advisory committee of the American Genetic Association (American Breeders Association*). He was president of the Third National Conference on Race Betterment in Battle Creek, Michigan (1928-1929), sponsored by John Harvey Kellogg,* and edited its proceedings. He was president briefly of the American Eugenics Society* (1928-1929), became vice president of the American Social Hygiene Association,* and was involved with the American Public Health Association.* Little died near Bar Harbor, Maine, of a heart attack. References: "Two new college presidents," School and Society 15 (April 29,1922), 467; Inman, Mary Louise, "The national birth control conference," Eugenics 3 (January 1930), 12-17; Little, Clarence C, "The Second International Congress of Eugenics," Eugenics Beview 13 (January 1922), 511-524, Proceedings of the Third National Bace Betterment Conference, January 2-6,1928 [1928), The Awakening College (1930); CurBio (1944), 416-418; WhAm 5 (1973), 435; obituary, NYT, December 23, 1971.
M Macfadden, Bernarr (August 16,1868-October 12,1955) Macfadden, the patriarch of the physical culture movement,* was one of the more colorful figures of the Progressive era's Clean Living Movement.* Bernard Adolphus McFadden was born near Mill Springs, Missouri, to an alcoholic father and tubercular mother and was orphaned at an early age. He was an underfed and sickly child who was sent to a series of unhappy working situations throughout his childhood and early adulthood. To gain health, as a teenager Macfadden began to work with dumbbells. As a young adult he moved numerous times to different towns and cities in the Midwest as a wrestler and coach. He changed his name to Bernarr Macfadden because he thought it sounded more powerful. By the 1890s he embraced physical culture* as a preventive health doctrine and began to teach muscle building as a self-taught physical culturist. He taught in a St. Louis private academy for one year (1892-1893) and headed east in the mid-1890s. Macfadden developed exercise equipment and moved to New York city, where he opened his own gymnasium. In 1899 Macfadden launched a magazine, Physical Culture,* which became popular around the country because of the increased national interest in athletics, exercise, and body building. The motto for this magazine was, "Weakness is a crime; don't be a criminal." The purpose of the publication was to "preach the gospel of health, strength and the means of acquiring it." Based upon his vegetarian* physical fitness philosophy, he established sanatoriums* and restaurants. By 1935 Macfadden headed a giant magazine empire aimed at the mass market of nonliterary readers and was quite wealthy. However, near the end of his life his fortune was spent.
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As a health reformer, Macfadden popularized exercise and championed diets of whole grains, raw vegetables, salads, fruits, and nuts; he also rejected alcohol,* opposed the saloon,* and denounced tobacco.* To him all drugs were poison and were to be avoided. He preached the healing power of nature. The regular medical profession, allied with the American Medical Association,* considered him a quack. Unlike reformers of the physical education movement,* Macfadden became a proponent of a healthy sexuality. He considered sexual vitality an elemental facet of total health. He warned men that if they married a wife who lacked a vigorous sex drive, their marriages would likely fail, and preached that the sexual power of a man indicated his general physical and mental condition. Macfadden challenged convention, and even the law, to inform the public of his physical culture message. In his magazines he often showed pictures of himself or others in seminude "muscle" poses, which caused both the YMCA* and Anthony Comstock's* New York Society for the Suppression of Vice* to persecute him during the first decade of the century on several occasions. In 1905 Macfadden was arrested for exhibiting "obscene" advertising posters for an upcoming exhibition he was staging on "beauty and brawn" in Madison Square Garden. These posters depicted young women wearing two layers of "union suits" with a sash around their waist. His Physical Culture magazine was seized in 1907 as a result of articles on venereal disease* transmission. Publicity about these arrests served to promote more liberal standards in the press and helped change national attitudes to more open discussion of sexuality and disease prevention and gave fuel to the social hygiene movement.* His Encyclopedia of Physical Culture, published from 1912 until the 1950s, covered various aspects of physical education and personal hygiene.* Besides being the patriarch of physical culture, he was also the father of the "confessional magazines," such as True Story, which he started in 1919. Macfadden supported both the birth-control* and eugenics* movements. He also had nativistic* concerns about the "immigrant threat." Macfadden married four times (Tillie Fontaine in the late 1890s, Marguerite Kelly in 1901, Mary Williamson in 1913, and Jonnie Lee in 1948). He sired a "physical culture family" of seven children and had many sexual partners. He died at the age of eightyfive from complications stemming from a bout of fasting at the Jersey City Medical Center. References: Engs, Ruth Clifford, Clean Living Movements: American Cycles of Health Beform (2000); Ernst, Robert, Weakness Is a Crime: The Life of Bernarr Macfadden (1991); Green, Harvey, Fit for America (1986); Maxcy, Spencer J., and Todd, Terry, "The educational philosophy of a superman: Bernarr Macfadden and the physical culture movement," Vitae Scholasticae 6 (Spring
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1987), 155-183; Macfadden, Mary H., and Gauvreau, Emile H., Dumbbells and Carrot Strips: The Story of Bernarr MacFadden (1953); Taft, William H., "Bernarr Macfadden," Missouri Historical Beview 63 (October 1968), 71-89; Whorton, James C , Crusaders for Fitness: The History of American Health Beformers (1982); DAA (1904), 242; obituary, NYT, October 13,1955. Mann Act of 1910 This legislative act was a victory in the purity movement's* drive to eliminate prostitution* rather than regulate it. It was the culmination of the Progressive era's agitation to eliminate supposed widespread forced prostitution, or white slavery, of women and girls. Although some reform groups, such as the Woman's Christian Temperance Union,* had attempted to do something about prostitution in the United States in the last two decades of the nineteenth century, they were only marginally successful. In 1904 several European countries had come to an international agreement banning the "traffic in white women." Soon afterward the problem was "discovered" in the United States. In 1906 Grace Dodge,* Prince Morrow,* and others organized the National Vigilance Committee,* which lobbied various government agencies to secure legislation against organized "vice,"* both at home and abroad. After 1909 this and other purity* groups, along with the U.S. Immigration Commission's report on importation of European women for prostitution, the prosecutions of immigrant "pimps," and muckraking* journalism, all served to push for sanctions of what was perceived as a "widespread evil." Congressman James R. Mann (1856-1922), leader of the Republican minority of the House, introduced a bill to Congress. On June 25, 1910, Congress passed the Mann Act, known as the "White Slave Law." The act went into effect in July 1910 and mandated that the "transportation of a woman or girl in interstate or foreign commerce for immoral purposes is the crime of white slavery, and is punishable by imprisonment for not more than five years and a fine of not more than $5,000, the penalty being doubled when the girl is under eighteen." Under the law it was not necessary to prove abduction, kidnaping, or forcible detention. The law was upheld in March 1913 by the Supreme Court. This action was considered evidence that the Court would uphold the constitutionality of other legislation, such as the Webb-Kenyon Act,* which forbade the transportation of liquor from wet into dry states. The White Slave Law was controversial and considered "drastic and revolutionary" by the minority opposing it. Soon after its passage, however, most states and cities created civic vice commissions to investigate white slavery and prostitution. These investigations led to the closing of red-light districts in most cities. References: "Mann of Illinois, a
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leader who is always on the job," Current Opinion 56 (January 1914), 17-18; "The white slave decision," Literary Digest (March 8, 1913), 500-501; Grittner, Frederick K., White Slavery: Myth, Ideology and American Law (1990); Pivar, David J., Purity Crusade: Sexual Morality and Social Control, 1868-1900 (1973). Meat Inspection Act of 1906 The law that mandated the inspection of meat was one of the legislative peaks of the pure food and drug movement.* In January 1906 Upton Sinclair* published The Jungle.* The book constituted a conscious attempt to convert readers to socialism by presenting the grim lot of "packingtown" workers. Sinclair described in detail the filthy conditions under which meat was processed. Rather than promoting socialism, the book fomented national outrage against the meat industry; sales of meat products fell dramatically. The book proved to be a prime force in promoting the passage of pure food laws. President Theodore Roosevelt* shortly thereafter released part of a report by a federal investigating commission of the industry that corroborated the details in Sinclair's novel. On June 30, 1906, the first federal Pure Food and Drug Act* was signed into law. On the same day the Meat Inspection Act was passed. It gave the Department of Agriculture direct authority to inspect animals in meat-packing plants. References: "Extensions of the Food and Drugs Act," Scientific American 14 (March 7, 1914), 194; Goodwin, Lorine Swainston, The Pure Food, Drink, and Drug Crusaders, 1897-1914 (1999); Young, James H., "Two Hoosiers and the two food laws of 1906," Indiana Magazine of History 88 (December 1992), 303-319; Young, James H., Pure Food: Securing the Federal Food and Drugs Act of 1906 (1989). Mendelian theory or inheritance This theory of heredity was developed by the Moravian monk Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) in the 1860s. Mendel showed that specific traits in a particular variety of peas were passed from one generation to another in predictable mathematical ratios. However, this information was not widely distributed. In 1900 four Europeans, Hugo De Vries of Holland, William Bateson of England, Karl Correns of Germany, and Erich von Tschermak of Austria, independently rediscovered Mendel's findings. The popularization of Mendelian theory along with Social Darwinism* led to the belief that a wide variety of complex human moral, social, and disease conditions could be inherited and were not, as implied by Lamarckian theory, caused just by poor environmental circumstances and acquired characteristics.* Many health and social reformers shifted their concern from environmental to heredity reform, as human behavior now appeared determined by genetic factors.
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Concern for the inheritability of disease and social traits became a major factor in the development of the eugenics,* social hygiene,* prohibition,* public health,* pure food and drug,* tuberculosis,* and other health-reform movements during the first two decades of the twentieth century. However, some eugenic enthusiasts, including Adolf Meyer,* John H. Kellogg,* and Luther Burbank* also subscribed to a semi-Lamarckian concept. They believed that damage to the "germ plasm" at conception by syphilis, alcohol,* and other racial poisons* could lead to permanent genetic damage. References: Haller, Mark H., Eugenics: Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought (1963); Kevles, Daniel J., In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity (1985); Paul, Diane B., Controlling Human Heredity: 1865 to the Present (1995); Pickens, Donald, Eugenics and the Progressives (1968). mental science or mind cure "Mental science," also called "mind cure," was a term that emerged in the Progressive era to designate mental healing. It was an integral part of the New Thought movement* and the religions it spawned. Faith or spiritual healing was rooted in Christianity. It reemerged in the post—Civil War era under the advocacy of Phineas Parkhurst Quimby (1802-1866), who had studied Franz Mesmer's (1734-1815) methods and became intrigued by the therapeutic power of Mesmerism. He became convinced that disease could be cured by cultivating positive thoughts instead of negative ones. Quimby created a method to cure diseases using hypnosis and mental imaging. These ideas were adapted by several individuals and spawned the development of religious healing systems under the general philosophy of New Thought religions. Warren Felt Evans (1817-1889), a Swedenborgian minister, began to practice, write, and teach this therapy after being cured by Quimby; in 1869 he published Mental Cure. Based upon the works of Evans and Mary Baker Eddy,* the term "mental science" began to be used around 1882 for mental healing. Groups using spiritual healing exclusively, such as Christian Science,* were often at odds with the American Medical Association* and public health movement* reformers, who considered them quacks. They fought against mandatory immunizations* and vaccinations. Practitioners were sometimes arrested if the patient died and could have been cured with orthodox medicine. Mental science reached its peak of popularity in the second two decades of the twentieth century. References: Braden, Charles Samuel, Spirits in Bebellion: The Bise and Development of New Thought (1963); Hudson, Winthrop Still, Beligion in America (1965); James, William, The Varieties of Beligious Experience (1912); Parker, Gail Thain, Mind
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Cure in New England, from the Civil War to World War I (1973); Satter, Beryl, Each Mind a Kingdom: American Women, Sexual Purity, and the New Thought Movement, 1875-1920 (1999). Mexicans and Mexican Americans Immigrants* and seasonal workers from Mexico were an "invisible" ethnic group during the Progressive era. The focus of immigration restriction* was on Eastern and Southern Europeans in the cities of the East and Asian immigrants in the West. At the turn of the twentieth century, many Mexicans traveled back and forth between Mexico and the southwestern United States to follow the harvests. They also worked in mines and on the railroads. Reformers perceived them as lacking ambition and slow to learn English. These migrants were not placed under severe restrictions and quotas, as they were considered temporary and seasonal workers. They were perceived as a "docile labor force" that would leave in the off-season. They also did work that neither African Americans* nor European Americans would do. Although eugenic* reasons were used to implement restrictions on other "inferior" ethnic groups during this era, Mexicans, who were also considered inferior, were allowed to enter freely, as they were not considered permanent residents. Since many Mexican Americans were migratory, few statistics concerning them were recorded. In 1912 it was estimated that the Mexican-born population of the United States had trebled since the census of 1900. In 1908 approximately 60,000 entered, however the number of residential compared to seasonal was not known. Some health problems among poor migrant farm workers from Mexico caused concern for public health personnel in the border states. In many cities their housing was seen as a breeding ground for infectious disease* and crime.* In Los Angeles 11.4 percent of individuals arrested for felonies in 1907 were Mexicans. This increased to 12.6 and 13.4 percent, respectively, in 1908 and 1909. A large majority of cases were associated with gambling or excessive drinking. A typhus epidemic in Texas was found among migrants during the World War I* years. In 1917 the U.S. Public Health Service* recommended that "every Mexican crossing the international bridge should take a hot bath and be thoroughly 'De-loused.'" Since Mexicans often washed their clothing in cold water, the typhus louse was not killed. After the Immigration Restriction Act of 1924,* Congress continued to allow Mexican workers to cross the border to work in agriculture and industry. Over the years an increasing number chose to stay and began to integrate into the culture. In the latter half of the twentieth century, many "illegal immigrants" began to cross the border to find work. The pattern of seasonal workers going back south
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of the border continued into the twenty-first century. References: "The literacy test a bar to typhus," The Survey 38 (April 21, 1917), 71-72; Bryan, Samuel, "Mexican immigrants in the U.S.," The Survey (September 7, 1912), 726-730; Getz, Lynne, "Biological determination in the making of immigration policy in the 1920s," International Social Science Beview 70 (October 1995), 26-33. Meyer, Adolf (September 13, 1866-March 17, 1950) A noted psychiatrist, Meyer was a pioneer in the mental hygiene and eugenics* movements. He also supported social hygiene* concepts. Born near Zurich, Switzerland, he was the son of a Zwinglian Protestant minister. Meyer went through the local schools, completed his medical studies at the University of Zurich in 1892, and then emigrated to the United States. Meyer held several positions in neurological research but became interested in mental illness and centered his approach around a concept of maladjustment that included socially disruptive behaviors such as crime,* prostitution,* and alcoholism.* Since these social ills were given a medical label, psychiatrists were able to enlarge the domain of life problems that could be treated. Around 1910 Meyer was appointed the first professor in psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Medical School and the director of the Henry Phipps* psychiatric clinic. He retained both positions until his retirement in 1941. He helped organize the National Committee on Mental Hygiene in 1909 with Clifford Beers,* which aimed to prevent mental disorders through public health education. He was active in the mental hygiene movement throughout his entire career. Meyer supported social hygiene concepts and birth control* and was a proponent of eugenics.* He suggested "both the prevention of alcoholism and the prevention of syphilis [were possible] through . . . education." He subscribed both to a type of Lamarckian heredity, which posited the inheritance of certain acquired characteristics,* and to Mendelian inheritance.* When the eugenics committee of the American Breeders Association* became a section and linked with the Eugenics Record Office* in 1910, he served as chair of the committee on insanity. Meyer was elected the third president of the Eugenics Research Association.* He was a member of the planning committee for the First International Eugenics Congress* (1912) and the Second Congress scheduled for 1915. He supported birth control as a eugenics measure and was involved in Margaret Sanger's* First Birth Control Conference* (1921), and was also on the advisory board of her Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau.* Married in 1902 to Mary Potter, he fathered one daughter. In his later years he received many awards for his work in mental hygiene. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage at his home in Baltimore, Maryland. Refer-
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ences: "Association matters," American Breeders Magazine 1 (third quarter 1910), 235-236; Haller, Mark H., Eugenics: Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought (1963); Meyer, Adolf, "The right to marry," The Survey 36 (June 1916), 243-246; Winters, Eunice E., "Adolf Meyer and Clifford Beers, 1907-1910," Bulletin of the History of Medicine 43 (September-October 1969), 414-443; ANB 15 (1999), 394-396; DAB 4 (1974), 569-572; NatCAB 38 (1953), 45; WhAm 2 (1950), 371; obituary, NYT, March 18, 1950. Modern Health Crusade This educational campaign was aimed at teaching hygiene to school children. The Modern Health Crusade grew out of the Christmas Seals* sales campaign. It was developed in 1917 and promoted by National Tuberculosis Association* staff, including Philip Jacobs.* The crusade was not an organization, but rather a "system of health education." It was aimed at correcting nutritional defects and habits, fostering chaste practices, and promoting correct posture, proper exercise, rest, general physique, and the building of resistance against disease. Each child was given a checklist for checking off whether he or she had accomplished a health habit, such as, "I washed my hands before each meal today," "I tried to eat only wholesome food and to eat slowly," "I brushed my teeth throughly after breakfast and after the evening meal today," and "I played outdoors or with open windows more than thirty minutes to-day." By doing the daily health practices, children received check marks on a form they kept and were promoted to a different "health chivalry" rank for practicing good health habits. They wore a badge with the double-barred cross, read and acted in health plays, and engaged in other activities built around hygiene themes. By 1922 over 7 million children were enrolled in this movement and it became an integral part of the school health curriculum. References: Knopf, S. Adolphus, A History of the National Tuberculosis Association (1922); Shyrock, Richard H., National Tuberculosis Association 1904-1954: A Study of the Voluntary Health Movement in the United States (1957); Teller, Michael E., The Tuberculosis Movement (1988). Mormons and Mormonism The Church of Jesus Christ of LatterDay Saints, commonly known as the LDS Church or Mormons, was founded during the first Clean Living Movement* in upstate New York. Joseph Smith (1805-1844), considered the prophet of the newly formed church, formed the religion in 1830 in an effort to restore ancient teachings after a series of revelations and visions. This denomination, for most of its history, has embraced a healthy lifestyle as part of church doctrine. The church expanded in the 1830s and
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established communities in Missouri and Ohio. Because of their belief system, clannishness, fervent loyalty to their leaders, and practices such as plural marriages, they were considered un-American and thus persecuted. This resulted in Smith and his brother being killed by a mob in Illinois in 1844. Forced out of the state in 1846, church members, under the leadership of Brigham Young (18011877), migrated west and settled in the valley of the Great Salt Lake. With the 1852 public announcement of polygamy, friction between the church and the federal government arose in the 1850s, resulting in armed conflicts. In the post-Civil War period, immigrant* converts, primarily from the Scandinavian and Northern European nations, migrated west to settle the Utah territory. In the 1880s polygamy was made a federal offense. As a condition for statehood, the church outlawed plural marriages in 1890 and Utah became a state in 1896. Utah was also one of the first states to have woman suffrage* as part of its constitution (1895). During the Progressive era the church was considered a cult by Fundamentalists* and other writers. From its beginnings, the church frowned upon alcohol* and tobacco* and advocated personal hygiene* and physical activity. Such health advice was addressed in church scripture, including the "Word of Wisdom" in the Doctrine and Covenants. Mormons, on the whole, were healthy during the Progressive era compared to other groups. They had low death and infant-mortality rates and low rates of venereal disease.* A high percentage attended colleges. The LDS Church, similar to the Roman Catholic Church,* was against birth control* and the birth-control movement.* Theological objections were raised by some church elders against contraception, as it was considered "sinful to restrict the number of children in a family" and thought that women "should exercise the sacred power of procreation to its utmost limit." This was based on the belief that it was an obligation for Latter-Day Saints to produce many children in order to give "pre-existing spirits" a chance to be born. It was the duty of every "righteous man and woman" to prepare tabernacles—healthy bodies and minds—for all the spirit children possible. Eugenic* concerns were also vocalized by some church leaders based upon this belief. In general, only the "better class" of "worthy men"—those who were healthy, wealthy, or intellectually sound—were allowed, or could even afford, a plural marriage. The "stock was improved" if these men had a large number of children. Some writings of the era suggested these families had "superior offspring." Most Mormons supported the temperance,* prohibition,* and pure food and drug movements.* Utah had one of the first state laws requiring labeling of patent medicines.* The church continued to thrive throughout the twentieth century and became one of the largest grow-
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ing denominations in the nation. References: "Religion and birth control, "Journal of Heredity 7 (October 1916), 450-451; Bush, Lester E., Jr., "Mormon 'physiology' 1850-1875," Bulletin of the History of Medicine 56 (Summer 1982), 218-237; "Birth control among the Mormons: Introduction to an insistent question," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 10 (Autumn 1976), 12^*4; Daynes, Kathryn M„ Plural Wives and the Nineteenth-Century Mormon Marriage System (1991); Hansen, Klaus J., Mormonism and the American Experience (1981); Herbst, Jurgen, "Editor's introduction," in Josiah Strong, Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis ([1885] 1963); Shipps, Jan, Mormonism: The Story of a New Beligious Tradition (1985). Morrow, Prince Albert (December 19,1846-March 17,1913) A dermatologist, Morrow was the pioneer leader of the social hygiene movement* during the first decade of the twentieth century. He also embraced eugenics* and had links with the purity* and public health* movements. Born in Mt. Vernon, Kentucky, the son of oldstock military and planter families, he attended Cumberland and then Princeton College in Kentucky, where he received an A.B. degree (1865). Morrow received his early medical training in an eclectic medical college and then graduated from New York University with a medical degree (1873). Subsequently he gained advanced training in Paris and other European medical centers. Not long after entering practice in 1874 in New York city, he gained distinction as a specialist in dermatology, which at that time included venereal diseases.* He held various medical positions and worked his way to clinical professor of genito-urinary diseases at University Medical College (1884-1899). In 1880 he translated Syphilis and Marriage, by the French syphiligrapher Jean-Alfred Fournier (1832-1914). In 1893 Morrow edited a collective work on syphilis written by a number of specialists. The publication suggested the treatment of every infected person and the failure of state-regulated prostitution* to prevent venereal diseases. However, Morrow did not take a leadership position in social reform until near the end of his career. In 1899 Morrow attended the Brussels Congress on Syphilis with the theme of educating the public concerning the disease. Upon his return he presented an address to the New York County Medical Society and declared that the principal sufferers from syphilis and gonorrhea were innocent women and children and not prostitutes. He recommended public education. Morrow was appointed to a committee by the society to investigate the subject further. This committee marked a symbolic beginning of the social hygiene movement in the United States. The committee gathered statistics about the high incidence of venereal diseases and stressed education and treat-
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ment—not inspection of prostitutes—as the best means of preventing the diseases. Although these estimates overstated the problem, they remained the database for reformers until World War I,* when statistics based upon laboratory tests of draftees corrected them. Morrow was active in the organization of the second Brussels conference in 1902. He was encouraged to form a group in the United States to undertake an education campaign and to urge infected people to seek treatment. However, he waited until he completed his book, Social Diseases and Marriage: Social Prophylaxis (1904), where he detailed his program to control venereal diseases, including punishing those who transmitted the afflictions. In this publication he used the term "social disease" for syphilis and gonorrhea. In May 1904 Morrow made a public plea for an American organization that would include both medical and prominent community leaders; however, there was little interest. Finally, in February 1905, twenty-five individuals responded to his call and the Society for Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis* was founded and headquartered at the New York Academy of Medicine. The society's aim was to contain the transmission of venereal diseases, to abolish the "double standard," and to eliminate prostitution. Later he forged links with the purity movement and became involved with the National Vigilance Committee,* which lobbied various government agencies to secure legislation against organized "vice," both at home and abroad. This lobbying resulted in the Mann Act of 1910.* He campaigned for a federation that would serve as a coordinating agency but allow each society to preserve its autonomy. Finally, in 1910 the American Federation for Sex Hygiene* was formed, with Morrow as president. Allied with the women's movement and the American Purity Alliance,* Morrow consistently supported a single standard of morality and urged legislation to introduce mandatory premarital testing of men to protect "innocent wives and children." Besides social hygiene reform, Morrow was involved with the public health movement. He was a member of the Committee of One Hundred* in 1907, which pushed for a national department of health. During that same year he was chairman of the section of hygiene and sanitary science at the New York Academy of Medicine. Along with many other medical organizations, Morrow had links with the eugenics movement* and wrote an educational pamphlet, Eugenics and Bacial Poisons (1912). Morrow wrote a series of educational pamphlets that were published by the Society for Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis during 1911-1912 and distributed through the newly formed American Federation of Sex Hygiene. Examples of these pamphlets included "Young man's problem," "The relations of social diseases with marriage and their prophylaxis," and "The sex problem."
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Morrow married Lucy B. Slaughter (1874) and fathered six children. However, three of the children died during the first year of the twentieth century. After these deaths Morrow threw himself into reform work. In the last year or so of his life he suffered from fatal nephritis while attempting to launch further educational and lobbying programs. Soon after he died the American Federation for Sex Hygiene was merged with the American Vigilance Association to form the American Social Health Association.* References: Burnham, John C , "The Progressive era revolution in American attitudes toward sex," Journal of American History 59 (March 1973), 885-908; Eliot, Charles W., "Pioneer experiences," Social Hygiene 5 (October 1919), 569-572; Gardner, James F., Microbes and Morality: The Social Hygiene Crusade in New York City 1892-1917 (1973); Morrow, Prince A., "Prophylaxis of social diseases," American Journal of Sociology 13 (July 1907), 20-33, Eugenics and Bacial Poisons (19111912), "Control of venereal diseases," Survey 28 (June 1,1912), 364366; Pivar, David J., Purity and Hygiene: Women, Prostitution, and the "American Plan," 1900-1930 (2002); ANB 15 (1999), 930-931; DAB 7 (1934), 236-237; NatCAB 21 (1931), 184-185; obituary, NYT, March 18, 1913. mothers' meetings These meetings, sponsored by the Woman's Christian Temperance Union,* were aimed at educating mothers to raise fit and healthy children free from vice and immorality. They were an aspect of both the temperance* and purity* movements. John Harvey Kellogg* and his wife were the superintendents of the Union's Department of Social Purity in 1885 that sponsored these meetings. Emphasis was placed on child-rearing practices, including the prevention of masturbation among children, as it was thought to lead to mental illness or prostitution.* A wide range of information concerning personal hygiene,* temperance,* and purity* was covered. Examples of titles for presentations included, "Relation of dress to vice," "The pitfalls for our boys," "The predisposing causes of impurity," "The relation of the laws of hygiene to habits of purity," and "The evils of the use of narcotics." In addition, information concerning the White Cross* and White Shield pledges were given. Frances Willard,* Benjamin Flower,* and others supported this educational program. Mrs. Theodore Weld Birney (1858-1907), inspired by social purity, began the mothers crusade that grew into the National Parents and Teachers Association. References: Flower, B. O., "The shame of America—The age of consent laws in the United States," Arena 11 (January 1895), 192-215, "Some causes of present day immorality and suggestions as to practical remedies," in Powell, Aaron Macy, The National Purity Congress ([1896] 1976), 306-319;
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Hirshman, Linda R., and Larson, Jane E., Hard Bargains: The Politics of Sex (1998); Pivar, David J., Purity Crusade: Sexual Morality and Social Control, 1868-1900 (1973), Purity and Hygiene (2001); Willard, Frances, "Arousing the public conscience," Arena 11 (January 1895), 198-200. muckraking Muckrakers were Progressive-era journalists who described accounts of corruption. Rather than using objective language, they often used emotionally charged rhetoric to stir up a reaction to an issue; sometimes their articles were not even accurate reporting. Their medium was the new and inexpensive popular magazine introduced in the early 1890s. This style of journalism aided many Clean Living Movement* health causes. These included the purity,* temperance,* pure food and drug,* and eugenics* movements. Various writers contributed to this expose style. Samuel Hopkins Adams (1871-1958) exposed fraudulent and dangerous patent medicines;* Upton Sinclair* presented accounts of immigrants* and the Chicago meat-packing industry; and Benjamin O. Flower,* who some consider the forerunner of muckraking journalism, discussed many health issues, including white slavery,* the saloon,* and age-ofconsent* laws in his Arena.* McClure's magazine, founded by S. S. McClure (1857-1949) in 1893, was considered the leading muckraking journal and presented many articles on political and social corruption and conditions. The term "muckraking" was coined by Theodore Roosevelt.* He alluded to the mid-seventeenth-century classic The Pilgrim's Progress, a story of a "man with the muck-rake" who refused to lift his eyes from corruption to higher ideals. Roosevelt was concerned that muckraking articles were one-sided and might lead to socialism. However, the results of these reports led to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906,* the Meat Inspection Act of 1906,* the Smoking Opium Exclusion Act,* the Eighteenth Amendment,* and the Mann Act of 1910.* References: Mott, Frank L., History of the American Magazine: 1741-1850, vols. 3-4, 1885-1905 (1957); Chalmers, David, The Muckrake Years (1974). Muscular Christianity This Progressive-era concept linked physical fitness with Protestant* Christianity and was an aspect of the Social Gospel movement.* Muscular Christianity affirmed the compatibility of robust physical life with a Christian life of morality and service. The term was coined in 1851 by British writer Thomas Hughes, who developed the notion of a link between athletic involvement and moral development. By the 1880s women had become the mainstay of Protestantism and the church had allegedly become "feminized" by the Victorian "cult of domesticity." Minis-
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ters were beginning to be stereotyped as "sissy fellows," which church leaders perceived kept men away from the church. Instead, men were joining fraternal lodges, such as the Masons, which offered ritual celebration of male virtues and the affirmation of a malefocused spirituality. Churches saw themselves competing with lodges for men's alliance and respect. Out of this concern came churchrelated brotherhoods, such as the Men and Religion Forward Movement (1911-1912), a nationwide evangelical campaign devoted to Christian idealism and character building, initiated by the YMCA.* This and other YMCA programs personified the ideals of Muscular Christianity and manliness. In addition, men were becoming increasingly engaged in sedentary office positions that did not offer the same opportunity for exercise as farm or factory work. Alarmed by the prospect of a weakening of middle-class Anglo-Americans* in contrast to more muscular immigrant* laborers, many reformers hurried to endorse artificial exercise through physical culture* and physical education.* Theodore Roosevelt* became a model of the progressive mood for action and change and coined the term for this more vigorous lifestyle as the "strenuous life."* References: Putney, Clifford, "Character building in the YMCA, 1880-1930," MidAmerica: An Historical Beview 73 (January 1991), 49-70, "Men and religion: Aspects of the church brotherhood movement, 1880-1920," Anglican and Episcopal History 63 (December 1994), 451-467, Muscular Christianity: Manhood and Sports in Protestant America, 18801920 [2001).
N Narcotics This term and classification for any addicting drug, including opiates, cocaine, and cannabis, began to be commonly used around the first decade of the twentieth century. However, pharmacologically speaking narcotics are depressants derived from opiates or synthetic opiates, while cannabis and cocaine are stimulants in terms of their physiological effects. At the end of the Progressive era narcotics were defined as "drugs which in moderate doses allay nervous susceptibility, relieve pain, and induce sleep, but which in poisonous doses produce stupor and convulsions. The principal narcotics are opium, Morphine [sic], and heroin, obtained from the Asiatic poppy; cocaine from the South-American coca plant; and Bhang and hashish from the Indian hemp plant." By 1925 it was estimated that the number of drug addicts in the United States ranged from 100,000 to 1 million. The Harrison Narcotics Act* was passed in 1914 in an effort to reduce drug addiction,* but it proved to be ineffective. References: Booth, Martin, Opium: A History (1996); Engs, Ruth Clifford, Alcohol and Other Drugs: Self-Besponsibility (1987); Gavit, John Palmer, Opium (1927); SEAP 4 (1928), 1850-1851. Nation, Carry Amelia Moore (November 25, 1846-June 9, 1911) Nation, a temperance* agitator, was one of the more colorful and zealous reformers of the Progressive era's temperance movement.* Born in Garrard County, Kentucky, she was the daughter of a prosperous livestock dealer and planter family from pioneer Irish and Scottish ancestry. Her mother was likely a manic-depressive and spent the last three years of her life in the Missouri State Hospital for the Insane. Her brother and sister were also mentally ill. In pre-Civil War days her family held slaves and her childhood was strongly influ-
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enced by the religious excitements of the community; as a result she became deeply religious. She underwent her first of many religious experiences at age ten and was baptized into the Disciples of Christ Church. Because her family moved frequently, Nation's schooling was sporadic. After the Civil War her father lost his property and returned in 1865 to Belton, Missouri, where in 1867 Nation met and married a young physician, Charles Gloyd, who was an alcoholic* He died two years later, leaving her with a physically and mentally ill daughter and brother-in-law to support. She attended the State Normal School at Warrensburg, Missouri, and received a teaching certificate (c. 1868); for the next six years she taught in a primary school. In 1875 she married David Nation, a lawyer, editor, and occasional minister, nineteen years older than herself. They moved to Texas in 1876 and attempted to run a cotton plantation that eventually failed. To support themselves, she ran a hotel. In 1889 they settled in Medicine Lodge, Kansas, where her husband's law practice was able to support them and enabled her to pursue her religious and temperance interests. In 1880 Kansas became the first state to incorporate prohibition* into its constitution. However, in 1890 a Supreme Court reversal allowed alcohol* to be sold in original packages and, as a result, illegal "joints" soon opened across the state. In the late 1890s a revitalized Woman's Christian Temperance Union* emerged to fight this perceived new evil. Nation became county president of the union in 1888. With a few militant women, she began a campaign to expel the liquor traffic* from the town of Medicine Lodge. In 1899 she and friends closed the town's illegal liquor outlets through nonviolent songs and prayer. In the spring of 1900, supported by religious "visions" of her "divinely inspired" mission, her activities spread with increasing violence to neighboring towns and counties. In Wichita, Kansas, in the autumn of 1900, she first used the hatchet, which became her trademark, to wreck an expensive saloon* and its liquor stocks. Her violent saloon-smashing activity was carried out in many cities and she was arrested more than thirty times. She paid her numerous fines from the sale of souvenir hatchets, lecture tours, and stage appearances. Nation had been christened "Carry" but often used Carrie. In 1900, when she began to attract public notice, she was struck by a word play with her name, "Carry A. Nation—carry a nation for temperance," and subsequently used this form. She toured Britain in 1908 but was greeted with antagonism. Increased feebleness compelled her to retire to a farm in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. Besides alcohol, Nation was also against cigarettes.* Her last five months were spent in a Leavenworth, Kansas, hospital where her mental
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capacities faded. Her husband divorced her for desertion in 1901. Leaders of the temperance movement did not always condone her actions, but she nevertheless brought the saloon and its perceived association with prostitution,* alcoholism, crime,* and venereal disease* to public attention. References: Asbury, Herbert, Carry Nation (1929); Bader, Robert Smith, "Mrs. Nation," Kansas History 7 (Winter 1984-1985), 246-262, Prohibition in Kansas (1986); Beals, Carleton, Cyclone Carry: The Story of Carry Nation (1962); Grace, Fran, Carry A. Nation: Betelling the Life (2001); Madison, Arnold, Carry Nation (1977); Nation, Carry Amelia, The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation, Written by Herself (1905); ANB 16 (1999), 249-250; DAB 7 (1962), 394-395; DATB (1984), 361-362; SEAP 4 (1828), 1851-1852; obituary, NYT, June 10, 1911. National American Woman Suffrage Association (1890-1920) This association was the result of the merger of two rival woman suffrage* organizations and became the leading force for the successful fight to enfranchise women. Two rival groups, originally organized in the late 1860s, were formed because they disagreed over the best strategy to implement suffrage. The National Woman Suffrage Association, led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) and Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906) favored enfranchising women through a federal constitutional amendment. The American Woman Suffrage Association, led by Lucy Stone (1818-1893) and her husband and Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910) championed a state-by-state campaign. Formed in 1890, the National American Woman Suffrage Association combined both of these techniques. The association over its life had four presidents: Stanton (1890-1892), Anthony (1892-1900), Catt (1900-1904), Shaw (1904-1915), and again Catt (from 1915 into the 1940s). From the late 1890s to around 1910, the "doldrums" of the woman suffrage movement, the association underwent a major period of rebuilding its membership and image. Under the leadership of Carrie Chapman Catt (1859-1947), efforts to recruit large numbers of socially prominent and politically influential women were begun. However, it was under the leadership of Anna Howard Shaw (1847-1919) that the organization began to flourish. It courted middle and upper-class women involved in women's clubs and the new generation of college-educated and professional women. The invigorated association introduced new tactics borrowed from English suffragists, including open-air meetings, barnstorming the state, and parades. They carried out a series of politically astute state campaigns that culminated in passage of the Nineteenth Amendment* in 1920 despite political infighting within the leadership. With the goal of women's enfranchisement now a reality, the group changed
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its name to the League of Women Voters. The league remains today a vital bipartisan political education group. References: Buhle, Mari Jo, and Buhle, Paul, eds., The Concise History of Woman Suffrage: Selections from the Classic Work of Stanton, Anthony, Gage and Harper (1978); Catt, Carrie Chapman, ed., Victory: How Women Won It: A Centennial Symposium 1840-1940 (1940); DuBois, Ellen C , Harriot Stanton Blatch and the Winning of Woman Suffrage (1997); Graham, Sara Hunter, Women Suffrage and the New Democracy (1996); Harper, Ida H., ed., The History of Woman Suffrage 5 (1922); Wheeler, Marjorie Spruill, ed., One Woman, One Vote (1995). National Bureau of Health (see U.S. Public Health Service) National Committee for Mental Hygiene (1909-present) This voluntary association, the core of the mental health movement, was an aspect of the Progressive era's positive outlook on the treatment of many types of illnesses. The committee and the mental health movement it fostered were founded by Clifford W. Beers,* a former mental illness patient. After publishing his autobiography, A Mind That Found Itself [1908], and encouraged by the response it received, Beers founded the Connecticut Society for Mental Hygiene on May 6,1908, the first such society in the world. This was followed by his founding, with the support of Adolf Meyer,* William Welch (1850-1934) of Johns Hopkins, and others physicians, the National Committee for Mental Hygiene on February 19, 1909. The committee's purpose was to prevent mental disorders through public education. Its list of goals included, "to improve attitudes toward mental illness and the mentally ill; to improve services for the mentally ill; and to work for the prevention of mental illness and promote mental health." Beers became secretary of this national committee. His autobiography influenced Henry Phipps* to fund private and public hospitals devoted to the treatment of the mentally ill. In 1910 the National Committee for Mental Hygiene found itself lacking funds and unable to carry out its educational mission. Phipps made a large donation to the committee that "enabled it to begin active work" in 1911. The committee attempted to erase the stigma of mental illness through educational programs and groups for family members of mentally ill persons. In 1917 the organization began publishing Mental Hygiene as part of its educational efforts. This publication lasted to about 1977. By 1920 the committee had produced a set of model commitment laws that were subsequently incorporated into the statutes of several states. It also conducted several studies on mental health, mental illness, and treatment, resulting in changes within the mental health care system. The lack of a permanent source
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of support for the work of the national committee and conflict with the board of directors led Beers to organize on May 24, 1928, the American Foundation for Mental Hygiene, of which he was secretary until 1939. The committee, the foundation, and other mental health organizations merged and became the National Association for Mental Health on September 13,1950; after 1980 it became known as the National Mental Health Association. Through its newsletter, The Bell, it still provides information for patients and their families. References: "Henry Phipps: A man of vision," Mental Hygiene 15 (January 1931), 1-2; NatCab 34 (1948), 140-141. National League for Medical Freedom (1910-c. 1917) This league was a lobby group formed to oppose the creation of a national department of health and fight for the right to practice alternative healing philosophies. It also lobbied against food and drug* legislation and compulsory vaccination.* Many public health leaders and organizations, such as the Committee for One Hundred,* pushed for a national department of health to better control communicable diseases and other health problems. However, alternative health interests such as homeopathic, chiropractic,* and osteopathic* practitioners, in addition to mind cure* sects such as Christian Scientists,* were opposed to the creation of a cabinet-level department. They feared such a federal bureaucracy would allow the American Medical Association* "to control American medical practice" and eliminate other types of medical philosophies. The league was formed in 1910 by B. O. Flower* in New York to oppose a bill introduced by Senator Robert L. Owen (1856-1947) that would have created a national health department. Flower, as did many of this era, compared medical practice to religion. It was argued that individuals should have freedom to chose what medical sect they wished and considered the AMA to be a monopoly. Lobbying on the part of the league was a factor in defeating the bill for a national department of health. However, as the power of the AMA increased, severe limits were placed on the practices of many of the alternative medical sects. For a few years the league published Medical Freedom (1911-1916) to champion its cause. The organization disintegrated during the war years. References: Duffy, John, The Sanitarians: A History of American Public Health (1992); Flower, B. O., "National health and medical freedom," Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine 85 (November 1912-April 1913), 512-513, Progressive Men, Women, and Movements of the Past Twenty-Five Years (1914). National Medical Association (1895-present) Formed by AfricanAmerican* health professionals, the National Association of Col-
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ored Physicians, Dentists, and Pharmacists (the official name of the organization until 1940, although it was rarely used) served as an alternative to the American Medical Association, which was primarily European American. The association was organized in 1895 in Atlanta, Georgia, and made up of representatives from medicine, dentistry, and pharmacy. The first president was Robert F. Boyd (1858-1912). The organization's objectives were to improve conditions for African-American professionals as a means of promoting "better health and right living" among the black population. The association was most influential in the region east of the Mississippi River. At annual meetings, health topics of particular concern to black Americans were covered. These included the prevention and treatment of tuberculosis* and lowering infant mortality. Many of their sessions were open to the public. Likely influenced by the health surveys of W.E.B. Du Bois,* local chapters held public health education meetings in an effort to improve health among blacks. These included lectures on personal hygiene* and sanitation and covered such topics as "infant feeding," the "danger of flies," and the "prevention of hookworm."* In 1909 the association launched a journal and the following year it appointed a commission to study tuberculosis, hookworm, and pellagra, the leading causes of morbidity among blacks. The society also helped to establish tuberculosis treatment sanatoriums* and antituberculosis leagues to educate the black community about the disease. In addition, it helped organize "Negro hospitals" and schools for the training of nurses. By 1911 most states and cities with large black populations had local societies. This professional organization continues to address health problems of the black community. References: Kenney, John A., "Health problems of the Negroes," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 37 (March 1911), 354-364; Wright, Charles H., The National Medical Association Demands Equal Opportunity: Nothing More, Nothing Less (1995). National Prohibition Act (see Volstead Act) National Prohibition Party (NPP) (1869-present) The chief objective of this national political party was the abolition of the liquor traffic* The party contributed significantly to antialcohol components of the Progressive era's Clean Living Movement.* It helped clear the way for nonpartisan support of temperance* political activity in later years, which eventually led to the Eighteenth Amendment.* In 1867 John Russell (1882-1912), a Methodist minister in Michigan, suggested the need for a separate party for "the enforcement of legal prohibition of the traffic in intoxicating liquors." In
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Mansfield, Ohio, a State Prohibition Party was formed on July 4, 1868, which put forward a slate of candidates for state elections. The following year 500 delegates, consisting of both men and women, gathered in Farwell Hall in Chicago on September 1,1869, to form a new political party, the National Prohibition Party. Its goal was to promote national prohibition.* James Black (1823-1893) of Pennsylvania was selected as the first presidential candidate of the new party at the party's national convention in Columbus, Ohio, in 1872. For this presidential election, and for every other election over the next half century, the NPP nominated a party ticket with prohibition as the main platform issue. This group perceived the liquor traffic as the source of numerous social problems, including crime,* infectious disease,* poverty,* and political corruption. They reasoned that if alcohol was eliminated, so would other social problems. The NPP, in alliance with the Woman's Christian Temperance Union,* pushed for statewide prohibition amendments and laws. Such enactments were secured in Kansas (1880), Iowa (1882), Maine (1884), and Rhode Island (1886). However, between 1887 and 1893 only two of fourteen states considering adopting state prohibitory constitutional amendments— North and South Dakota—actually passed such measures. The NPP was unable to form a coalition with the Populists in 1892, a feat which Frances Willard,* leader of the WCTU, attempted to facilitate. The party gained increasing support and votes until its peak in 1904. The founders of the Prohibition Party were crusaders and not politicians, which ultimately led to their lack of power, unlike the Anti-Saloon League,* which became a powerful lobbying group. The Prohibition Party still exists today and regularly fields a slate of candidates for major elections, but few take up its challenge. References: Blocker, Jack S., Jr., American Temperance Movements: Cycles of Beform (1989); Betreat from Beform: The Prohibition Movement in the United States 1890-1913 (1976); Cherrington, Ernest H., The Evolution of Prohibition in the United States of America (1920); Dillon, Mary Earhart, Frances Willard, from Prayers to Politics (1944); SEAP (1926), 2217-2220. National Purity Congress, The First (1895) This group was the first major gathering of various and sometimes conflicting factions of the social purity crusade. It represented a high point of the purity movement* and helped set in motion the social hygiene* crusade that became prominent in the first two decades of the twentieth century. In 1893, the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice* and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union* organized a National Purity Congress at the Chicago Columbian Exposition. The success of this
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meeting led reformers in 1895 to form a new national group, the American Purity Alliance,* out of a merger of groups focused on moral education, antiregulation of prostitution,* and other causes, and to organize another congress. Under the leadership of Aaron Powell,* its president, the First National Purity Congress met October 14,15, and 16,1895, in Baltimore. The "objectives in convening [the] congress [were], the repression of vice, the prevention of its regulation by the State, the better protection of the young, the rescue of the fallen, to extend the White Cross work among men, and to proclaim the law of purity as equally binding upon men and women." The congress also addressed age-of-consent* laws, the White Cross societies,* and obscenity, among other issues. Fifty papers were presented on various topics, including "Temperance and purity," "The medical profession and morals," "The laws of parentage and heredity," "Chastity and health," and "Child saving and prostitution." Attending were leaders of the purity,* temperance,* and personal hygiene* movements. These included Frances E. Willard,* head of the WCTU; John H. Kellogg,* a major hygiene and dietary leader; Benjamin O. Flower,* a journalist; O. Edward Janney,* a physician and moral reformer; Anthony Comstock,* the antiobscenity movement* leader; M. L. Holbrook (1831-1902), a medical and purity writer; Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910), a physician; and Mary Wood Allen (1841-1908), head of the WCTU's department of purity, among others. The congress broadened the appeal and increased the popularity of purity reform, and helped make the social purity movement a mass movement during the crest of the Progressive era. References: Flower, B. O., "A notable handbook for social purity workers," Arena 15 (1896), 856-868, Progressive Men, Women, and Movements of the Past Twenty-Five Years (1914); Pivar, David J., Purity Crusade: Sexual Morality and Social Control, 1868-1900 (1973); Powell, Aaron Macy, ed., The National Purity Congress: Its Papers, Addresses, Portraits ([1896] 1976). National Quarantine Act of 1893 This public health act restricted immigrants* who were suspected of having a contagious disease from entering the United States. Since cholera was first brought into the United States by Irish* immigrants in 1832, imported diseases from impoverished immigrants had become a concern of health officials and the general public. In the winter of 1892 typhus was found in New York city among some newly arrived Jewish* immigrants. They were quickly sent to a substandard quarantine camp, where approximately 10 percent died. Because they were thought to have imported the disease, Jews from throughout Eastern Europe were stigmatized. Only months after typhus fever had struck the city, cholera was found
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on "ship after ship" arriving in the New York port. While cholera appeared more widespread among passengers of differing ethnic groups, the Eastern European Jews were once again blamed for importing a fatal illness. Fear of these diseases in combination with increased nativist* hostilities toward Jews and Eastern Europeans in general resulted in a legislative effort to prevent the importation of ominous diseases into the United States. The National Quarantine Act, passed February 15, 1893, created a national system of quarantine that was "empowered to overlook the work of all local quarantine authorities, and to take charge of such work whenever . . . the quarantine is inefficient." It established procedures for the medical inspection of immigrants, and permitted the president to suspend immigration on a temporary basis to prevent the importation of lifethreatening diseases. Public health officers were sent to ports of embarkation such as Hamburg, Germany, and Liverpool, England, to inspect immigrants for disease. Passengers in cholera-infected ports were often detained under medical observation before they were allowed to sail. The regulation forbade the shipment of some items and also required disinfection of personal effects and baggage. The act was administered under the Marine Hospital Service, which evolved into the U.S. Public Health Service* over the course of the Progressive era. References: Duffy, John, The Sanitarians: A History of American Public Health (1992); Markel, Howard, Quarantine! East European Jewish Immigrants and the New York City Epidemics of 1892 (1997); Rosenberg, Charles E., The Cholera Years: The United States in 1832, 1849, and 1866 (1987); "The national quarantine," Harper's Weekly 37 (August 26, 1893), 822-823. National Tuberculosis Association (NTA) (1904-present) This pivotal organization of the tuberculosis movement* formed to campaign against tuberculosis* on the national level and shifted the focus of the movement from mere treatment of the disease to prevention and education. During the first years of the twentieth century many state and community organizations or committees had come onto the scene in the fight against tuberculosis. However, these groups often became rivals and did not cooperate with one another. This lack of coordination concerned leading tuberculosis physicians. In 1900 two rival organizations, the American Congress of Tuberculosis and the American Congress on Tuberculosis for the Prevention of Consumption—later the American Anti-Tuberculosis League—were formed. These groups disagreed over the role of lay participation in health organizations, held competing meetings, and argued as to which group would represent the United States at the International Tuberculosis Congress* to be held in Paris in 1905. In 1903, public health* physician S. Adolphus Knopf* published a letter deploring the con-
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fusion caused by the rival organizations and suggested that a meeting be held at the Baltimore Tuberculosis Exhibition to discuss the possible formation of a national organization. At this meeting, on January 28,1904, a committee composed of Knopf, Edward Trudeau,* Edward Janeway,* Hermann Biggs,* Lawrence Flick,* Johns Hopkins University physicians William Osier (1849-1919), and William H. Welch (1850-1934), and others organized to discuss the situation. At a meeting on March 28, sponsored by Henry Phipps,* 100 physicians and laymen debated and then adopted a resolution by Flick to organize a society for the study and prevention of tuberculosis. A constitution committee composed of Trudeau, Biggs, Flick, Welsh, Osier, and others formed the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis (NASPT). The bylaws were adopted on June 6, 1904. The objectives of the new society were to be as follows: "(1) The study of tuberculosis in all its forms and relations. (2) The dissemination of knowledge about the causes, treatment, and prevention of tuberculosis. (3) The encouragement of the prevention and scientific treatment of tuberculosis." Trudeau, the father of the sanatorium movement,* was elected president, and Biggs, vice president. Renamed the National Tuberculosis Association in 1918 and the American Lung Association (ALA) in 1973, the association allowed nonphysician members and accepted the concept that tuberculosis was a preventable curable disease. Livingston Farrand (1867-1939), a Columbia University faculty member, became its first executive secretary, beginning in 1905. In 1908 Philip Jacobs,* who published many reports, joined the organization. Initially the association was a small, private group, largely representative of interests in states on the northeastern seaboard. At this point there was no desire for governmental connections and funds came only from membership dues and donations. Between 1904 and 1908 a concerted effort was made to arouse the public concerning the prevention of TB through educational efforts. The NTA became preeminent throughout the United States as a vehicle for health education, community case-finding, and public awareness of tuberculosis. The major campaign of the new organization was education and the creation of facilities for controlling of the disease in every community. Its first educational work was a large traveling exhibit that toured the states east of the Mississippi from 1905 until 1912. In 1909 a second exhibit toured states west of the Mississippi. These were put under the publicity bureau of the association in 1908 with Jacob's assistance. The association organized the Sixth International Tuberculosis Congress in 1908 that helped popularize the movement. After the formation of the association, the number of dispensaries, clinics, voluntary agencies, and hospitals increased. During its first two decades the association published many reports, including
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a monthly Bulletin, the Journal of Outdoor Life, * and the American Beview of Tuberculosis for patients and the public. The central philosophy of the organization was a strong national association with independent and autonomous state and local organizations. It became a clearinghouse for information and education and provided literature, furnished data, and organized conferences. Local and state groups also encouraged construction of sanatoriums,* open-air schools, dispensaries, and other mechanisms for home care and treatment. In addition to contributions, the Christmas Seals* campaign, which made tuberculosis a household cause, was developed to fund the organization. In 1917 the Modern Health Crusade* to educate children in personal hygiene* and prevention strategies was launched. In 1916 the association entered into an agreement with the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company for a community prevention effort named the Framingham Demonstration. This three-year study in the control of tuberculosis included periodical medical examinations for all members of the community, medical and nursing care including sanatorium care, and educational programs. Schools and industry, as well as local and state health officials, participated in the program. Over the period of the study the tuberculosis rate declined from ninety-three to seventy-six per hundred thousand. In 1921 the double-barred cross was registered as the official emblem of the NTA. The association became a model for other voluntary health organizations because its techniques were considered innovative for the era. These included nonprofessional members at all levels, paid staff, educational programs, sponsorship of various programs and activities, and innovative fundraising methods. The organization, now the American Lung Association, remains strong into the twenty-first century with campaigns against respiratory disease and tobacco.* References: Knopf, S. Adolphus, A History of the National Tuberculosis Association (1922); Long, Esmond R., "Development of the voluntary health movement in America as illustrated in the pioneer National Tuberculosis Association," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 101 (April 1957), 142-148; Shryock, Richard H., National Tuberculosis Association 1904-1954: A Study of the Voluntary Health Movement in the United States (1957); Teller, Michael E., The Tuberculosis Movement: A Public Health Campaign in the Progressive Era (1988). National Vigilance Committee (NVC) (1906-1910) This committee symbolized the first convergence of social purity* and the social hygiene* interests. The National Vigilance Committee was an offshoot of some branches of the American Purity Alliance.* It formed in 1906 at the home of Grace Hoadley Dodge* in New York city after
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British purity reformer William Coote (1842-1919) visited the United States, leading a successful campaign to reorganize local chapters of the alliance. Local vigilant committees were also formed in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Boston. Under the leadership of O. Edward Janney,* a Baltimore physician who was the president of the American Purity Alliance, its board included James Bronson Reynolds,* Charles Eliot,* David Starr Jordan,* and Jane Addams (1860-1935), a Chicago social worker, among others. Over the next five years other prominent reformers became involved, including Clifford G. Roe (1875-1934), an attorney who studied prostitution* in Chicago, Cardinal James Gibbons (1834-1921) of Baltimore, and Prince Morrow,* the head of the Society for Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis.* The committee acted as a lobbying group to secure legislation and law enforcement to suppress the white slave* traffic, to study the causes and methods of dealing with the traffic in the United States and other countries, and to prevent and suppress the traffic. It published model laws that states and municipalities could adopt and a monthly journal, Vigilance. In the years prior to World War I,* institutional amalgamations resulted in mergers of this committee, or its affiliates, with other groups to form the American Vigilance Committee, which became the American Vigilance Association* and joined with the American Federation for Sex Hygiene* to form the American Social Hygiene Association in 1914.* References: "National merger to fight white slavery," The Survey 27 (March 30,1912), 1991-1992; Clark, Charles Walter, Taboo: The Story of the Pioneers of Social Hygiene (1961); Graham, Abbie, Grace H. Dodge: Merchant of Dreams: A Biography (1926); Grittner, Frederick K., White Slavery: Myth, Ideology and American Law (1990); Janney, O. Edward, The White Slave Traffic in America (1911); Pivar, David J., Purity Crusade: Sexual Morality and Social Control, 1868-1900 (1973), Purity and Hygiene: Women, Prostitution, and the "American Plan," 1900-1930 (2001). nativism and nativists Nativism was a "pro-American" conviction that the United States should be preserved primarily for white AngloSaxon* Protestants.* The nativist movement came to include all forms of animosity by native-born white crusaders against individuals or groups, in particular recent immigrants* of different religions, cultures, races, and creeds. This fear of "the other" and a desire to control them was an undercurrent of many health-reform crusades of the second Clean Living Movement.* This included the eugenics,* prohibition,* public health,* and purity* movements. Problems of the saloon,* cigarettes,* prostitution,* venereal diseases,* along with racial degeneracy,* crime,* and poverty,* were blamed on "foreigners." Studies from the 1880s through the 1920s popular-
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ized the idea that all the good things about America were rooted in the genetic superiority of the Anglo-Saxon or Teutonic "race," along with their moral values and institutions. The middle class concluded that America's political, social, economic, and health problems were largely due to groups that did not conform to established ways. New immigrants were judged as being too different to be easily assimilated. When the 1890 census revealed that over a million people had entered the country during the previous decade, it seemed evident that the extinction of "real Americans" and race suicide* were a possibility. Nativism had earlier appeared in the 1830s and reached its peak with the formation of the Know Nothing Party of the 1850s. This group was hostile toward Irish* Catholic* immigrants and their poverty, drinking, and diseases. Nativism was pushed underground during the Civil War era. In the 1880s hostilities toward immigrants was revitalized as a wave of new immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe began to arrive. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1892* attempted to eliminate Chinese* labor, and the National Quarantine Act of 1893* attempted to prevent diseased immigrants from entering the country. In 1894 the Immigration Restriction League* was formed to curtail undesirable immigrants. The anti-immigration crusade reached its zenith immediately before and after World War I.* At this time Jewish* immigrants were seen as anarchists attempting to destroy American democracy. Roman Catholics and the church hierarchy were thought to be undermining democracy by attempting to institute papal control over the nation. Nativism expressed itself in the reemergence of the Ku Klux Klan* in 1916 and the Johnson-Reed Immigration Restriction Act of 1924.* Nativism was a factor in the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment* for national prohibition* and eugenical laws* that resulted in the sterilization of thousands of people, of which a high proportion were foreign born. Nativists considered themselves "one-hundred-per-cent American." This included being opposed to "the Negro, Jew, Oriental, Roman Catholic, and alien . . . dope, bootlegging, graft, night clubs and road houses, violation of the Sabbath, unfair business dealings, sex, marital 'going-ons' and scandalous behavior." Many old-stock AngloAmerican health reformers of the era were nativists and nativism was an undercurrent of their crusades. References: Chalmers, David Mark, Hooded Americanism: The First Century of the Ku Klux Klan, 1865-1965 (1965); Engs, Ruth Clifford, Clean Living Movements: American Cycles of Health Beform (2000); Evans, Hiram W., The Menace of Modern Immigration (1923); Grant, Madison, The Passing of the Great Bace (1916); Higham, John, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925 (1955).
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New Thought movement The term "New Thought" referred to emerging religious systems based upon Eastern philosophies and mental healing. The New Thought movement reflected the positive feelings of the Progressive era. It preached that every good thing was possible through God and that negative ideas should be replaced by positive "affirmations" or thoughts. Its philosophy also influenced the purity* and temperance* movements. First mentioned by William Holcombe (1825-1893), a homeopathic practitioner, around 1887, the New Thought movement was part of the general religious revival of the Third Great Awakening.* Gaius Atkins (1858-1956), a religious scholar of the era, suggested, "There was actually, between 1890 and 1930, more radical and creative religious experimentation than, very likely, since the first three Christian centuries. These experiments include between them about every imaginable and some unimaginable aspects of faith, conduct, and speculation." Religions based upon "esoteric wisdom from the east" included "Theosophy," Baha'i, and the Vedanta Society. Spiritualism, founded earlier, began to gain followers, and mysticism drew interest. However, a major faction of New Thought was sects for curing illness through mental science or mind cure. * The basic philosophy of this faction was introduced by Phineas P. Quimby (1802-1866) in the immediate post-Civil War era. His students Warren Felt Evans (1816-1889) and Mary Baker Eddy,* along with Horatio Dresser (1866-1954), the son of former students, began to interpret Quimby's philosophy. Several sects emerged based upon these writings, including Christian Science.* William James (1842-1910), a philosopher and psychologist, in his 1901-1902 Variety of Beligious Experiences lectures suggested New Thought was a religion of "healthy-mindedness." New Thought was introduced to the public through articles published by Benjamin O. Flower* in Arena.* These writings facilitated the formation of reform groups and interaction between leaders concerned with moral issues related to health. An example was the foundation of the American Purity Alliance* in 1895, attended by purity,* antiobscenity, and temperance* leaders. By the late 1920s the New Thought movement began to wane. Christian Science, Unity, and some other sects remained active into the twenty-first century. References: Atkins, Gaius Glenn, Modern Beligious Cults and Movements (1923), Beligion in Our Times (1932); Braden, Charles Samuel, Spirits in Bebellion: The Bise and Development of New Thought (1963); Dresser, Horatio W., A History of the New Thought Movement (1919); Hudson, Winthrop Still, Beligion in America (1965); James, William, The Varieties of Beligious Experience (1912); Satter, Beryl, Each Mind a Kingdom: American Women, Sexual Purity, and the New Thought
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Movement, 1875-1920 (1999); Patterson, Charles Brodie, "What the New Thought stands for," Arena 25 (January 1901), 9-16. New York Society for the Suppression of Vice (1873-1950s) This organization crusaded against not only the producers and distributors of "obscenity," but also works of literature, art, entertainment, and devices it judged as immoral. It supported Anthony Comstock,* the leading crusader of the Progressive era's antiobscenity movement,* and supported a change in federal postal laws. In 1866 the New York city Young Men's Christian Association* surveyed young working men and became concerned about their weakness for erotic literature, saloons,* and prostitutes.* To fight at least against "licentious books" and other printed matter, YMCA officials launched a campaign for stricter state obscenity laws. In 1869 the state of New York enacted legislation forbidding the dissemination of "smut," including contraceptive information or materials. Comstock, concerned about the lack of enforcement of the law, approached the New York city YMCA in 1872 for help in doing something about the problems. The YMCA established the Committee for the Suppression of Vice. Supporting members of the association and the committee included some of the city's most prominent citizens. Appointed as a special agent for the committee, Comstock used entrapment methods that led to the arrest and successful prosecution of several individuals, including some prominent people. In 1873, through the support of the committee and well-placed friends, Comstock urged Congress to change the postal laws on grounds that "immoral" literature and devices were being sent through the mail. On March 3, 1873, Congress passed what became known as the Comstock Law,* which prevented any sexually explicit material, including medical education and birth-control* material, from being shipped through the U.S. Post Office. Much of this law was still in place in the early twenty-first century. Due to Comstock's various activities, the YMCA experienced a decline in donations. Fearing further financial damage, committee members formed a new organization separate from the YMCA. This group, the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, was chartered in New York state on May 16, 1873. Comstock was appointed "secretary and special agent" and received financial backing from the society, which was supported by voluntary contributions. The society investigated citizen complaints. If an apparent violation of the law was found, the case was turned over to authorities for prosecution. The society worked in cooperation with the police, district attorneys, courts, postal inspectors, and other groups. Under Comstock's leadership many classical works of art and literature were banned from the U.S. mail.
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By the second decade of the twentieth-century, the society, along with Comstock, had undergone satirical ridicule in the popular press for over a decade. In 1913 John S. Sumner (1876-1971), a young attorney, became the society's assistant secretary and upon Comstock's death in 1915 became executive secretary. Sumner attempted to change its image. The society battled against "hard core" pornography and attempted to censor books written by recognized authors and published by respected publishing houses. These prosecutions between 1918-1922 led to limited success. In 1918, chapters of James Joyce's (1882-1941) novel Ulysses, in a review magazine, were burned by the U.S. Post Office. During 1923-1925 a "clean book" crusade was launched and a Clean Books League was formed by the society and various religious groups. The league vigorously attempted to censor contemporary novels by well-known authors but was largely unsuccessful. This crusade drastically affected the reputation of the society and indirectly that of vice societies in other cities. In the 1920s the society began nativistic* tirades against immigrants,* Catholics,* and Jews.* It suggested these groups were the major dealers and authors of smut. Defeats in the courts triggered a serious decline in the society's fortunes and influence. However, it struggled through the depression. In the 1940s it still ferreted out pornography that led to arrests. Sumner retired in 1950 and the society faded into obscurity. Over its lifetime, however, its activities led to the prosecution of over 5,500 individuals and the confiscation of over 3 million obscene postcards—usually photographs of European works of art—plus hundreds of thousands of books. References: Bates, Anna Louise, Weeder in the Garden of the Lord: Anthony Comstock's Life and Career (1995); Broun, Heywood C , and Leech, Margaret, Anthony Comstock: Boundsman of the Lord (1927); Boyer, Paul S., Purity in Print: The Vice-Society Movement and Book Censorship in America (1968); NatCAB 56 (1975), 464. Nineteenth Amendment This amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America gave women the right to vote. It took over fifty years of struggle for women to finally gain suffrage. In 1878 a constitutional amendment was proposed that provided "the right of citizens to vote shall not be abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex." This amendment was introduced in every session of Congress for the next forty-one years. Wyoming was admitted to statehood in 1890 with woman suffrage,* having had it as a territory since 1869. Utah allowed woman suffrage as a territory in 1870. Congress overturned the enfranchisement in 1887, but when Utah was admitted to statehood, woman suffrage was put back into the state constitution. Colorado adopted suffrage for women in 1893
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and Idaho in 1896. In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt's* Progressive Party became the first national political party to draft a plank supporting woman suffrage. After years of struggle by leaders of the woman suffrage movement and increased political action during the second decade of the twentieth century, the Nineteenth Amendment was introduced to Congress as a joint resolution between the Senate and the House of Representatives on May 19, 1919. It was passed by Congress on June 4, 1919, and ratified on August 18, 1920. This amendment reads as follows: Section 1: The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. Section 2: Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. References: Catt, Carrie Chapmann, ed., Victory: How Women Won It: A Centennial Symposium 1840-1940 (1940); Graham, Sara Hunter, Women Suffrage and the New Democracy (1996); Harper, Ida H., ed., The History of Woman Suffrage (1922); Severn, Bill, Free but Not Equal: How Women Won the Bight to Vote (1967).
o Opium This narcotic* drug, obtained from the pod of the opium poppy [Papaver somniferum), has been used for medicinal and recreational purposes for centuries. The drug is obtained by slashing the seedpod of the poppy after the petals have fallen off. These incisions then exude a thick substance called raw opium. In the Progressive era, raw opium was processed into many derivatives including morphine and heroin. Upper-middle-class or upper-class artistic opiate users, sometimes called "opium eaters," consumed an alcohol-opiate mixture to enhance the creative process. Chinese* immigrant laborers who smoked opium in pipes brought this practice with them to the United States. Opium smoke was also sniffed. Opiates such as laudanum and paregoric were the active ingredients in many patent medicines* available without a prescription. Physicians often prescribed opiates to relieve pain. Over the Progressive era's Clean Living Movement,* laws attempted to eliminate all nonmedical opiate use. These laws included the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906,* the Smoking Opium Exclusion Act,* and the Harrison Narcotics Act.* After 1915, addicts switched to heroin, which was cheaper, and went from sniffing and smoking to injecting the drug in the 1920s and 1930s. Illicit nonmedical use of opiates remained fairly constant during the 1920s and 1930s and only began to decline just before World War II. References: Booth, Martin, Opium: A History (1996); Courtwright, David T., DarkParadise: Opiate Addiction in America before 1940 (1982); Engs, Ruth Clifford, Alcohol and Other Drugs: Self-Besponsibility (1987); Musto, David F., The American Disease: Origins of Narcotic Control (1987); Zentner, Joseph, "Opiate use in America during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: The origins of a modern scourge," Studies in History and Society 5 (Spring 1974), 40-54.
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Osborn, Henry Fairfield (August 8,1857-November 6,1935) Osborn, an eminent paleontologist and anthropologist, led the Museum of National History to worldwide prominence. A leading pioneer of the eugenics movement,* he was a nativist* who championed immigration restriction* and was an opponent of birth control.* Osborn was born in Fairfield, Connecticut, the son of a railroad magnate from an old-money Presbyterian family. Educated at the private Lyons Collegiate Institute of New York, he graduated from Princeton University (1877) with a A.B. in archaeology and geology. Following graduation, he participated in archeological expeditions to the western states (1877-1878), studied anatomy and physiology at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York (1878-1879), spent a year in Europe studying embryology (1879-1880), and received an Sc.D. degree from Princeton (1881). That same year he began a tenyear teaching career in natural science (1881-1891). In 1891 he accepted a joint appointment at Columbia University and the American Museum of Natural History. At the museum Osborn quickly created a world center of vertebrae paleontology. Financial backing through family connections supported expeditions around the world to collect fossils. He promoted the development of museum displays and educational programs. His expedition to Montana in 1906 yielded the only known specimen of a warlike dinosaur, which he named "Tyrannosaurus Rex." In 1908 Osborn became president of the museum. His large staff engaged in worldwide expeditions and museum projects and wrote many of his 900 publications, for which they received little credit. Among his many conservation involvements, he, along with Madison Grant,* formed the Save-the-Redwoods League (1919). Osborn became a major leader and pioneer of the eugenics movement. His renowned status as a scientist lent respectability to both the eugenics and the immigration restriction movements. Repelled by the nation's growing urbanization and ethnic diversity, Osborn championed eugenic* objectives. He viewed unrestricted immigration* as a threat to public health and the survival of old-stock AngloAmericans.* This fear was based on research presented in his Men of the Old Stone Age (1915), in which he inferred that humanity degenerated when inferior Eastern and Southern European "races" interbred with more intelligent and artistic Cro-Magnons. Osborn also wrote the preface to Grant's Passing of the Great Bace (1916), which had a similar theme. Along with Grant and Charles Davenport,* Osborn was the founder of the elitist Galton Society* and was active in other eugenics organizations, including the Eugenics Records Office's* Committee on Eugenics. He was an organizer of the First International Eugenics Congress* (1912) and president of the Second Con-
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gress, which was postponed, due to World War I,* until 1923. Under his presidency the museum sponsored the Second and Third (1932) Congresses. Although he championed eugenics, he considered birth control and Margaret Sanger's* birth-control movement* as undermining eugenic principles, leading to race suicide.* As his views and scientific interpretations became less acceptable, Osborn was pressured in 1933 to resign as president of the museum. Over his lifetime he received many honorary awards and was considered an eminent man of science during the peak of the Progressive era. Osborn married Lucretia Perry, with whom he had five children. He died in his study, overlooking the Hudson River in Garrison, New York, of a heart attack, while "writing a 1,250,000word treatise on the evolution of the elephant" two years after his retirement. References: Osborn, Henry Fairfield, Men of the Old Stone Age: Their Environment, Life and Art (1915), "Birth selection vs. birth control," The Forum (August 1932), 79-83; Grant, Madison, The Passing of the Great Bace (1916), vii-ix; ANB 16 (1999), 785788; DAB 11 (1964), 584-587; NatCAB 26 (1937), 18-20; obituary, NYT, November 7, 1935. osteopathy This healing philosophy using spinal and joint manipulation was developed in the late nineteenth century. The practice during the Progressive era struggled for survival due to encroachments by more traditional physicians who strove to eliminate alternative healing arts such as osteopathy and upgrade medical education in general. Osteopathy was founded by Andrew Taylor Still (1828-1917), an itinerant physician, who practiced first in Kansas and then in Missouri. He hypothesized that if a vertebra was out of place, disease would result. By putting the vertebra back in place, the disease should be eliminated. Still was influenced by Mesmerism, which taught that a free flow of "universal magnetic fluid" was a necessary component of health. Still concluded that blood was this critical fluid. He was also likely influenced by "bonesetters," working-class people who had a gift for resetting dislocated bones and manipulating joints. Still's treatment methods using manipulation to "improve circulation" and to correct body mechanics appeared to garner some success. While developing his technique in the 1870s and 1880s, he eschewed the use of drugs to effect cures. Still's practice became so successful that in 1889 he founded an infirmary in Kirksville, Missouri, where patients could come for treatment on a regular basis. In 1892 he opened the American School of Osteopathy, where students learned anatomy and physiology in addition to manipulation. The school was accessible to both men and women, and graduated its first class of Doctors of Osteopathy (D.O.s) in 1893. By the turn of
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the twentieth century, other schools opened to compete with the Kirksville institution and many included pharmacology and surgery as a part of their training. In 1896, Vermont became the first state to license D.O.s for practice. In the mid-1890s an offshoot, chiropractic healing,* developed. This healing art was not accepted by many osteopaths, who felt chiropractors were imitating their methods. By the late 1890s regular physicians (M.D.s), often backed by the American Medical Association,* considered osteopathy mere quackery and fought to outlaw the practice. In 1897 the American Association for the Advancement of Osteopathy, renamed in 1901 the American Osteopathic Association (AOA), was founded as a defense against this growing opposing force. The association sought to obtain professional recognition, independent boards of registration and examination, and professional autonomy. By 1901 fifteen states had established laws regulating osteopathic practice. Osteopaths adopted a code of ethics in 1904, and approved a three-year course of study in 1905, which after 1915 was increased to four years. The Flexner Report* of 1910 criticized osteopathic schools for providing little scientific training. This led surviving schools to increase their standards. Osteopaths, as members of the National League for Medical Freedom,* were opposed to a national health board on grounds it gave the AMA a monopoly. In 1917, upon the death of Still, more than 5,000 D.O.s were in practice. Because of continuing pressure from the AMA to curtail the practice, osteopathic schools further increased their requirements for entrance and increasingly strengthened their curriculum throughout the century. During World War II, D.O.s began tending to the needs of the patients of M.D.s who had been inducted into the military. Because orthodox medical hospitals would not grant osteopaths staff privileges, they established their own hospitals. In 1967 the AOA was recognized by the Council for Education Accreditation as the accrediting agency for all facets of osteopathic medical education. During the last two decades of the twentieth century the training of M.D.s and D.O.s was almost identical. Most D.O.s acted as primary caregivers and only a few practiced manipulation of the spine. References: Burrow, James Gordon, Organized Medicine in the Progressive Era: The Move toward Monopoly (1977); Gevitz, Norman, The D.O.s: Osteopathic Medicine in America (1982); Other Healers: Unorthodox Medicine in America (1988); Still, Andrew Taylor, Autobiography of Andrew T Still: With a History of the Discovery and Development of the Science of Osteopathy (1897). Outdoor Life, Journal of the (1903-1935) This serial, created to disseminate reliable information concerning the prevention and treat-
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ment of tuberculosis,* became the official publication of the National Tuberculosis Association.* It provided information for "persons seeking health by an outdoor life." The magazine was founded in 1903 in Saranac Lake, New York, at Edward Trudeau's* sanatorium, and published by Lawranson Brown (1871-1937), a physician. From April 1906 until August 1922 it was published by the Outdoor Life Publishing Company. Beginning in 1910 it was the official organ of the National Tuberculosis Association and various other groups in the tuberculosis movement.* By 1922 the journal had a large circulation and its editorial staff included Homer Folks* and Philip Jacobs,* who was managing editor. After August 1922 the NTA took over all publishing duties. The magazine was published monthly and was primarily aimed at tuberculosis patients. However, it was also directed at the volunteers and medical personnel interested in the treatment and prevention of tuberculosis. Each issue included at least one scientific article by a physician or other health authority. In its early years it gave statistics concerning the percentage of people cured who had attended a sanatorium. In the midst of the Depression and the decline of tuberculosis, the publication folded in 1935. References: "Edward L. Trudeau: A devoted public servant," Outlook (April 28, 1906), 975-978; Journal of the Outdoor Life 32 (January 1935).
p patent medicine crusade (1886-1914) This crusade against dangerous substances in proprietary medicines and lack of adequate labeling of ingredients was a facet of the pure food and drug movement* during the Progressive era's Clean Living Movement.* It was supported by temperance* and public health* reformers. At the beginning of the patent medicine* crusade, moral suasion or education to convince the public that these medicines were dangerous was implemented by the Woman's Christian Temperance Union.* The symbolic beginning of the patent medicine movement was the WCTU's establishment of a department of narcotics* in 1886 to address the issue of patent medicines. Their members viewed these nonprescription drugs as dangerous to families because they contained large quantities of alcohol,* opium,* or cocaine that induced a drug habit.* In addition, most patent medicine labels did not accurately delineate their contents. The WCTU wrote articles in the Union Signal* and pamphlets and sponsored lectures against their use. By 1901 they had mandated scientific temperance instruction* in all states that taught the effects of alcohol and narcotics on the body. Public health leaders such as George Kober* expressed concern about patent medicines in the late 1890s. After the turn of the twentieth century, many groups exerted increased public pressure on Congress to legislate restrictions on the proprietary medicine industry, which led to the coercive phase of the crusade and the pure food and drug movement. Around 1903 journalists began to write exposes on patent medicines. Edward Bok,* editor of Ladies' Home Journal, and muckrakers* such as Samuel Hopkins Adams (1871-1958) wrote a series of sensational magazines articles during 1905-1906 concerning the nostrums. Titles for Bok's
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series included, "A diabolical 'patent-medicine' story" and "The patent-medicine curse." Information for some of these articles was based upon WCTU writings, for which they were not given credit. The muckrakers' sensational articles and more sober ones by the New York Times helped popularize the movement and make the case for federal legislation that culminated with passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.* This powerful law came about despite strenuous opposition from the Proprietary Medicine Association and the National Wholesale Liquor Dealers Association. The new law stipulated that dangerous drugs, including alcohol, be identified on the package label. As a component of the new law, labels that manufacturers placed on their medicines were required to be truthful. If certain substances were not listed, they in fact could not be present in the nostrum. Adulterated or misbranded articles were subject to government seizure and prosecution. A drug was considered misbranded if sold under a false name or if it failed to identify addicting substances. Soon after passage of the law, Harvey W. Wiley,* the architect of the food and drug movement, noted that even though drugs were now on the labels, many people were not familiar with them. To enlighten the public as to the nature of the ingredients, Wiley and others began publishing articles in popular magazines that described addicting drugs, the addiction process, and the dangers of other common substances found in medications. This educational campaign, along with physicians' reluctance to prescribe opiates, factored into a decline in medically acquired drug addiction.* Not satisfied with loopholes in the 1906 act, reformers began to push for a legislated "standard of purity for drugs." In 1910 an amendment was submitted to Congress advocating a single official authority for drug standards; however, the measure did not pass. In 1912 Wiley recommended that false claims such as cancer, epilepsy, and drug habit cures be removed from all labels and advertising. Finally, after continued pressure from reformers and the public, the Sherley Amendment of 1912* was enacted. This amendment added the requirement that labels not contain any false or fraudulent statement regarding curative or therapeutic effects. The Net Weight Act of 1913 required that all packages shipped in interstate commerce "be plainly and conspicuously marked to show the quantity of the contents." After this act the momentum for patent medicine drug laws declined, with World War I* looming on the horizon. References: "Extensions of the Food and Drugs Act," Scientific American 14 (March 7, 1914), 194; Goodwin, Lorine Swainston, The Pure Food, Drink, and Drug Crusaders, 1897-1914 (1999); Kober, George M., "The progress and achievements of hygiene," Science 6 (November 26,1897), 789-799; Temin, Peter, Taking Your Medicine: Drug Regulation in the United
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States (1980); Wiley, Harvey W., "Why headache remedies are dangerous," Ladies'Home Journal 24 (February 1907), 29; Young, James Harvey, Pure Food: Securing the Federal Food and Drugs Act of 1906 (1989). patent medicines These potions for medicinal use were bought without a prescription and often contained dangerous or addicting substances during the Progressive era. Patent medicines were also termed proprietary medicines or, in the negative context, nostrums. Produced and marketed under a trade name by a business establishment or by an individual, they were widely advertised with dubious claims of effectiveness. By the late nineteenth century, drugs were divided into two classes. The first were "formulary drugs" or prescriptions, whose compositions were listed in official publications. The second were the proprietary medicines manufactured through "secret processes" from unknown ingredients and sold under trademark names. Because patent medicines obtained from a pharmacy or through mail order often relieved the symptoms of common aches and pains at a time when physicians offered few cures, they proved to be very popular. Health reformers became increasingly alarmed about the lack of ingredients listed in these nostrums, which often included alcohol,* opium,* chloroform, and cocaine. To counter such concerns, manufacturers often placed a reassuring phrase on the label, such as "contains nothing injurious to the youngest babe," even if these "soothing syrups" contained dangerous and addicting substances. Reformers were also concerned by the number of individuals who developed a drug habit* from using these nostrums. Muckraking* journalists between 1904 and 1906 began to publish the ingredients of patent medicines, a practice that, in turn, accelerated the pure food and drug movement* and the patent medicine crusade.* References: Goodwin, Lorine Swainston, The Pure Food, Drink, and Drug Crusaders, 1897-1914 (1999); Kober, George M., "The progress and achievements of hygiene," Science 6 (November 26,1897), 789-799; Temin, Peter, Taking Your Medicine: Drug Regulation in the United States (1980); Young, James Harvey, Pure Food: Securing the Federal Food and Drugs Act of 1906 (1989). pauperism and poverty Pauperism during the Progressive era was considered by many health and social reformers to be inherited. It was defined in the Encyclopedia of Social Reform (1897) as, "the condition of the destitute who are more or less dependent upon the community for support." Among paupers in 1890, the highest proportion was found among those with Irish* ancestry, followed by those of German* lineage, which reflected the lion's share of immi-
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grants* in the previous two decades. As Eastern and Southern European immigrants later migrated to the United States to settle in already overcrowded urban tenements, they had high poverty rates in the first two decades of the twentieth century. However, the Jews,* because of their own charity organizations, were less likely to use public welfare. Eugenic* surveys, including those done by Charles Davenport,* Henry Goddard,* and Henry Perkins,* reinforced the widely held notion of a hereditarian cause of poverty, since generations of paupers from the same family, such as found in the Kallikak, Jukes, and Nam families,* could be identified. The poor, however, were divided into two categories. The "deserving poor" were hardworking, sober, and law abiding. Their condition was due to poor health, a death of the wage earner in the family, or unsanitary living conditions. Reformers were willing to help upraise them. The "undeserving poor," or paupers, were considered intemperate, lazy criminals, lacking a Protestant* work ethic. Eugenical legislation* and immigration restriction* were targeted specifically at this group. Some reformers assumed that poverty could be reduced if alcohol,* the saloon,* prostitution,* and unsanitary conditions were eliminated. Writings on the urban slum and poverty helped fan the purity,* anti-saloon,* sanitation,* and immigration restriction movements in the 1890s. Jacob Riis (1849-1914), a prominent social reformer, in How the Other Half Lives (1890), depicted the horrible conditions of the tenement, with its disease and wretchedness. Steven Crane's (1871-1900) Maggie, a Girl of the Streets (1893) portrayed the brutality of tenement living and the inevitability of an innocent young girl's decline into prostitution and an early death to escape from an abusive family life. In the late 1920s environmental causes of poverty, such as lack of opportunity and education and poor health stemming from unsanitary conditions, began to be considered only after advances in genetic research refuted the hereditary nature of poverty. References: Dann, Kevin, "From degeneration to regeneration: The eugenics survey of Vermont, 1925-1936," Vermont History 59 (Winter 1991), 5-29; Lubove, Roy, The Progressives and the Slums: Tenement House Reform in New York City, 18901917 (1962); Riis, Jacob, How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York (1891); ESR (1897), 1071-1078. Peabody, Francis Greenwood (December 4,1847-December 28,1936) A Unitarian minister and educator, Peabody was a pioneer of the Social Gospel movement.* He also influenced the temperance* and social purity* movements. Peabody was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of a Unitarian minister from an old New England family. Although his father died when he was seven, family connections
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allowed him to prepare for Harvard at a private school. After graduating from Harvard with an A.B. (1869), he went to Harvard Divinity School and received a D.D. (1872). Peabody then went to the University of Halle (Germany) for two years and studied contemporary German technology and philosophy. He became one of the foremost interpreters of German religious thought in America. When he returned he was ordained as a Unitarian minister at the First Parish Church in Cambridge in March 1874. Because of ill health, in 1878 he again traveled to Europe and resigned his position in Cambridge in 1880. Upon his return he was designated Parkman Professor of Theology in the Divinity School (1881-1896) and then Plummer Professor of Christian Morals (1886-1913). He remained at Harvard for thirty years and served as overseer (1877-1882), acting dean (1885-1885, 1893-1894), and then dean (1901-1905) of the Divinity School. Peabody was an early thinker of the Social Gospel* movement and was convinced of the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth through the reform of society "by changed men and women." He advocated gradual reform rather than radical remedies for social ills, as suggested by some of his contemporaries. Peabody was responsible for the development and establishment of the Department of Social Ethics, one of the first that reflected the Social Gospel philosophy. Topics discussed in seminars included prostitution,* alcoholism,* temperance,* and the liquor traffic* Peabody, along with his brother-in-law Charles Eliot,* helped organize the Committee of Fifty* in 1893 to examine physiological and sociological aspects of alcohol. Peabody was its secretary and editor of some of the commit-tee's publications, including The Liquor Problem: A Summary of Investigations Conducted by the Committee of Fifty, 1893-1903 (1905). He was the first exchange professor to lecture at the University of Berlin and was awarded the Order of the Prussian Crown for his work but returned it to the Kaiser upon the onset of World War I.* Peabody was a prolific writer over his lifetime and wrote numerous books and articles. After his retirement in 1913 he lectured in Japan and other countries. He was also chief of the Enforcement Division of the Federal Food Administrator for Massachusetts during the war. Peabody married Cora Weld in 1872 and fathered four children. He died at his home after a long illness. References: Herbst, Jurgen, "Francis Greenwood Peabody: Harvard's theologian of the social gospel," Harvard Theological Review 54 (January 1961), 4 5 69; Long, Grace Cummings, "The ethics of Francis Greenwood Peabody: A century of Christian social ethics," Journal of Religious Ethics 18 (Spring 1990), 55-73; Peabody, Francis G., The Liquor Problem: A Summary of Investigations Conducted by the Committee of
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Fifty, 1893-1903 (1905); DAR 11 (1958), 518-519; WhAm 1 (1942), 947; obituary, NYT, December 31, 1936. Pease, Charles Giffin (December 4,1854-October 7,1941) A physician, dentist, and antitobacco reformer, Pease founded the NonSmoking Protective League and was instrumental in banning smoking on subways and other public places in New York city. In addition to tobacco,* he waged a lifetime war against alcohol,* drugs, immunizations,* and meat. Born in New York city, the son of a merchant from an old-stock English family, he attended Friends Seminary in New York city and Sanford and Shaw School, Redding Ridge, Connecticut. He worked for several years in his father's import business, but unhappy in that pursuit, studied dentistry at the New York College of Dentistry and the Philadelphia Dental College, where he received a D.D.S. (1890). He was also a student at the MedicoChirugical College of Philadelphia (1889-1890). After graduation he began practice as a dentist in New York city while attending New York Homeopathic Medical College and Flower Hospital, from which he graduated with an M.D. (1891). He practiced as a physician until his retirement in 1933. He was also a professor (1894-1897) at two New York city medical and dental colleges. Pease began his reformist career at age twelve, convinced of the deleterious effects of coffee, and at age eighteen gave up tobacco. From childhood through his adult life, he crusaded against all forms of poisons that he believed threatened the human race with extinction. In late 1910 he founded the Non-Smokers Protective League of America in New York city with David Starr Jordan* and Harvey Wiley,* who served as board members a number of years. Pease was president of the league until his death. In the second and third decades of the twentieth century he regularly "arrested" smokers on trains and subways and lobbied for laws restricting smoking. In his zealous fight to eliminate smoking in public places, Pease clashed with a number of individuals, including Katherine Bement Davis* in 1914 for allowing prisoners to smoke. He saw danger in environmental smoke, and was against tea, coffee, chocolate, cocoa, tobacco, opium,* cocaine, and other drugs. Pease flirted with the teachings of the New Thought movement,* but was against Christian Science.* He was a vegetarian* and considered "flesh, as food" injurious to all human tissues. Over his lifetime he wrote numerous pamphlets and letters crusading for his various health causes. He married Clara Estelle Eagan (1881) who died in 1883 and Mary Leonora Spear (1901) who died in 1904, but had no children from either marriage. In 1930 he adopted Audrey Fiedler, in whose New York city home he died. References:
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Pease, Charles Griffin, Is There Retrayal of the Human Race by Departments of Health and by Some Members of the Clergy and Practitioners of the "Healing Arts" (1929); NatCAR (1944), 425-426; WhAm 1 (1942), 950; obituary, NYT, October 9, 1941. Perkins, Henry Farnham (May 10,1877-November 24,1956) A zoologist and eugenicist,* Perkins was most noted for his Vermont Eugenics Survey at the peak of the eugenics movement.* Born in Burlington, Vermont, he was the only son of a distinguished professor and dean at the University of Vermont (UVM). The family was from a prominent old New England bloodline and were devoted Congregationalists. Henry followed in his father's footsteps and also became an academic. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from UVM (1898) and received a Ph.D. in zoology from Johns Hopkins University (1902). Upon completing his dissertation on jellyfish, he began teaching at UVM. During the summer months early in his career, he was also a research assistant at a marine biology laboratory in Florida (1902-1906). Perkins worked his way up the academic ladder and became chair of the Zoology Department around 1913. In 1922 he reorganized the zoology curriculum and began teaching elective courses on heredity and evolution. His heredity class provided a venue for eugenics and inspired a eugenics survey in Vermont. In 1922 Perkins wrote Charles Davenport,* director of the Eugenics Records Office,* Cold Spring Harbor, New York, for ideas concerning student research. Davenport suggested research projects that included collection of family histories. This led to the Vermont Eugenics Survey (1925-1936), which was modeled on the studies of Harry Laughlin,* superintendent of the ERO. The survey was privately funded for its duration by two wealthy former Vermont women. Its purpose was to collect eugenics information concerning Vermont families and communities and to publicize the findings to support a broad range of social reforms in the state. Based upon the result of sixty-two "degenerate" Vermont families, Perkins championed eugenical laws* to provide sterilization of the "socially inadequate," which included those with alcoholism,* pauperism,* tuberculosis,* and syphilis. Drawing upon direct influence, the Vermont sterilization law was passed in 1931, a law that Perkins, reflecting on near the end of his life, called "one of the most important and Progressive measures on the statute books." Perkins was not a major figure in the eugenics movement, although he shouldered leadership roles in a few organizations. He was president of the American Eugenics Society* (1931-1934) and director until 1937. For the Third International Congress of Eugenics* he was editor of its proceedings, A Decade of Progress in Eugenics: Scientific Papers of the Third International Congress of Eugenics (1934).
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Other health-reform activities included leadership in the YMCA* and membership in the Life Extension Institute.* In 1903 Perkins married Mary Edmunds, from a prominent Baltimore family, and fathered two daughters. When his mother died in 1904, the couple moved in with his father in the large house where Harry was born and raised; there he lived the rest of his life. During his career Perkins was also curator of the Fleming Museum from 1931 until his retirement. While at the museum he organized and cataloged the materials from his eugenic studies. By the end of World War II, due to advances in genetic research and changes in political and social thought, eugenics was no longer an accepted field of study and his work was considered antiquated. In 1945 Perkins and other faculty members sixty-five years old and older were forced to retire, and he spent his last few years as a bedridden alcoholic before dying of liver failure. It is interesting to note that alcoholism was one of the prominent "traits" of defective Vermont families for which sterilization was recommended in his eugenics survey. References: Dann, Kevin, "From degeneration to regeneration: The eugenics survey of Vermont, 1925-1936," Vermont History 59 (Winter 1991), 5-29; Gallagher, Nancy L., Ereeding Retter Vermonters: The Eugenics Project in the Green Mountain State (1999); AMS 2 (1955), 671; WhAm 5 (1973), 564; obituary, Burlington Free Press, November 25, 1956. personal hygiene and the personal hygiene movement (1880-1920) A major development of the Progressive era's Clean Living Movement* was education for personal hygiene. Campaigns to encourage individual efforts to prevent the "catching" or transmission of a disease to others began in the last two decades of the nineteenth century. Contributions to personal hygiene and the personal hygiene movement came from the physical education,* temperance,* public health,* and tuberculosis* movements. Cleanliness was considered important for the body, both inside and out. John Harvey Kellogg,* based upon hydrotherapy cures, encouraged frequent bathing and daily "evacuation" in the late 1870s. By the 1880s, bathing tubs—permanent ones for the wealthy and portable folding ones for poorer individuals—were marketed. "Public baths," which included a pool and shower facilities, began to be built in the 1890s in numerous cities to encourage cleanliness among young men. An increased number of pools were found in athletic clubs, YMCAs,* and public gymnasiums that popularized bathing and hygiene. By the late 1890s personal hygiene was equated with morality on the premise that a clean body also meant a clean mind. Scientific temperance instruction,* overseen by the Woman's Christian Temperance Union,* advocated cleanliness, and by the first decade of the twentieth century some personal hygiene information
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was incorporated into their approved texts. Programs launched by the National Tuberculosis Association* influenced personal hygiene, including bubble drinking fountains, no-spitting campaigns, the use of paper cups instead of a common cup, pasteurized milk, hand washing after using the toilet and before eating, teeth brushing, covering one's mouth when coughing and sneezing, and using disposable handkerchiefs. By 1910 other dimensions were added to personal hygiene to achieve a balance of work, play, sleep, and "strengthening defenses against disease." Irving Fisher,* in his report, National Vitality:Its Wastes and Conservation (1909), which addressed the nation's health, referred not only to bathing, but to clean air, soil, dwellings, and clothing as aspects of personal hygiene. Diet and nutrition,* physical culture and physical education,* and avoidance of "poisons" such as alcohol,* narcotics,* and tobacco* were also included. The modern health crusade* for children included much information about personal hygiene and cleanliness. Eugenic* undertones to personal hygiene emerged in the second and third decades of the century. Correct hygiene practices were interpreted as lifting humans to a higher level of health, thus preventing racial degeneration.* By the 1930s health habits and personal hygiene were accepted and practiced by most Americans. References: Engs, Ruth Clifford, Clean Living Movements: American Cycles of Health Reform (2000); Fisher, Irving, National Vitality: Its Wastes and Conservation (1909); Greene, Harvey, Fit for America (1986); Teller, Michael E., The Tuberculosis Movement: A Public Health Campaign in the Progressive Era (1988); Whorton, James C , Crusaders for Fitness: The History of American Health Reformers (1982). Phipps, Henry (September 27,1839-September 22,1930) A wealthy steel industrialist, Phipps helped create and fund voluntary organizations, conferences, and clinics that led to the growth and development of the tuberculosis* and mental health movements. Phipps was born to humble beginnings in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of a shoemaker. His parents had migrated from England and were Episcopalian. In 1845 the family moved to Allegheny City, near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where they were next-door neighbors to industrialist Andrew Carnegie's (1835-1919) childhood family. Phipps was educated in the public schools and began working at age thirteen after school. At age seventeen he became an office boy and was soon promoted to bookkeeper at Dillworth and Bidwell, an iron-spike manufacturer. In 1858 he became a silent partner in the firm Kloman Brothers, operators of a small iron forge, and in 1861 at the age of twenty-one had purchased interest in the company. Two
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years later the firm became Kloman and Phipps. In the meantime, Carnegie, a former partner in the Kloman company, formed his own steel-making enterprise. In 1867 the two firms merged under the name of Union Iron Mills, with Phipps a partner in the new organization. This venture went through several reorganizations and name changes and developed subsidiaries. It became the largest steel producer in the world. Phipps's primary job was to raise money for these ventures. By 1900 Phipps had amassed a large fortune and moved to New York city. In 1901 the steel corporation and all its subsidiaries were sold to the United States Steel Corporation and Phipps retired from business. During the last thirty years of his life Phipps became a leader in philanthropy. His benefactions, principally in the field of public health,* aided and abetted several health and social movements. By 1885 he had begun endowing projects such as conservatories, reading rooms, public baths, and playgrounds. In the early 1890s he became interested in tuberculosis.* Phipps anonymously helped Lawrence Flick* establish the first voluntary state tuberculosis association in the country. Due to Flick's influence, in 1903 Phipps established the Henry Phipps Institute for the Study, Treatment and Prevention of Tuberculosis in Philadelphia. It was the first endowed center for clinical research to fight tuberculosis. Its goal was to provide treatment for the urban poor and advance the fight against tuberculosis; Flick was its first director. The institute was divided into five units, including a dispensary, laboratory, social-work division, library, and inpatient hospital. In 1910 it become part of the University of Pennsylvania, and in 1914 the institute, one of the first in the nation, established tuberculosis prevention and treatment programs targeted specifically toward poor African Americans.* In 1904 Phipps helped launch what became the National Tuberculosis Association* by providing funds for an organizational meeting. In 1905 he endowed the Phipps Tuberculosis Dispensary at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, under the direction of William Osier (18491919), a noted physician. Phipps also helped sponsor the International Congress on Tuberculosis,* held in Washington, D.C, in 1908. In addition to tuberculosis, Phipps was interested in mental health. In 1908 he founded and funded the Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic at Johns Hopkins, the first clinic of its type in the United States to study mental disease. Phipps made a large contribution to the National Committee for Mental Hygiene* that enabled it to launch a public-education campaign in 1911. Because of his public health interests he was appointed in 1907 to the Committee of One Hundred,* which pushed for a national department of health. His concerns over slums and housing led to his funding of "sanitary tenement
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houses in New York City" as a way to ameliorate poverty* and improve the health of the poor. Phipps married Anne C. Shaffer in 1872 and fathered two daughters and three sons. He died at his estate, "Bonnie Blink," in Great Neck, Long Island. References: "Henry Phipps: A man of vision," Mental Hygiene 15 (January 1931), 1-2; Knopf, S. Adolphus, A History of the National Tuberculosis Association (1922); McBride, David, "The Henry Phipps Institute, 19031937: Pioneering tuberculosis work with and urban minority," Rulletin of the History of Medicine (Spring 1987), 78-97; Teller, Michael E., The Tuberculosis Movement: A Public Health Campaign in the Progressive Era (1988); DAE 14 (1934), 550-551; NatCAR (1961), 191-192; obituary, NYT, September 23, 1930. Physical Culture (1899-1940) This magazine was a major promoter of physical culture* and health in the first two decades of the twentieth century. In 1899 Bernarr Macfadden,* self-appointed leader of the physical culture movement,* launched this monthly publication to meet the needs of increasing national interest in athletics, physical fitness, and body-building. Its motto was "Weakness is a crime; don't be a criminal," and its objective was "to teach the sick how to be well, the weak how to be strong, the well how to continue improving, the strong how to grow stronger." According to the masthead, the publication was "Devoted to Subjects Appertaining to Health, Strength, Vitality, Muscular Development and the Care of the Body. Also to Live and Current Matters of General Interest." Macfadden reemphasized in a 1910 issue that through the magazine, "We are struggling for the complete annihilation of these terrible evils which curse humanity the wide world over: 1. PRUDISHNESS, 2. CORSETS, 3. MUSCULAR INACTIVITY, 4. GLUTTONY, 7. TOBACCO, 8. DRUGS, 9. ALCOHOL." Physical Culture helped popularize many health crusades of the Progressive era, including diet and nutrition,* personal hygiene,* pure food and drugs,* sex education,* and agitation for a national health board. In 1906 it absorbed Physical Culture for Roys and Girls. The magazine sometimes ran afoul of the law. In a demonstration of what his exercise machines and regime could do for physical development, Macfadden or others were pictured in seminude "muscle" poses. This, along with sexuality subjects covered in the periodical, caused both the YMCA* and Anthony Comstock's* New York Society for the Suppression of Vice* to consider some issues pornographic and in defiance of the Comstock Law.* In 1907 an issue was seized as a result of an article on venereal-disease* transmission. However, publicity about this censorship served to promote more liberal standards in the press and helped shape national attitudes toward more
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open discussion of sexuality and disease prevention in the media. It also promoted the growing social hygiene movement.* By 1935 the periodical was part of a giant magazine empire, the Physical Culture Publishing Company, targeted toward the mass market of nonliterary readers. By mid-century, however, physical culture had little public interest and the company went into decline. In January 1942, in efforts to reach a wider audience, the magazine was renamed Physical Culture and the Intimate Magazine of Reauty and Health. Over the next few years it changed names several times, and with the death of Macfadden the publishing company and the magazine folded. References: "The editor maintains," Physical Culture 1 (August 1899), 163; "The editors viewpoint," Physical Culture 23 (April 1910), 319; Ernst, Robert, Weakness Is a Crime: The Life of Rernarr Macfadden (1991); Maxcy, Spencer J., and Todd, Terry, "The educational philosophy of a superman: Bernarr Macfadden and the physical culture movement," Vitae Scholasticae 6 (Spring 1987), 155-183. physical culture and physical education The terms "physical culture" and "physical exercise" were often use interchangeably in the popular press during the Progressive era. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, two aspects of the physical fitness movement were evident. The concept of physical education tended to focus on physical activity and sports in schools, in addition to actions for overall health. Physical education embraced the philosophy of muscular Christianity* and the YMCA* and advocated for temperance,* purity,* and proper diet and nutrition.* Its leaders included Luther Gulick,* Dudley Sargent,* and Edward Hitchcock.* Physical culture was a crusade of self-appointed health-conscious crusaders "outside the physical education ranks." It was associated with Bernarr Macfadden,* a self-styled physical culturist and the primary leader of this movement. Physical culture was more volatile in its approach than mere physical education, and included vegetarianism* along with physical fitness. The activities of John Harvey Kellogg* overlapped the two philosophies. The concept of the "whole man," which included a sound, or healthy, mind in a sound body [mens sana in encopore sano), was common to both the physical education* and the physical culture* movements during the first two decades of the twentieth century. Physical fitness was also important to the eugenics movement.* In Race Improvement in the United States (1909), the proceedings of a eugenics conference, Sargent argued that "the capacity of the brain for work, then, may be said to depend upon the soundness of the physique." He claimed to have found a correlation between superior mental capacity, as demonstrated by school records, and height
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and fitness. Sargent encouraged physical education for the development of physique and as "a fundamental basis for a broader, sounder, and higher mental development." The implication of this better, allaround health was development of healthier and fitter offspring. Personal hygiene was also closely linked to physical culture and physical education. References: Sargent, Dudley, "The significance of a sound physique," in American Academy of Political and Social Science, Race Improvement in the United States (1909), 9-15, "The future of physical education," Putnam's Magazine 7 (October 1909), 14-20; Greene, Harvey, Fit for America (1986); Whorton, James C , Crusaders for Fitness: The History of American Health Reformers (1982). physical culture movement (1890-1930) This movement was the popularization of physical exercise outside the muscular Christianity,* YMCA,* and school physical education* campaigns. It was led by self-appointed leaders who made physical well-being a crusade. This movement began in the late 1880s and had run its course by the late 1920s. Bernarr Macfadden,* a self-taught physical culturist, was the primary leader of the movement. He invented exercise equipment and opened his own gymnasium in New York city. In 1899 he launched a magazine, Physical Culture* which helped popularize diet and nutrition,* athletics, exercise, and body-building. By the first decade of the twentieth century physical culture included proper eating, semi-vegetarian* diets, breathing, exercise, posture, rest, personal hygiene,* and the rejection of alcohol* and tobacco.* Critics argued, however, that a debilitating effect on the human race was caused by faddish cults such as physical culture that sought health through water cures, food cures, fast cures, exercise cures, and halftruths rather than an attempt to lead a normal life. The movement had run its course by the end of the 1920s. References: Ernst, Robert, Weakness Is a Crime: The Life of Rernarr Macfadden (1991); Green, Harvey, Fit for America (1986); Maxcy, Spencer J., and Todd, Terry, "The educational philosophy of a superman: Bernarr Macfadden and the physical culture movement," Vitae Scholasticae 6 (Spring 1987), 155-183; Pearl, Raymond, "Breeding better men," The World's Work 15 (January 1, 1908), 9818-9824. physical education movement (1880-1920) Led by professionals, the physical education movement spurred a gymnasium craze and the incorporation of physical education in schools and college. It had ties with muscular Christianity* and the YMCA* and was a major facet of the Progressive era's Clean Living Movement.* The physical education movement had links with other health crusades during this era, including diet and nutrition,* school hygiene educa-
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tion, eugenics,* and scientific temperance.* Prior to 1860, sporadic attempts had been made to introduce physical exercise as a necessary component of a healthy life. This resulted in the construction of a few gymnasiums that, for the most part, were unsuccessful. In 1878 Dudley Sargent* opened a gymnasium in New York city that presented new exercises and equipment. This was the symbolic beginning of the surge of interest in physical activity and athletics. The following year the Hemenway Gymnasium was opened at Harvard University. Influenced by muscular Christianity, educators reasoned that intellectual and moral health was based upon a sound body. Leaders of the movement, including Sargent, Edward Hitchcock,* and William Anderson (1860-1947), formed the Association for the Advancement of Physical Education in 1885 to promote physical education—sometimes called physical culture*—in the schools. In the 1880s and 1890s many cities had introduced some form of gymnastics in their public schools. In 1887 the first training school for "gymnasium directors" (physical education teachers) was established in Springfield, Massachusetts. Self-styled physical culturists such as Bernarr Macfadden* helped popularize the exercise campaign. The physical exercise movement also included a bicycle craze* and magazines such as Physical Culture* devoted to physical activity and health. During the upswing of the movement, a number of competing exercise philosophies emerged. Among physical educators of the era this competition became known as the "battle of the systems." These systems included German gymnastics, popular in the Midwest and noted for strength-building activities that had been practiced within the German-American* community for several decades; Swedish gymnastics, introduced into the northeast and some urban areas in the 1890s, and noted for its mechanical precision; and the methods developed by Sargent, Hitchcock, and others. A meeting held in Boston in 1889 attempted to develop a national unified concept of physical education, but it was only marginally successful. In the 1890s several states passed legislation for school-based physical education using one system or the other. However, not everyone agreed with the concept of physical education as part of the required school curriculum. Some school boards saw it as a passing fad, but physical educators during the 1890s fought for its inclusion "for health's sake." After the turn of the twentieth century, compromises were made, leading to a balanced program that included games, sports, and other activities. Often combined with physical exercise instruction was anatomy, physiology, personal hygiene,* scientific temperance instruction,* and sometimes sex education.* By 1901 thousands of gymnasiums had been built for exercise throughout the country at YMCAs, city athletic clubs, schools and colleges, sana-
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toriums,* hospitals, armories, military posts, and schools. Many used Sargent's system. Physical educators, including Sargent and Luther Gulick,* a YMCA leader, in the first few years of the twentieth century noted that the nation had been in a physical fitness crusade for a decade. This was manifested in increased physical activity among adults, a dramatic increase in YMCA attendance, construction of free public gymnasiums, baths, and swimming pools, and the introduction of athletics into colleges and public schools. Gulick termed this movement a "physical well-being pulse." While the nation was interested in physical fitness and health, Gulick recommended the establishment of a national bureau of health, government-sponsored school health services, eugenics measures to ensure the rearing of healthy children, and temperance* legislation. By the second decade of the century physical education had become intertwined with eugenics concepts. It was considered necessary for the prevention of racial degeneration,* along with hygiene and the avoidance of racial poisons* such as alcohol,* tobacco,* and venereal diseases.* The movement began to wane in the pre-World War I* years and had lost most of its momentum by the mid-1920s. References: Sargent, Dudley A., "A century of achievement, gymnastics," Harper's Weekly 45 (January 26, 1901), 81, "The significance of a sound physique," in American Academy of Political and Social Science, Race Improvement in the United States (1909), 13-15, "The future of physical education," Putnam's Magazine 7 (October 1909), 14; Greene, Harvey, Fit for America (1986); Whorton, James C , Crusaders for Fitness: The History of American Health Reformers (1982). Polish, Russian, and other Eastern-European Americans Immigrants* from Eastern-European countries, including what is now the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, and Russia dramatically increased between 1890 and 1915. Their numbers went from 100,000 in 1890, to 200,000 in 1900, to over a half a million from 1910 to 1914. However, they were not seen as "patriotic" compared to earlier immigrants because fewer became naturalized. Polish peasants gravitated to the new industrial cities of the Northeast and Midwest. Many worked as laborers or in urban factories. They were fervent Catholics* and their community life was centered around the church. Other than Eastern-European Jews,* many of these laborers were seen as having "no intention of making this country their home." Non-Jewish Eastern-European males were seen as prone to drunkenness, which caused concern among temperance* and eugenics* reformers. In Chicago, Lithuanian- and Polish-immigrant community leaders fostered assimilation by offering adult-education
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English classes that were only marginally successful. Eugenicists considered Eastern Europeans as contributing to racial degeneration* because they produced many children. Polish immigrants were seen as prone to crime.* About one-quarter of Eastern-European immigrants were Jewish; the rest were Roman or Eastern Orthodox Catholics. Similar to other immigrants of this era, they tended to be poor workers who aspired to a better life. Health statistics concerning Eastern-European immigrants generally focused on Jews, who were relatively healthy; as a result, information is often lacking concerning health problems among non-Jewish emigrants. During World War I* immigration from Eastern Europe declined. After the war, the Johnson-Reed Immigration Restriction Act of 1924* limited their numbers on grounds they were "undesirable." These immigrants, similar to earlier groups, amalgamated, within a generation or two, into the American middle-class. References: Augustyn, Frederick J., Jr., "Together and apart: Lithuanian and Polish immigrant adult literacy programs in Chicago, 1890-1930," Polish American Studies 57 (2000), 31-44; Hall, Prescott R, Immigration, and Its Effects upon the United States (1906); Higham, John, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925 (1955); Jacobson, Matthew Frye, Special Sorrows: The Diasporic Imagination of Irish, Polish, and Jewish Immigrants in the United States (1995); Parot, Joseph, Polish Catholics in Chicago 1850-1920: A Religious History (1981); Ross, Edward A., "Immigrants in politics," The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine 87 (January 1914), 392-398. Popenoe, Paul Bowman (October 16, 1888-June 19, 1979) Author, agriculturalist, eugenicist,* and later in life the founder of the first marriage-counseling institution in the nation, Popenoe was also a proponent of sex education* and social hygiene* education. He helped shape both the eugenics* and social hygiene* movements. Born in Topeka, Kansas, Popenoe was the son of a businessman and newspaper owner whose French Huguenot ancestors came to the United States in 1696. After graduating from Washburn Academy (1905), he moved to the Los Angeles area with his parents. Popenoe attended both Occidental College (1905-1907) and Stanford University (1907-1908). At Stanford he studied under David Starr Jordan,* president of Stanford and a leading proponent of health-reform issues, including eugenics, temperance,* and social hygiene. Due to his father's illness, Popenoe left Stanford and became city editor of the Pasadena Star. He then became an agricultural explorer in North Africa and sent date palms to California that helped launch the date industry in that state (1911-1913). He became interested in eugenics and was editor from 1913 to 1918 of the Journal ofHered-
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ity the official organ of the American Genetics Association (previously the American Breeders Association*), and moved to Washington, D.C. In 1914 he was a delegate to the First International Congress on Race Betterment, where he met Roswell Johnson.* Four years later they coauthored Applied Eugenics (1918), a popular text that helped drive the eugenics movement. Popenoe was ambivalent about birth control,* believing it led to a decreased birthrate* among superior individuals and increased "inferior families" who did not "effectively practice birth control." Popenoe was on the advisory council of the American Eugenics Society* and was active in the Eugenics Research Association.* Social hygiene was also a concern of Popenoe. During World War I* he served on the surgeon general's staff as director of the venerealdiseases* control section and then as director of the "section of vice and liquor control." He continued antivenereal disease and antiprostitution* campaigns after the war as secretary of the American Social Hygiene Association* (1919-1920). In 1920 Popenoe moved to a ranch near Los Angeles and grew dates. Simultaneously, he wrote Modern Marriage (1925), a popular marriage manual. Resuming his scientific career in 1926, he moved to Altadena, California, to become secretary and director of research of the Human Betterment Foundation,* founded by Ezra Gosney* to promote eugenics practices. Under the auspices of this organization, he investigated the effectiveness of eugenic sterilization and cowrote with Gosney Sterilization for Human Retterment (1929). Popenoe lauded sterilization on grounds it promoted helped prevent "mental disease and mental defect through the population." Popenoe's interest in eugenics, sex education, social hygiene, and marriage led him to establish the Institute of Family Relations in February 1930, the first such organization in the country that provided premarital examination in addition to heredity and marriage counseling. He remained as director until 1960, when he semiretired and became chairman of the board. Over his career he wrote numerous publications concerning marriage and sexuality. He married Betty Stankovitch (1920) and fathered four sons. He died in Miami, Florida, in 1979, a year after his wife's death. References: Hoffman, Betty H., "The man who saves marriages," Ladies'Home Journal 77 (September 1960), 70-71,123-125; Gosney, E. S., "Introduction," in Sterilization for Human Retterment (1929), x-xi; Pickens, Donald, Eugenics and the Progressives (1968); Popenoe, Paul, "Law enforcement—A plan for organized action," Social Hygiene 5 (October 1919), 355-367, "Eugenic sterilization," Rirth Control Review 17 (April 1933), 82, "The Institute of Family Relations," Eugenics 3 (April 1930), 135-137; CA (1989), 381-382; WhW, 16th ed. (1979), 576; CurRio 7 (1946), 487-488.
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Powell, Aaron Macy (March 26,1832-May 13,1899) A Quaker abolitionist and early temperance* leader, Powell became a force in the purity movement* during the early decades of the Progressive era. Powell, born in Clinton, New York, into an old Quaker family, was educated in the public schools and spent one year at the State Normal School in Albany. However, he left to take part in the antislavery movement. He lectured for the American Anti-Slavery Society from 1852 to 1865 and was editor of the Standard and later the National Standard against slavery of African Americans. * After the Civil War he became involved with the temperance cause to help eliminate "enslavement" from alcohol.* He moved to the New York city area and became assistant secretary of the National Temperance Society (1873-1894). He spent twenty-one years in editorial work and became editor in December 1873 of the National Temperance Advocate, the house organ for the society. Besides temperance activities, Powell was an early pioneer of the purity movement. He supported the British social purity mission to eliminate prostitution,* which was considered another form of slavery. After a delegation of "new abolitionists" visited from Britain, he helped found the New York Committee for the Prevention of State Regulation for Vice in 1876. The following year he was a delegate to the International Congress for the Government Regulation of Prostitution held in Geneva, New York. The New York Committee became a clearinghouse for the international reform movement. This committee lobbied against state regulation and began to link with other organizations. Powell authored State Regulation of Vice (1878), which opposed regulation and advocated the elimination of prostitution. He worked to thwart the periodic effort to introduce in New York and other Americans cities the licensing and regulation of "redlight districts" and prostitutes. Powell became involved with the movement to raise the age of consent.* In 1886 he expanded the American Rulletin, a monthly report on American antiregulation and social purity activities, into the Philanthropist, for which he was editor. Powell supported the women's movement and woman suffrage* and networked with feminist groups. During the 1880s the New York Committee forged links with the Woman's Christian Temperance Union* and the White Cross* societies and became involved with their campaign to change age-of-consent laws. In 1894 Powell resigned his position in the Temperance Society to devote full time to purity reform. Under his leadership he was able to bring various moral reform and purity societies together from different states and communities under the umbrella of the American Purity Alliance,* which he formed in 1895, serving as its first president. This alliance convened the National Purity Congress,* which drew participants from many purity and other health-reform areas. By 1899 the purity
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movement had reached its peak under Powell's able leadership. However, Powell died suddenly in Philadelphia at a Quaker meeting. The purity movement then lost steam and by the second decade of the new century had merged with the social hygiene movement.* Powell represented the link between temperance and purity-reform issues during the early part of the Progressive-era Clean Living Movement.* He married Judith Anna Rice (1861) and during his latter years lived in Plainfield, New Jersey. References: Pivar, David J., Purity and Hygiene: Women, Prostitution, and the "American Plan," 1900-1930 (2002); Powell, Aaron M., "The shame of America—The age of consent laws in the United States: A symposium," Arena 11 (1895), 192-195, The National Purity Congress {[1896] 1976);NatCAR 5 (1907), 17; SEAP (1922), 2192-2193; death notice, NYT, May 15, 1899; obituary, Friend's Intelligencer, May 20, 1899. preventive medicine The terms "preventive medicine," "sanitary science,"* and "public health"* were used interchangeably during the late nineteenth century. Preventive medicine was generally used by physicians. By the second decade of the twentieth century preventive medicine came to embody primary prevention, which included immunizations* against infectious disease* and educational campaigns promoting personal hygiene,* physical education,* diet and nutrition,* positive eugenics,* and the social hygiene* anti-venereal disease* campaign. Secondary prevention included the detection and treatment of tuberculosis,* venereal diseases, and other conditions. Public health became an umbrella term that included both environmental sanitation and preventive medicine concerns. By the end of the first decade of the twentieth century it was realized it was better to "prevent diseases than to cure," and politicians were "now coming to discern in preventive medicine the pillar of fire lighting the way." References: Duffy, John, The Sanitarians: A History of American Public Health (1992); Rosen, George, Preventive Medicine in the United States, 1900-1975: Trends and Interpretations (1975); Torrey, John C , "The prevention of infectious diseases," Harper's Monthly Magazine 118 (March 1909), 536-544. prohibition (1920-1933) Prohibition, in common usage in the United States, refers to the legal abolishment of alcoholic beverages. Broadly speaking, it was the period from January 1920, under the Eighteenth Amendment* of the Constitution, until its repeal with the TwentyFirst Amendment on December 5,1933. During prohibition the sale, manufacture, transportation, importation, and exportation of intoxicating liquors were forbidden. The beginning of prohibition marks the symbolic end of the second Clean Living Movement.* Prohibi-
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tion represented a deep division between rural and small-town Protestants* who opposed alcohol* and the saloon* and urban, immigrant* Roman Catholics* and Jewish Americans* who accepted alcohol as part of their culture. National prohibition was the culmination of "pressure politics" by the anti-saloon* and prohibition* movements, two aspects of the Progressive-era temperance movement.* Prohibition was the peak accomplishment of the Anti-Saloon League,* with support from the Prohibition Party* and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union.* Temperance reformers* considered prohibition a success since it eliminated the saloon and decreased per-capita alcohol consumption. However, a loophole in the law allowed families in most states to make 200 gallons of "fruit juice" or wine for their own personal consumption. In addition, national prohibition was largely unenforceable. Bootlegging, organized crime, and smuggling supplied alcohol to those who wanted it. The resulting roaring twenties backlash phase of the Progressive-era temperance cycle led to lawlessness and other problems. References: Allsop, Kenneth, The Rootleggers: The Story of Chicago's Prohibition Era (1961); Blocker, Jack S., Jr., Retreat from Reform: The Prohibition Movement in the United States 1890-1913 (1976); "Eighteenth Amendment," Find Law, (visited June 17, 2001); Odegard, Peter H., Pressure Politics: The Story of the Anti-Saloon League (1928); Shaw, Elton Raymond, Prohibition: Going or Coming? The Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act: Facts versus Fallacies and Suggestions for the Future (1924); Timberlake, James H., Prohibition and the Progressive Movement, 1900-1920 (1963); Warburton, Clark, "A history of prohibition," in Kerr, K. Austin, ed., The Politics of Moral Rehavior: Prohibition and Drug Abuse (1973), 35-48. prohibition movement (1893-1920) The Progressive era's prohibition* movement emerged out of and was interwoven with the antisaloon movement.* It was part of the overall temperance movement* that led to the successful passage of the Eighteenth Amendment,* which put the nation under national prohibition until 1933. Adherents of the movement included members of the Prohibition Party,* the Woman's Christian Temperance Union,* and the Anti-Saloon League.* It drew its support from Protestant* evangelical churches and rural Anglo-American* nativists* who were alarmed by health and social problems they perceived were caused by saloons* and "unpatriotic" urban immigrants.* From the mid-1870s until 1893, the WCTU had been the main force of the temperance* movement, but they, in consort with the Prohibition Party, were not successful in passing prohibition laws.
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Power shifted to the ASL around 1895. Through the league's vigorous efforts against the saloon, the anti-saloon movement resulted in thousands of towns adopting state local-option measures for prohibition. Yet the consumption of both beer* and spirits had risen during this decade. In 1906 the Anti-Saloon League began to shift to a nonpartisan statewide prohibition campaign instead of local option. By 1910 a large proportion of the voters had been taught during their early years that alcohol in any form was a poison that led to poverty, * disease, and crime.* This bore fruit for the prohibition movement. By 1912 the movement had claimed considerable success, inasmuch as about one-half the country was "living in territory in which the liquor traffic has been forbidden by law" through local options and statewide prohibition. However, by 1913 there were fewer changes. In response to this plateau, the movement, under the guidance of the Anti-Saloon League, in 1913 switched to a campaign for national prohibition. As part of this process the league lobbied Congress to adopt the Webb-Kenyon Act* of 1913, which prohibited interstate shipment of liquor from a wet to a dry state. This victory propelled prohibition leaders into a vigorous campaign for submission of a national prohibition amendment. Prohibition crusaders had noted that much of the "liquor trade" was in the hands of "low-class foreigners" such as the Irish* and Germans.* These immigrants continued the drinking patterns of the "old country" and resisted Americanization. Fear of these mostly urban immigrants by more rural Americans with anti-immigrant and nativistic leanings increased agitation for prohibition measures as a way of social control. As America's involvement in the Great War* (World War I*) loomed, anti-German sentiments against large brewers* with German ancestry fanned the prohibition fires against all alcoholic beverages. Further laws were passed leading up to national prohibition. These included the Lever Food and Fuel Control Act* (1917) that prevented foodstuffs from being made into alcoholic beverages, the War Prohibition Act* (1918) that prohibited the sale of all alcoholic beverages, and, finally, ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment (1919) for national prohibition. This success was the peak of the prohibition movement in the United States. Within a few years an antiprohibition movement began and the American experiment died in the ratification of the Twenty-First Amendment and repeal on June 30,1932. References: Blocker, Jack S., Jr., Retreat from Reform: The Prohibition Movement in the United States 18901913 (1976), American Temperance Movements: Cycles of Reform (1989); Cherrington, Ernest Hurst, The Evolution of Prohibition in the United States of America (1920); Engs, Ruth Clifford, Clean Living Movements: American Cycles of Health Reform (2000); Hamm,
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Richard F., Shaping of the Eighteenth Amendment: Temperance Reform, Legal Culture, and the Policy, 1880-1920 (1995); Kerr, K. Austin, Organized for Prohibition: A New History of the Anti-Saloon League (1985); Odegard, Peter H., Pressure Politics: The Story of the Anti-Saloon League (1928); Timberlake, James H., Prohibition and the Progressive Movement, 1900-1920 (1963); Shaw, Elton Raymond, Prohibition: Going or Coming? The Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act: Facts versus Fallacies and Suggestions for the Future (1924); Williams, David E., "The drive for prohibition: A transition from social reform to legislative reform," Southern Communication Journal 61 (Spring 1996), 185-187. Prohibition Party (see National Prohibition Party) prostitution This ancient "profession," generally called the "social vice" or "social evil," was seen during the Progressive era as a major moral, social, and health problem. Organizations were formed to "rescue" prostitutes and to lobby against state regulation of the "evil." In the last two decades of the nineteenth century, age-of-consent* laws, pushed by the Woman's Christian Temperance Union* and purity* reformers, were enacted to prevent young girls from getting drawn into the prostitution lifestyle. Surveys of prostitutes over the era frequently mentioned the high proportion of immigrant* women who were engaged in this endeavor, which fostered nativist* and anti-immigrant sentiments among purity reformers. These survey results were largely artifactual, as most surveys were conducted in eastern urban cities with many immigrants. Low wages and limited job opportunities for girls migrating from farms to larger towns may have been a factor in some urban areas. In addition, some reformers of the era probably confused nonmonogamous female sexual activity with prostitution. Statistics and estimates of the trade were not reliable. Public health* and eugenics* concerns about venereal diseases* transmitted by prostitutes surfaced. As attitudes changed from segregation of prostitutes in "red-light districts" to abatement, reformers from the temperance,* purity,* and social hygiene* movements became preoccupied with the elimination of the practice. In the 1870s Helen Campbell (1839-1918), a New Thought* reformer who helped launch the home economics movement, began to investigate the conditions of the urban poor in general, and the effects of low wages on poor women, in particular. Her studies found a link between exploitive economic conditions and prostitution. Reformers began to realize that adolescent girls went into prostitution because of few or low-paying job opportunities. The 1870s and 1880s saw the emergence of rescue societies, mission houses, antivice
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organizations, and reform societies designed to protect women from the growing spread of prostitution. Laws were passed in the 1880s and 1890s to raise the age of sexual consent. Preventive programs such as groups established by Grace Dodge* in the 1880s were formed to help to educate working girls about urban dangers. A study funded by Dodge in 1895 found that sixty employment agencies were supplying girls for houses of prostitution in New York city. Many were immigrants whose lack of language skills and ignorance left them at the mercy of these agencies. In 1900 the Committee of Fifteen,* a vice commission, was created. It published a report concerning prostitution and its relationship to venereal disease, and argued against state regulation. In 1906 local chapters of the American Purity Alliance* were reorganized into the National Vigilance Committee,* which fought against state regulation laws. Hysteria among reformers about "white slavery"* reached a peak between 1909 and 1914. Social purity groups pressured Congress, which passed the Mann Act of 1910* to prohibit interstate traffic in prostitution. After this date other surveys were published, including George J. Kneeland's Commercial Prostitution in New York (1913). Abraham Flexner's* Prostitution in Europe (1914) suggested that European state regulation of the "social evil" had failed. Subsequent to these reports, repressive measures were taken against prostitutes during World War I* in an attempt to eliminate them from around military bases. "Legal" prostitution became prohibited, and was still illegal in most states in the early twenty-first century. References: Connelly, Mark Thomas, The Response to Prostitution in the Progressive Era (1980); Grittner, Frederick K., White Slavery: Myth, Ideology and American Law (1990); Pivar, David J., Purity Crusade: Sexual Morality and Social Control, 1868-1900 (1973); Purity and Hygiene: Women, Prostitution, and the "American Plan," 1900-1930 (2002); Roe, Clifford, The Great War on White Slavery ([1911] 1979); Satter, Beryl, Each Mind a Kingdom: American Women, Sexual Purity, and the New Thought Movement, 1875-1920 (1999). Protestants, old-line The majority of health reformers during the Progressive era were from mainstream Protestant denominations with deep roots in colonial times. Health reform was often an extension of their religious beliefs, which were reinforced during the Third Great Awakening.* The Protestant work ethic, the value of independence, and the improvement of society were prime considerations. Ethnic and religious groups not following this philosophy were perceived as a menace to the nation. These Protestant Anglo-Saxon Americans,* proud of their heritage, believed that God had ordained the New World as a special place. Most health-reform crusades of the second
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Clean Living Movement,* in particular the temperance,* prohibition,* anti-saloon,* eugenics,* antiobscenity,* pure food and drugs,* and purity* movements were led by deeply religious individuals from Protestant faiths. A predominance of reformers were from the Congregational, Quaker, Unitarian, Methodist, and Episcopalian denominations. Some were more conservative Baptists or members of the Disciples of Christ. Most were descendants of English colonists. Only a few were Jewish* or Catholic* or held no religious beliefs. During the last decade of the nineteenth century, more liberal and educated Protestants embraced the social gospel,* and their reform efforts were interlinked with the social gospel movement.* Old-stock middle-class Protestants in power positions wanted to maintain the old established values and exert control over those with different attitudes and behavior. Fear of Roman Catholic immigrants,* in particular, led to anti-Catholic nativist* sentiments. This fear had origins in the colonial period. Since the early days of the republic, hatred toward Roman Catholics had emanated from Protestant English colonists who settled in Virginia and Massachusetts. This antipathy stemmed largely from attempted Catholic domination of Britain through war or political maneuvering, which had occurred in England within the memory of the settlers or their grandparents. Unlike Britain, which over time sublimated its religious fervor and adopted more liberal attitudes, the isolated colonist "no-popery prejudices" deepened through sermons and written works in most of the American colonies. This anti-Catholicism festered in the early nineteenth century and erupted in the Know-Nothing Party of the 1840s. It became an underlying factor in the nativist uprising during the Progressive era, as thousands of Catholics from Eastern and Southern Europe swarmed into urban areas at the turn of the century. Drunkenness, pornography, gambling, prostitution,* political corruption, and white slavery* were all blamed on these non-Protestant immigrants. Poor families with many children were perceived as leading to race suicide* and race degeneracy* and threatening the safety of the nation. Health-reform crusades, in part, were efforts to control the "immigrant menace" and keep the old, rural Protestant way of life. References: Billington, Ray Allen, The Origins of Nativism in the United States 1800-1844 (1974); Engs, Ruth Clifford, Clean Living Movements: American Cycles of Health Reform (2000); Hall, Prescott E, Immigration and Its Effects upon the United States (1906); Higham, John, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925 (1955). public health movement This movement, also known as the sanitary* or preventive medicine* movement, was the overall campaign
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that sought sanitation of the physical environment, the control and prevention of infectious diseases,* personal hygiene* education, the organization of health services, and the development of public policies and governmental organizations to ensure a healthy population. The sanitary movement incorporated many Progressive-era health-reform crusades and dramatically lowered the mortality rate, especially among young children and infants. The symbolic beginning of the movement was the formation of the American Public Health Association* in 1873. In the early years, clean streets free from garbage, adequate sewage disposal, and the control of yellow fever and other epidemics were central issues. However, early sanitarians also longed for a permanent federal health agency that could set policies. John Shaw Billings* and others successfully lobbied in 1879 for a national board of health. However, political conflicts between Billings and John Hamilton* resulted in Congress not funding this agency after 1883. It was not until the end of the Progressive era that the U.S. Public Health Service* was finally created out of existing federal institutions. In 1880 the first vital statistics, as a way of determining the health of the nation, were instituted, and in 1883 The Sanitarian* a magazine for the educated public and professionals, helped popularize the movement. By the mid-1880s concern about adulterated food* and patent medicines* set in motion a pure food and drug movement.* However, it was not until 1906, under the leadership of Harvey Washington Wiley* and after pressure from women's groups, muckraking* journalists, and the American Medical Association,* that the Pure Food and Drug Act* was passed. Popularization of Darwinism reinforced the sanitarian's emphasis on environment and led to Social Darwinism* and nativism.* These attitudes were reflected in the National Quarantine Act of 1893,* which gave broader powers to New York's health board to prevent individuals from entering the nation if suspected of carrying infectious diseases. The germ theory of disease intensified social pressure for various kinds of cleanliness, both social and personal. This was manifested in the broad-based Clean Living Movement* of this era. Cleanliness and purity were emphasized in the pure food and drug, social purity,* personal hygiene, and antismoking* movements. In the 1890s the tuberculosis movement* emerged with a campaign for treatment in sanatoriums* and for the early identification and prevention of tuberculosis.* Under the leadership of Hermann Biggs,* case reporting was instituted as part of the sanitary code by the turn of the century. In the first years of the twentieth century, spitting was outlawed in order to prevent disease, the community drinking cup was banned, and milk began to be in-
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spected. Education for personal hygiene, physical culture and education,* sanitary science,* and scientific temperance* had become interwoven into the school curriculum by the turn of the century. Immunizations* to prevent diseases, in particular childhood diseases, were championed. A rural health movement to address the needs of farmers and to eliminate hookworm* in the South emerged at the end of the first decade. Not everyone, however, supported this public health movement, and by the second decade of the century organizations such as the National League for Medical Freedom* arose to protest against immunizations and growing advocacy of a federal bureau of health. Some religious groups believed prevention and treatment were "against God's will." Individuals in the eugenics movement* also attacked medicine and public-health efforts for preserving lives they considered hereditarily unfit. By 1913 various reform activities against disease and social problems, as part of the glowing optimism of the Progressive era, came to be seen as the salvation of the future. On the eve of World War I* sanitary reform was considered to have added to the real happiness of the human race and to pose potential for eliminating poverty, misery, and war. This optimism, however, was short-lived, as the Spanish influenza* epidemic of 1918 killed thousands. The public health movement declined in the postwar years, along with most other health-reform crusades. References: Duffy, John, The Sanitarians (1992); Engs, Ruth Clifford, Clean Living Movements: American Cycles of Health Reform (2000); Garrison, Fielding H.,John ShawRillings: A Memoir (1915); Kober, George M., "The progress and achievements of hygiene," Science 6 (November 26, 1897), 789-799; Moore, Henry H., Public Health in the United States: An Outline with Historical Data (1923); Rosen, George, Preventive Medicine in the United States, 1900-1975: Trends and Interpretations (1975); Winslow, C, The Life of Hermann M. Riggs: Physician and Statesman of the Public Health (1929). Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 This major piece of Progressiveera legislation prohibited the manufacture, sale, or transportation of adulterated,* misbranded, or poisonous foods, drugs, drinks, and medicines. This law was the culmination of the pure food and drug movement.* For twenty years agitation for stricter regulation of foods and drugs had come from Harvey Wiley,* head of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Bureau of Chemistry, leaders of the public health movement,* women's groups, muckraking* journalists, and others. Several state-level laws regulating food had been passed in the late 1890s, but were largely unenforced. Bills were introduced in the first few years of the century, actively opposed by
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food manufacturers, which would create stronger laws on the federal level for labeling products and eliminating adulterants. Early in 1906 Upton Sinclair* published The Jungle,* which fomented national outrage against the meat industry and was a primary force in promoting the passage of pure food laws. In June 1906 the American Medical Association* urged the House to pass the proposed food and drug bill. Senator James Mann prepared an exhibit of adulterated foods and drugs for congressional members. On June 24, 1906, the bill passed the House and shortly later the Senate. The federal Pure Food and Drug Act was signed into law by President Theodore Roosevelt* on June 30, 1906, who also championed the cause. It became effective January 1, 1907. On that same day the Meat Inspection Act of 1906* was also signed into law. The food and drug law, administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Chemistry, led by Wiley, prohibited the interstate shipment of adulterated or misbranded food, drink, and drugs. Manufacturers were not allowed to misrepresent contents, and could not indicate ingredients the preparation did not contain or claim the absence of substances if they were present in the product. The law required manufactures to list all contents, including alcohol,* opiates, chloral hydrate, and other drugs. Inspectors could seize suspect products and send them to the Bureau of Chemistry for analysis and refer violators for prosecution. It also detailed what constituted an adulterated food. Due to compromise in the political process, the law had many shortcomings, some of which were corrected in later years in the Sherley Amendment of 1912* and other legislation. References: Goodwin, Lorine Swainston, The Pure Food, Drink, and Drug Crusaders, 1897-1914 (1999); Temin, Peter, Taking Your Medicine: Drug Regulation in the United States (1980); Young, John Harvey, Pure Food: Securing the Federal Food and Drugs Act of 1906 (1989), "Food and drug regulation under the USDA, 19061940," Agricultural History 64 (Spring 1990), 134-142, "Two Hoosiers and the two food laws of 1906," Indiana Magazine of History 88 (December 1992), 303-319. pure food and drug movement (1879-1914) A major movement of the Progressive era was a campaign for pure foods, beverages, and over-the-counter medications. It was championed by reformers of the temperance,* eugenics,* and public health* movements. The major prongs of the pure food and drug movement included the patent medicine crusade* and the campaign against adulterated* and tainted foods. The movement sought proper labeling of containers, the elimination of poisonous or unclean substances from products, the inspection of meat, and laws to enforce these regulations.
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The pure food and drug movement began on the state level in 1879. In 1880, after a year of investigation into food and drug adulteration, Peter Collier (1835-1896), chief of the Division of Chemistry at the federal Department of Agriculture, began advocating enactment of a national food and drug law. By 1881, New Jersey, New York, and Michigan had passed laws to prevent the adulteration of food and drugs. Collier was succeeded in 1883 by Harvey W. Wiley,* who embarked on a stormy twenty-year campaign for reforms. At the turn of the century almost every state had passed legislation regulating some aspect of food, but few of these laws were actually enforced. Bills submitted to Congress through the 1890s and early 1900s were not passed because of lack of public support and lobbying efforts on the part of the food and patent medicine* industries. Due to varying state requirements concerning food processing, American laws were generally perceived as being "chaotic." It was often illegal to sell a product in one state that was manufactured under strict laws in another. The Interstate Pure Food Commission was organized in 1896 to bring uniformity among state laws, to secure a federal law to apply to interstate commerce, and to furnish a model for those states that had not yet passed food laws of their own. In 1897, public health officials such as George M. Kober* pointed out "gross frauds and their serious consequences" in terms of certain foods. In particular, milk in New York and other cities was often contaminated with polluted water. Kober advocated stringent laws governing milk traffic and sanitary control of dairies to prevent disease. In 1898 government officials, farm groups, and professional societies formed the National Pure Food and Drug Congress, which attempted to encourage Congress to pass a bill for sanitary measures. However, the bill was unsuccessful. Popular magazines in 1900 began to warn the public about food adulteration and urged "an honest label" in terms of ingredients. Particular concern arose regarding "oleo-margarine, filled cheese, and mixed flour." To determine the extent of harm of some of the adulterants, a "poison squad" was organized by Wiley in 1902. A dozen volunteers restricted themselves to diets adulterated with common food additives that had been linked to ill health. The story of this "poison squad" was published by the muckraker* journalists, who popularized the patent medicine and pure food movements with a series of publications in 1905 and 1906 attacking poisons in food, drink, and patent medicines. Growing public support for stricter legislation regarding pure foods resulted in President Theodore Roosevelt's* advocacy of pure food legislation in his annual message to Congress in December 1905.
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Early in 1906, Upton Sinclair* published his pivotal work, The Jungle,* which detailed the filthy conditions under which meat was processed. This book accelerated a public outcry for laws concerning the regulation of meat and other foods. Organizations such as the American Medical Association,* the American Public Health Association,* and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union* supported such a measure. In June 1906 Congress passed the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906,* the symbolic peak of the movement. Another bill, the Meat Inspection Act of 1906,* passed the same day, giving the Department of Agriculture direct authority to inspect animals in meat-packing plants. Wiley and others had believed this new law would outlaw false therapeutic claims on labels, but the Supreme Court ruled otherwise when it decided on May 29, 1911, that the misbranding provisions of the act of 1906 did not apply to claims for cures for which there might be differences of opinion. Agitation on the part of Wiley and several groups, along with a political compromise with the proprietary manufacturers, led to the Sherley Amendment in 1912,* which required the elimination of false claims regarding curative or therapeutic effects of patent medicines. The following year the Net Weight Act of 1913 required all packages shipped in interstate commerce be marked to show the weight of the product. After 1912 the momentum of the pure food and drug movement declined. References: Allen, Robert M., "Pure food legislation," Popular Science Monthly 69 (July 1906), 52-64; Crampton, Charles A., "A food label," Current Literature 28 (June 1900), 308; Goodwin, Lorine Swainston, The Pure Food, Drink, and Drug Crusaders, 1897-1914 (1999); Temin, Peter, Taking Your Medicine: Drug Regulation in the United States (1980); Young, John Harvey, Pure Food: Securing the Federal Food and Drugs Act of 1906 (1989), "Food and drug regulation under the USDA, 1906-1940," Agricultural History 64 (Spring 1990), 134-142, "Two Hoosiers and the two food laws of 1906," Indiana Magazine of History 88 (December 1992), 303-319. purity movement, social (1870-1915) The purity movement, often referred to as the social purity* movement, was a major crusade of the Progressive era's Clean Living Movement.* This moral crusade was most active from the last two decades of the nineteenth century until the World War I* era. The movement was closely allied with the women's and moral-reform movements emanating from the Third Great Awakening.* It strove to eliminate prostitution,* to foster a single standard of sexual behavior for men and women, to raise the age of consent* for girls, and to promote sex education,* child-rearing practices, and play and recreation. It had ties with the temperance,*
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woman suffrage,* nativism,* antiobscenity,* and eugenics* movements. By the second decade of the new century, the purity movement converged with the health-oriented and more scientific social hygiene movement* and its crusade for public education concerning sexuality and the prevention of venereal disease. Many early purity crusaders were former abolitionists who considered prostitution another form of slavery. In the early 1870s, when some states attempted to regulate prostitution, Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906) and other reformers began to oppose these regulation bills because they were committed to the complete elimination of the "evil." These new abolitionists launched a mass campaign against regulation. Prostitutes were often seen as victims and rescue missions were established in many communities to turn them into "honest women." In the 1870s moral education concerns also emerged along with child-rearing practices. In Chicago the Society for the Promotion of Social Purity, the first organization of its type, was founded in 1870. This short-lived group, a coalition of ministers and upper-middle-class women, was the precursor of future organizations that agitated against existing informal police regulation of prostitution. In addition, this group strove to elevate youth to a new moral level. In 1876 Aaron Macy Powell,* a Quaker abolitionist and temperance* leader, helped form the New York Committee for the Prevention of State Regulation of Vice. This group lobbied against state-regulated prostitution and disseminated social purity programs. Other "vigilant committees" opposing traffic in girls sprang up in urban areas, composed of woman suffrage leaders and ministers. In addition, moral-education societies sprang up to promote a single standard of sexual purity. Moral reform groups such as the White Cross Society* that campaigned for a single standard of sexuality developed in the 1880s. This concept, under the leadership of Francis Willard* of the WCTU,* distributed "purity pledges" to churches and YMCAs.* By the mid-1880s, reformers became increasingly concerned about young girls being recruited into prostitution and the low age of sexual consent in many states. For a decade, beginning in 1885, the WCTU agitated for raising the age of consent. During the 1880s moral-education societies and antiprostitution groups began to merge. These associations combined a host of reforms under a broad umbrella. By the mid-1890s these concerns had melded into a national movement. Journalists such as Benjamin O. Flower,* editor of Arena,* helped popularize the movement and by 1895 the age of consent had been raised in many states, a major victory of the purity movement. In that year the American Purity Alliance* was incorporated and sponsored the National Purity Congress* under the leadership of Powell,
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which brought together many groups. B. Samuel Steadwell (18711947) started to publish Light (1898-1936), a purity magazine, and formed the World's Purity Federation in 1905, with headquarters in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Over the next decade offshoots of the purity movement, led by physicians such as Prince Morrow,* formed societies for the prevention of venereal disease* that became the core of the social hygiene movement. In 1900 the Committee of Fifteen,* a vice commission to investigate prostitution, was created in New York city. It published a report outlining prostitution's relationship to venereal disease and argued against state regulation. Edward Janney,* the new president of the APA, formed the National Vigilance Committee,* which took up both social purity and social hygiene causes. These movements fought for the abatement of white slavery.* Their efforts were rewarded by the passage of the Mann Act of 1910.* The purity movement dissipated and was integrated into the social hygiene movement in 1915. References: Grittner, Frederick K., White Slavery: Myth, Ideology and American Law (1990); Pivar, David J., Purity Crusade: Sexual Morality and Social Control, 1868-1900 (1973), Purity and Hygiene: Women, Prostitution, and the "American Plan," 1900-1930 (2002); Satter, Beryl, Each Mind a Kingdom: American Women, Sexual Purity, and the New Thought Movement, 1875-1920 (1999). purity, social Purity, or social purity, was the euphemism for virginity or chastity during the Progressive era. In the nineteenth century conventional wisdom deemed it important for young men to gain sexual experience before marriage and that lack of sexual activity was unhealthy. Prostitutes* often met this need, since religious morals mandated young women to remain virgins until marriage. However, reformers, including Frances Willard* and Aaron Powell,* concerned by venereal disease,* family morality, and prostitution, began to argue for a single standard of sexuality for both men and women. The campaign to establish chastity for all unmarried individuals as the norm was a major crusade of the purity movement.* In the mid-1880s groups such as White Cross Societies* and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union* launched a campaign for a single sexual standard and encouraged the signing of purity pledges. References: Hirshman, Linda R., and Larson, Jane E., Hard Rargains: The Politics of Sex (1998); Pivar, David J., Purity Crusade: Sexual Morality and Social Control, 1868-1900 (1973), Purity and Hygiene: Women, Prostitution, and the "American Plan," 1900-1930 (2002); Willard, Frances, "Arousing the public conscience," Arena 11 (January 1895), 198-200, Glimpses of Fifty Years: The Autobiography of an American Woman (1889); ESR (1897), 88.
R race betterment This term, with eugenic* implications, embodied methods for healthy living and health promotion recommended by a number of health reformers during the Progressive era. "Race betterment" was first used around 1906 when John Harvey Kellogg* founded the Race Betterment Foundation* at Battle Creek, Michigan, to address concerns about race degeneracy.* Kellogg was convinced that the human race was deteriorating physically, mentally, and morally from unhealthy lifestyles and behaviors that included poor diet, lack of exercise, and alcohol* and tobacco* use. The Second National Conference on Race Betterment* in 1915 listed ten methods to increase health and longevity, or race betterment. They included "Simple and Natural Habits of Life. Out-of-Door Life Day and Night, Fresh Air Schools, Playgrounds, Out-of-Door Gymnasiums, etc. Total Abstinence From the Use of Alcohol and Other Drugs. Eugenic Marriage. Medical Certificate Before Marriage. Health Inspection of Schools. Periodical Medical Examinations. Vigorous Campaign of Education in Health and Eugenics. Eugenic Registry. Sterilization or Isolation of Defectives." The term was used in publications by the second decade of the twentieth century. References: "The Race Betterment Foundation," in Official Proceedings of the Second National Conference on Race Retterment, August 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8, 1915. Held in San Francisco, California (1915); Schwarz, Richard William, John Harvey Kellogg, M.D. (1981). Race Betterment Foundation (1906-c. 1955) This eugenics* and hygiene foundation supported conferences, publications, and a eugenics registry, and funded a college. John Harvey Kellogg* founded the Race Betterment Foundation in 1906 at Battle Creek, Michigan,
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to address his concerns about race degeneracy.* Kellogg believed this degeneration could be reversed through a combination of heeding his principles of heathy living and selective mating of individuals to perpetuate desirable traits. These traits were those reflecting good health. The term "race betterment"* was congenial to Progressive middle-class intellectuals who comprised the leadership of the eugenics* movement and other health-reform movements. Through his foundation Kellogg was able to introduce his "biologic living" ideals to important molders of public opinion through conferences and publications. The foundation consisted of several units, including a eugenics department. Race betterment became so great a cause for Kellogg that in 1920 he rented space at the Battle Creek Sanitarium* for foundation offices. During the peak of its power the foundation subsidized three National Conferences of Race Betterment,* held in 1914, 1915, and 1928. After the 1928 conference the foundation took over sponsorship of the Fitter Families Campaign* from the American Eugenics Society.* It controlled the Battle Creek Food Company, which in turn supplied the major source of income for Kellogg's eugenics programs, conferences, and Battle Creek College. After Kellogg's death, the Race Betterment Foundation lost its major source of leadership and funding. It limited its subsequent activities to public lectures and the publication of Good Health until 1955 and then became inactive. References: "Fitter families," Eugenics 2 (June 1929), 32-33; Carson, Gerald, Cornflake Crusade (1957); Robins, Emily F., ed., Proceedings of the First National Conference on Race Retterment, January 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 1914 (1914); "The Race Betterment Foundation," in Official Proceedings of the Second National Conference on Race Retterment, August 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8, 1915. Held in San Francisco, California (1915), 4-5; Schwarz, Richard William, John Harvey Kellogg, M.D. (1981); SEAP (1926), 147. Race Betterment, National Conferences on (1914,1915,1928) Three National Conferences on Race Betterment, focused upon hygiene and eugenics,* were held. Each was sponsored by John Harvey Kellogg* and the Race Betterment Foundation.* The 1914 and 1915 conferences forged a link between Kellogg's program of healthy living and other health-reform movements. More than 400 delegates attended the first conference at the Battle Creek Sanitarium* on June 1-6,1914. The conference served as a forum for different views concerning "the Race Betterment questions." These included both hereditarian and environmental concerns for improving the health and quality of the human race. Kellogg, who believed in Lamarckian inheritance of acquired characteristics* such as good health habits,
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suggested a eugenics registry* office should be established to collect family pedigree histories in order to promote marriage between fit individuals as a method of health improvement. Reformers recommended the elimination of tobacco,* alcohol,* and prostitution* through stricter laws, and methods to prevent tuberculosis,* venereal disease,* and other illnesses. A single standard of sexuality, sanitation, personal hygiene,* diet, and physical fitness to improve the health of the country was also recommended. A better babies* contest and a mental and physical competition for youth were held in conjunction with the conference, from which medals were awarded to the "fittest" children. This first conference received much public attention, and as a result Kellogg and his associates sponsored another gathering the following year in connection with the Panama Pacific Exposition in San Francisco on August 4-8,1915. The stated purpose of this conference was to "assemble and discuss the evidence of race deterioration and to promote race betterment." The Second National Conference on Race Betterment had fewer delegates and professional papers. At this conference Kellogg again promoted the idea of a eugenics registry to encourage intelligent persons to consider more fully the importance of hereditary traits in planning their marriages. World War I* interrupted a third planned conference, that was not held until January 1928 at the Battle Creek Sanitarium. Clarence C. Little,* president of the University of Michigan, planned and presided over the proceedings. Unlike the previous two conferences, it was an academicoriented program with presentations of scholarly works. The conference received wide publicity and alerted Americans to eugenics and social problems. In conjunction with the conference, a "fitter family contest" was held. A fourth congress had been planned, but the Depression, World War II, and Kellogg's death intervened. After the war, race betterment* and eugenics were no longer acceptable concepts for academic discussion. References: "Proceedings of the Third Race Betterment Conference," American Journal of Physical Anthropology 12 (January-March 1929), 487-488; Kellogg, John H., "Needed—A new human race," in Robins, Emily F., ed., Proceedings of the First National Conference on Race Retterment, January 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 1914 (1914), "The Eugenics Registry," in Proceedings of the Second National Conference on Race Retterment August 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8, 1915. Held in San Francisco, California (1915); Schwarz, Richard William, John Harvey Kellogg, M.D. (1981). race degeneracy Race or racial degeneracy was a phrase first used as an offshoot of Social Darwinism* in the 1880s. In 1906, based upon earlier precepts, Robert Rentoul, a British physician, defined
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someone who could transmit mental or physical disease to an offspring as a "degenerate." This view implied that if the unfit propagated, the downfall of the human race would result. Based upon these beliefs, eugenicists* categorized individuals and their resulting offspring as of two types. These included the "aristogenic," who were genetically fit and produced long lines of renowned men (outstanding women were rarely mentioned), and the "cacogenic," the unfit, who produced many generations of both male and female "degenerates." Factors contributing to race degeneracy included racial poisons,* sedentary lifestyles, poor diet, public health, immunizations,* and medical treatment that saved the weak and infirm. Race degeneracy was a core concern of the eugenics movement.* Reports of alleged degenerate families including The Jukes: A Study in Crime, Pauperism, Disease, and Heredity, first published in 1877 by Richard Dugdale (1841-1883), and The Kallikak Family: A Study in theHeredity of Feeble Mindedness, published by Henry Goddard* in 1912 were used as a basis for eugenics reform to prevent race degeneracy. References: Dugdale, Richard Louis, The Jukes: A Study in Crime, Pauperism, Disease and Heredity ([1877] 1970); Haller, Mark H., Eugenics: Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought (1963); Kevles, Daniel J., In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity (1985); Pernick, Martin S., The Rlack Stork: Eugenics and the Death of "Defective" Rabies in American Medicine and Motion Pictures since 1915 (1996); Pickens, Donald, Eugenics and the Progressives (1968). race suicide This eugenic* and nativist* concept proposed that the decrease in birth rate among intelligent and educated middle-class Anglo-Saxon* or "Nordic" Americans would cause their demise as a race inasmuch as "inferior" immigrants* and "paupers"* were reproducing at a higher rate. This viewpoint also included a belief in the "congenital inferiority" of African Americans.* The term "race suicide" was coined by Edward A. Ross* in 1901 and popularized by Theodore Roosevelt.* Ross warned that undesirable immigrants, especially Eastern and Southern Europeans, were reproducing much faster than the "more valuable" old-stock Americans. Nativists and eugenicists were concerned that higher birth rates among inferior groups would lead to race degeneracy.* Eugenicists observed that in Massachusetts the birthrate of the foreign-born population was about three times the birthrate of the native, mostly Anglo-Saxon people. Some eugenicists were opposed to birth control,* fearing it contributed to race suicide, while others were hopeful that if birth control were available to all social classes, the problem of fecundity among the poor and the unfit would be eliminated. A major effort of the eugenics movement* was to encourage educated and intelligent
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people to bear more children so as to prevent racial suicide. References: "Birth control and race suicide," Literary Digest (February 3, 1917), 244-245; Paterfamilias, "'Race suicide' and common sense," North American Review 176 (June 1903), 892-900; Paul, Diane B., Controlling Human Heredity: 1865 to the Present (1995); Ross, Edward A., "The cause of race superiority," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 18 (July 1901), 67-89. racial poisons This term was coined in 1906-1907 by Caleb William Saleeby (1878-1940), a British eugenicist* whose works were widely distributed in American academic and upper-middle-class groups. "Racial poisons" were substances and conditions considered injurious to the "germ-plasm"—ovum and sperm cells—thus preventing "healthy, effective and intelligent offspring." The inheritability of these damaged cells was thought to contribute to "race degeneracy."* Racial poisons included lead, alcohol,* tobacco,* venereal diseases,* tuberculosis,* dissipated lifestyles, and even war. Although the term was primarily used in British eugenics literature, it was an underlying concept in the American eugenics* and other health movements of the era. References: Engs, Ruth Clifford, Clean Living Movements: American Cycles of Health Reform (2000); Saleeby, C. W., The Methods of Race-Regeneration (1911). red plague The term "red plague" was coined by David Starr Jordan,* a prominent educator, as an euphemism for sexually transmitted diseases, including gonorrhea and syphilis. Jordan clarified the derivation of the term by pointing out that the "appellation has now been adopted by the National [American] Social Hygiene Association (ASHA) as a natural derivative from 'red light district,' and a convenient cognate to 'white' plague (tuberculosis), 'yellow' fever, and 'black' (bubonic) plague." References: Jordan, David Starr, The Days of a Man, vol. 2 (1922), 150. Reynolds, James Bronson (March 17,1861-January 1,1924) Reynolds, an attorney, helped shape the social hygiene movement.* He was also influential in the pure food and drug movement.* Born in Kiantone, New York, Reynolds was the son of a Congregational minister from an old-stock English family. He prepared for college in the village school and graduated from Yale University (1884). Upon graduation, he traveled abroad for a year and then took theological courses at Yale University, receiving a B.D. (1888), but was not ordained. During a year and a half of postgraduate study in Europe, and likely influenced by the Social Gospel movement,* he worked for the YMCA* as an outreach worker for students studying in Europe
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(1889-1893). During this period he became impressed by British social reform. Due to illness, possibly tuberculosis,* he returned to the United States to recover. In 1894 Reynolds took the position of head resident of the New York City University Settlement House. This experience further increased his interest in social and political reform and the plight of the poor. While working, he studied law and received his degree at the New York Law School (1900). As his career advanced, he chaired several reform committees and was secretary to the New York city mayor (1902-1903). Reynolds helped facilitate passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.* When Upton Sinclair's* book The Jungle* was published in 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt* appointed Reynolds one of his two commissioners to investigate alleged unhealthy conditions in the meat-packing industry. His report led to quick passage of the Meat Inspection Act of 1906.* Reynolds helped flame the social hygiene* movement. He was concerned with alleged forced prostitution* of young girls and saw the saloon* as leading to corruption of young men. While serving as secretary to the mayor, he discovered that some employment agencies sent girls to houses of prostitution. He asked Grace Dodge* to help fund a secret investigation; the study confirmed the practice. Subsequently, Dodge, Reynolds, and others founded the National Vigilance Committee* in 1906 as a lobby group against prostitution. During that year he also pressured Roosevelt to ratify the International White Slave Treaty. Reynolds was against the practice of "segregation with medical supervision" of prostitutes and called for legislation to eliminate the practice. In 1910 the National Vigilance Committee became the American Vigilance Committee, with Reynolds as president of the New York office. During this year he began a three-year tenure as assistant district attorney for New York city. In this position he served as counsel to the white slave* grand jury, of which John D. Rockefeller, Jr.* was foreman. In 1912 Reynolds helped the American Vigilance Committee merge with the American Purity Alliance* to become the American Vigilance Association* and served on its board of directors. Concerned by venereal diseases* that were often transmitted by prostitution, he helped foster the merger in 1913 of this association with the American Federation for Sex Hygiene* to form the American Social Hygiene Association.* Reynolds served as its legal counsel (1913-1916). He then became president of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology for the rest of his career. Reynolds published articles on a variety of social and health reform issues and was active to near the end of his life. He married Florence Blanchard Dike (1898) and died of heart disease at his home in North Haven, Connecticut. References: "The peril of city loneliness," Lit-
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eraryDigest 44 (January-June 1912), 215-216; Clarke, Charles Walter, Taboo: The Story of the Pioneers of Social Hygiene (1961); Pivar, David, Purity and Hygiene: Women, Prostitution, and the "American Plan," 1900-1930 (2002); Reynolds, James B., "Pioneering experiences," Social Hygiene 5 (1919), 582-584; NatCAR 10 (1900), 235-236; WhAm 1 (1943), 1024; obituary, NYT, January 2, 1924. Rockefeller, John D., Jr. (January 29, 1874-May 11, 1960) A noted philanthropist and wealthy heir to his father's oil fortune, Rockefeller was a major financial contributor to many health-reform movements. During the Progressive era these included the social hygiene,* birthcontrol,* purity,* and eugenics* movements. A nondrinker, he advocated temperance.* Rockefeller was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the only son of one of the richest men in America, who had amassed his wealth via Standard Oil. His preparatory education was from private tutors and at the Browning School for Boys. After graduating with a B.A. from Brown University (1897), he entered his father's business for a time. However, from 1910 onward Rockefeller devoted his energies almost exclusively to philanthropy. In association with his father, he created major philanthropic institutions, including the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York city (1901) and the Rockefeller Foundation (1913). More than any philanthropist of the Progressive era, and for the decades following it, Rockefeller contributed to a multitude of health, education, social, conservation, and historic-preservation causes. He was Baptist religiously, but he supported a nondenominational church. Rockefeller had input into the social hygiene, eugenics, and birthcontrol movements. In 1910 he was appointed foreman of the New York city white slave* grand jury, which concluded that prostitution* was "a business run for profit, and the profit is large." This jury recommended that the mayor appoint a permanent committee to investigate the problem further. Due to political concerns, however, the mayor refused. This troubled Rockefeller, who launched his own organization, the Bureau of Social Hygiene.* Over its duration, the bureau sponsored many studies concerning social hygiene and sexuality. In addition, Rockefeller funded the New York Committee of Fourteen* in its investigation of vice. He supported establishment of the American Eugenics Society* and gave some financial support to the Eugenics Records Office.* The birth-control movement also received his financial support. Rockefeller awarded a grant to Margaret Sanger's* Clinical Research Bureau.* For more than forty years the foundation provided financial support for sex research. Rockefeller helped fund other health-reform issues of the Progressive era. He donated to the Committee of Mental Hygiene, which
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became a leader in the prevention and treatment of mental illness. He funded Abraham Flexner's* studies of medical education and European prostitution, and financed the Ohio Anti-Saloon League* in its early years. Rockefeller's foundation also sponsored a commission to study hookworm,* a leading cause of debility in the South, and the distribution of Salversan, a treatment for syphilis. Throughout his lifetime, Rockefeller and his foundation were generous to the fields of health and medicine. He was chairman of the board of trustees of the foundation from 1917 until his retirement in 1940. Rockefeller married Abby Greene Aldrich (1874-1948) and fathered one daughter and five sons. His first wife died in 1948 and he married Martha Bird Allen in 1951. After an illness of several months, he died in Tucson, Arizona, where he had spent his winters, at the Tucson Medical Center. His death was attributed to "pneumonia and heart strain." References: Bullough, Vern L., "Katharine Bement Davis, sex research, and the Rockefeller foundation," Rulletin of the History of Medicine 62 (1988), 74-89; Fosdick, Raymond B.John D. Rockefeller, Jr.: A Portrait (1956); Peters, John P., "The story of the committee of fourteen of New York," Journal of Social Hygiene 4 (July 1918), 347-388; Pivar, David, Purity and Hygiene: Women, Prostitution and the "American Plan, "1900-1920 (2002); ANR18 (1999), 697-700; DARsup. 6 (1980), 547-549; NatCAB 44 (1962), 1-8; obituary, NYT, May 12, 1960. Roosevelt, Theodore (October 27, 1858-January 6, 1919) Author, historian, outdoorsman, and twenty-sixth president of the United States, "Teddy" Roosevelt championed numerous health crusades of the second Clean Living Movement.* These included the eugenics,* immigration restriction,* tuberculosis,* physical education,* and physical culture* movements. Born in New York city, the second of four children, Roosevelt was from a long-established, socially prominent family of Dutch and English ancestry. Religiously, he was of the Dutch Reformed faith. He was an unhealthy child, suffering from asthma and bad eyesight, but he improved his physical condition with exercise and sport. Due to his frailty, he was tutored at home and developed an interest in natural history. Upon attending Harvard university he became interested in history and graduated Phi Beta Kappa (1880). Upon graduation, he wrote The Naval War of 1812 (1882) and was elected to the New York State Assembly (1882-1884). During the summer of 1883 he suffered from severe asthma and went west for a cure. While in the Dakotas, Roosevelt engaged in big-game hunting and bought a ranch in the Badlands of North Dakota, using his inheritance, which ultimately proved to be a bad investment. In 1884 both his wife and mother died on the very
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same February day. Subsequently, he spent time on his ranch to recover from this loss and to write. When Roosevelt returned east, he ran unsuccessfully for mayor and served as commissioner of the U.S. Civil Service in Washington, D.C. (1889-1895), police commissioner in New York city (18951897), and assistant secretary of the Navy in the spring of 1897. When the United States went to war with Spain in April 1898, Roosevelt resigned his Navy position and organized a volunteer cavalry regiment, the "Rough Riders." Roosevelt and his unit distinguished itself in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. In late summer 1898 he returned to New York a war hero and was elected governor (18981900). In 1900 he was elected vice president in William McKinley's (1843-1901) second term. Upon William McKinley's assassination on September 14, 1901, Roosevelt became president, and during his administration became very much his own man. He was noted for progressive and reform policies. He renamed America's executive mansion, "The White House," and invited Booker T. Washington,* the noted AfricanAmerican* educator, to dinner, offending many southerners. He fought monopolies as a "trust buster," and fostered conservation and the creation of national parks and wilderness areas. Roosevelt led a "liberation" of Panama from Columbia, mandated completion of the Panama Canal, and espoused the immigration restriction movement. Throughout his presidency, Roosevelt was engrossed in international problems with China, the Philippines, and Russia. In 1906 he procured a "gentlemen's agreement" with Japan to prevent the emigration of Japanese laborers. To show America's military might, he sent the whole naval fleet around the world on a practice cruise near the end of his presidency. Roosevelt did not run for a third term in 1908, but in 1912 formed a third party, the Progressive Party, the first national political party to endorse a plank supporting woman suffrage.* It was unsuccessful in Roosevelt's third bid for the presidency. During his terms as president Roosevelt championed several health-reform crusades, including the eugenics, pure food and drugs,* physical education, physical culture, and tuberculosis movements. He became a model of the Progressive mood for action, change, and physical activity. Roosevelt coined a term for this more vigorous lifestyle, the "Strenuous Life,"* and authored a book in 1901 by this same name. This work reflected his ideal, both as an outdoorsman and politician. At the end of his presidency, when the army complained of an order to keep physically fit, Roosevelt rode one January day in 1909,100 miles over rough Virginia roads to demonstrate his own fitness. Roosevelt promoted positive eugenics* inasmuch as he was concerned about the nation's ability to triumph in a
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military conflict. He attributed America's success to its old AngloSaxon* stock. Roosevelt spoke frequently of the nation's "race destiny," which he thought was threatened by both the influx of "inferior" Eastern- and Southern-European immigrants and the failure of old-stock Americans to reproduce at an adequate rate. He warned the public about the dangers of race suicide.* This term, coined by sociologist Edward A. Ross* in 1901, was popularized by Roosevelt. He was opposed to birth control* on grounds it would cause further racial suicide among the middle class. Responding to pressure generated by Upton Sinclair's* The Jungle,* regarding unsanitary conditions in the meat-packing business, Roosevelt pushed through passage of the Pure Food and Drug* and Meat Inspection* acts of 1906. However, he was concerned that this journalistic expose, which he termed "muckraking,"* was onesided and could lead to socialism. The results of these reports, besides food and drug laws, were the Smoking Opium Exclusion Act,* the Eighteenth Amendment* for national prohibition, and the Mann Act of 1910* to help curb prostitution.* Roosevelt supported the tuberculosis movement and was selected honorary president of the Sixth International Congress on Tuberculosis.* After he retired from politics, Roosevelt traveled and wrote natural history, his travel adventures, and historical works. He married Alice Hathaway Lee (1880), who died giving birth to a daughter, and then married Edith Carow, fathering five more children. Active to the end of his life, he died of a coronary embolism at his home in Oyster Bay, New York. References: Dyer, Thomas G., Theodore Roosevelt and the Idea of Race (1980); Gould, Lewis L., The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt (1991); Harbaugh, William H., Power and Responsibility: The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt (1975); Morris, Edmund, Theodore Rex (2001); Pringle, Henry E, Theodore Roosevelt: A Riography (1931); Putney, Clifford W., Muscular Christianity: The Strenuous Mood in American Protestantism, 1880-1920 (1994); Roosevelt, Theodore, "Twisted eugenics," The Outlook 106 (January 3, 1914), 30-34, Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography (1913); ANR 18 (1999), 829-835; DAR 8 (1963), 135-144; obituary, NYT, January 7, 1919. Ross, Edward Alsworth (December 12,1866-July 22,1951) A founder of American sociology, Ross promoted eugenics,* nativism,* and prohibition* as methods of social control during the Progressive era. He also supported the birth-control movement.* Born in Virden, Illinois, a farmer's son, he was from a pious Scotch-Irish Presbyterian family. His childhood years were traumatic, punctuated by a series of moves, family alcoholism,* and the death of both his parents when he was around age eight. For the next seven years he lived with farm
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families around Marion, Iowa. However, determined to improve himself, he enrolled in the preparatory division of Coe College in Cedar Rapids shortly after his fifteenth birthday, where he earned a B.A. (1886). He then served on the faculty of the Fort Dodge Collegiate Institute (1886-1888). He went to Germany for doctoral studies, but soon returned to the United States and enrolled in the doctoral program in political economy at Johns Hopkins University, where he completed his Ph.D. (1891). He subsequently taught at Indiana University and Cornell University, and then accepted a full professorship at Stanford University (1893-1900), where he laid the foundations for the new field of sociology. However, his stands on some issues were considered controversial and in November 1900 he was dismissed from his tenured post. In February 1901 Ross accepted a professorship at the University of Nebraska, and five years later moved to the University of Wisconsin, where he remained until his retirement in 1937. At these two universities he built and defined the new field of sociology and promoted the sociology of progressivism and the cause of progressive reform. This included the philosophy of the Social Gospel,* nativism, and eugenics.* These ideas were laid out in numerous publications, including Social Control: A Survey of the Foundations of Order (1901), Foundations of Sociology (1905), and Sin and Society: An Analysis of Latter-Day Iniquities (1907). Ross's work enabled sociologists of his generation to better understand American society and progressives to reform it through social controls. During the Progressive era Ross promoted nativism, which he saw as a means of preserving "innately superior" Anglo-American* values and way of life. He presented his nativistic thesis in The Old World in the New (1901), and coined the term "race suicide"* for the declining birthrate of "more valuable" middle-class old-stock Americans. The term was then popularized by President Theodore Roosevelt.* Ross linked the new influx of Eastern- and SouthernEuropean immigrants* into urban slums to pauperism,* crime,* and alcoholism. He opposed unrestricted immigration, was active in the immigration restriction movement,* and became a member of the Immigration Restriction League* in 1913. After 1915, however, he no longer took an active part in the movement. Ross endorsed the eugenics and birth-control* movements and in 1929 joined the editorial board of the Rirth Control Review* and supported the birthcontrol movement into the 1930s. By the second decade of the century, Ross championed national prohibition as a method of social control over immigrants and the lower class. His travels in China showed the apparent decline in opium* use due to strict laws against the substance. Thus, he con-
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eluded, national prohibition was a needed reform. However, by the 1930s he favored repeal after observing that most Americans ignored prohibition, which in turn led to increased crime and violence. Ross, however, gave many talks to youth groups on the "evils of drink" in the Madison area. He championed other health reforms, such as physical education,* public baths, medical examinations for schoolchildren, and treatment for tuberculosis* in the sanatorium.* Throughout his career he was a popular lecturer and wrote over twenty-eight books and about 200 articles. He married Rosamund Simons (1892) and they had three sons. She died in 1931, and in 1940 he married Helen Forbes. He died at his home in Madison. References: Paul, Diane B., Controlling Human Heredity: 1865 to the Present (1995); Ross, Edward A., The Old World in the New (1914), Latter Day Sinners and Saints (1910), Standing Room Only? (1927), "Prohibition as the sociologist sees it," Harper's Monthly Magazine 142 (January 1921), 186-192, "Ten good reasons for birth control," Rirth Control Review 12 (January 1928), 3, Seventy Years of It: An Autobiography of Edward A. Ross (1936); Weinberg, Julius, Edward Alsworth Ross and the Sociology of Progressivism (1972); ANR 18 (1999), 907-908; DAR sup. 5 (1988), 591-593; NatCAR 18 (1922), 98; obituary, NYT, July 23, 1951. rural health movement (1908-1920s) This movement attempted to bring health and sanitation to the rural areas of America. This submovement was a component of the Progressive era's overall public health* and preventive medicine* movements. A popular conception at the turn of the century was that living in "pure, fresh country air" was healthier than living in an urban area. In reality, many serious health problems were found in rural areas. Poverty often caused malnutrition and deficiency diseases, such as pellagra. Tuberculosis* was prevalent. In the South, malaria and yellow fever epidemics killed thousands and hookworm* weakened millions. Many infants died from "summer diarrhea" caused by contaminated milk. Sanitation facilities were lacking, which led to typhoid and other food- and water-borne illnesses. In 1911, 55 percent of farm homes were estimated to not have privies. When illness struck, medical attention was difficult to obtain due to great distances from communities, poor roads, and expenses. Free clinics were unknown and hospital care, county nursing services, and boards of health were rare. Some public health workers noted that the health of swine was often considered more important than that of a poor farmer and his family. As large towns and cities developed, safer water supplies, poor sewage, and water facilities increasingly became small-town problems over the first decade of the century.
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To solve these health problems, President Theodore Roosevelt* inaugurated the rural health movement with the creation of the Commission on Country Life in 1908. The commission pushed for the establishment of county boards of health and an investigation into the extent of illnesses. Investigation of rural sanitation conditions revealed unsanitary facilities in milking parlors, an abundance of disease-carrying flies, poor personal hygiene, and a high death rate* from tuberculosis. Extremely unsanitary conditions were found in Mexican* laborers' dwellings, farm bunkhouses, and Appalachian shacks. Church and rural school sanitation was also lacking. To improve conditions that led to poor health, the commission encouraged teachers and health officers to work together. Pressure was placed on school boards to build privies. Counties were encouraged to hire district nurses and physicians. Other organizations helped in this movement. The "Hookworm Commission,"* funded by the Rockefeller Foundation in 1909, investigated the extent of hookworm in the nation and instituted educational and screening programs for the disease. The National Tuberculosis Association* sponsored programs in rural areas and the Red Cross sent public health nurses into the countryside. In 1914 the public health service, soon to become the U.S. Public Health Service,* studied pellagra and typhoid fever in small towns. The newly created Children's Bureau began to promote infant and maternal care programs among rural women. During World War I* the public health service promoted sanitation and eliminated mosquitoes in areas surrounding military camps and defense industries, which helped improve health conditions in these regions. After the war, interest in rural health waned. However, by the mid-twentieth century most of these rural health problems had been eliminated by the advent of indoor plumbing and a generally better educated public. References: Duffy, John, The Sanitarians: A History of American Public Health (1992); Stiles, Charles Wardell, "The rural health movement," Annals of the American Academy 37 (March 1911), 367370; Winslow, C , Health on the Farm and in the Village (1931). Russell, Howard Hyde (October 21, 1855-June 30, 1946) Founder of the Anti-Saloon League,* Russell helped launch the prohibition movement* that led to the Eighteenth Amendment* that brought about national prohibition.* Through his league he developed the concept of pressure politics as a method for political change. Russell was born in Stillwater, Minnesota, the son of an Episcopal clergyman of English descent. He was educated at the Glens Falls New York Academy, the public schools in Galva, Illinois, and Griswold College in Davenport, Iowa, where he graduated in 1872. For the
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next few years he held odd jobs, including managing editor of a newspaper in Corning, Iowa, where his parents had settled. He studied law at Indianola College, where he received his L.L.B. (1878). Subsequently, he practiced law in Corning with a partner. In 1883 he suddenly entered the ministry after undergoing a conversion at a revival. Then, as an Oberlin Theological Seminary student, he was very much involved in the temperance* cause. During his senior year he directed canvassing work for the nonpartisan Oberlin Temperance Alliance, which successfully campaigned for a local-option law at the state level. Given the political realities of America's political parties and lingering antipathy between the North and the South following the Civil War, Russell concluded that a nonpartisan organization was the only one that could prove effective. Upon receiving his B.D. degree (1883-1888), he was asked to establish a new church in Kansas. In 1891 he was put in charge of a Chicago mission. Deciding to devote his life to temperance work as an aspect of evangelical Protestantism,* he returned to Ohio. On May 24,1893, Russell inaugurated the Ohio Anti-Saloon League. Its goal was to destroy the liquor traffic* and the saloon* by obtaining local-option prohibition through political pressure in all counties in Ohio. Thanks to Russell's excellent organizational skills, most of the Protestant churches in the state were enrolled in this campaign within a few years to support candidates who favored local option, regardless of their party affiliation. This organization became the first political pressure group in the United States. Russell succeeded in making the moral issue of alcohol* consumption into a political one and paved the way for the eventual establishment of national prohibition. By having members pay dues, the league could support a full-time salaried staff and a newsletter. Russell's success in Ohio led to the formation of Anti-Saloon Leagues in most states. Between 1895 and 1903 Russell helped organize leagues in thirty-six states. In 1895 the national Anti-Saloon League was formed and Russell was elected the first superintendent. In 1899 he organized a league in New York and, concurrently with the national league, was its superintendent. He resigned his post in the national league in 1903 and was succeeded by Purley Baker,* but held the New York position until 1908. In 1903 Russell founded the Lincoln-Lee Legion,* a pledge-signing group for boys. In 1909 he moved to Westerville, Ohio, when the league's national headquarters relocated there, and helped establish the American Issue Publishing House and its American Issue* temperance magazine. From 1909 to 1919 Russell and the league concentrated their efforts on campaigning for a national prohibition amendment. He helped organize and lead the American chapter of the World League Against
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Alcoholism* (1919) and was a member of the permanent international committee for this group. After ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment and its Volstead Act,* Russell traveled internationally for the World League. He was honored in 1925 as being the founder of the Anti-Saloon League. However, his national reputation began to fade in the late 1920s and 1930s when dissatisfaction with prohibition led to the campaign for repeal. Over his lifetime Russell wrote numerous pamphlets and magazine articles promoting abstinence and prohibition. He married Lillian Davis, daughter of his law partner, in 1880 and fathered two children. He died in relative obscurity at his home in Westerville, Ohio. References: Cherrington, Ernest H., History of the Anti-Saloon League (1913); Gusfield, Joseph R, Symbolic Crusade: Status Politics and the American Temperance Movement (1986); Kerr, K. Austin, Organized for Prohibition: A New History of the Anti-Saloon League (1985); Odegard, Peter H., Pressure Politics: The Story of the Anti-Saloon League (1928); AR (1985), 712-713; NatCAR 13 (1906), 330; SEAP 5 (1920), 186; obituary, NYT, July 2, 1946.
s saloon Derived from the French word salon, saloons, sometimes called "resorts," were drinking establishments of the mid- to late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The saloon became a major concern of temperance movement* reformers from around 1870 until 1920. Just as "ardent spirits" (whiskey) in the Jacksonian era and "drunk driving" in the late twentieth century became the initial focus of hostility toward alcohol,* so did the saloon during the second Clean Living Movement.* The saloon became the focus of temperance* activity on grounds that it led to most of society's problems, including crime,* venereal disease,* intemperance,* family breakdown, gambling, corrupt political machines, race degeneracy,* and prostitution.* The number of saloons grew rapidly in the generally prosperous post-Civil War period. By 1873 the state of Ohio supported one such establishment for every 200 people. With the spread of industrial life and the decline of subsistence farming, work became more routine, tightly scheduled, and closely controlled. Elimination of drinking from the workplace in many cases led to the establishment of leisure-time drinking institutions that clustered around factory entrances. Working-class men were more likely than middle-class men to do their drinking in public places. More wealthy Americans tended to consume alcohol at home, in private clubs, and sometimes at richly appointed saloons associated with expensive hotels in urban areas. Saloon patrons were primarily immigrants* and unskilled industrial workers. Many saloons became the workingmen's "social club" and were acknowledged as such by alcohol experts of the time. Francis G. Peabody,* editor of the Committee of Fifty* reports, found that "a careful study of the saloon as it exists to-day in our American cities has revealed the fact that it is performing a double office, it is
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satisfying a twofold thirst; it is meeting the physical craving for intoxicating liquor, but it is also meeting the thirst for fellowship, for amusement, and for recreation." The committee estimated that over 50 percent of wage earners visited a saloon daily and concluded that if the liquor problem was to be solved, social and recreational outlets would need to be provided as alternatives. Saloons were important to workingmen because in addition to proffering drinks they provided newspapers, toilets, check cashing, recreation, fellowship, job leads, card tables, and sometimes billiard tables. Most provided a so-called free lunch, in which a small amount of food was served. Some experts at the time considered the saloon, except for the free lunch, not much different from the proverbial English pub. In urban areas the majority of saloons were neighborhood bars owned by large breweries.* The most notorious of these establishments became centers of drunkenness, crime, prostitution, and political corruption. The San Francisco Barbary Coast and Chicago's Gold Coast, for example, were infamous for such activities, although these areas were also found in many other communities. In most major cities political bosses, often part of a "political machine," used these facilities as their headquarters. These establishments often served as polling places. Regular patrons were paid to "stuff" ballot boxes. In frontier towns and mining communities, western versions of saloons were often the scenes of drunken brawls. In these smaller towns where retail businesses were in close proximity, middle-class parents and church-going citizens could not easily get away from these outlets. The saloon was seen as a threat to family and middleclass values. Because women were expected to be housewives and men expected to work and provide financial support for the family, entire households could become impoverished if a man spent most of his money at the saloon. In the view of eugenic,* purity,* and temperance* reformers, saloons were inviting family and social catastrophe. The primary aim of the Anti-Saloon League* and the prohibition movement* was the elimination of saloons from society. The Eighteenth Amendment* and local options had all but eliminated saloons by 1920. An underground illicit version, the "speakeasy" or "blind pig," emerged during the prohibition era of the roaring twenties. References: Blocker, Jack S., Jr, American Temperance Movements: Cycles of Reform (1989); Engs, Ruth Clifford, Clean Living Movements: American Cycles of Health Reform (2000); Lender, Mark E., and Martin, J. K., Drinking in America: A History, rev. and exp. ed. (1987); Rorabaugh, William J., The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition (1979); Timberlake, James H., Prohibition and the Progressive Movement, 1900-1920 (1963).
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Salvarsan A compounded medication made from arsenic, Salvarsan was the first effective drug for the treatment of syphilis. In May 1905 German bacteriologists Fritz Schaudinn (1871-1906) and Erich Hoffmann (1868-1959) isolated treponema pallida, the microorganism that caused syphilis, and within a short time investigators at the Pasteur Institute in Paris succeeded in inoculating test animals with the microorganism. The next year August von Wassermann (18661925) developed a diagnosis procedure for the disease. Paul Ehrlich (1854-1915) began work on experimental therapies by a trial-anderror process. In 1909, on Ehrlich's 606 trial, a cure for syphilis was discovered. He named and marketed this arsenic compound as Salvarsan. It proved to be relatively toxic, however. In 1910 the compound was introduced into the United States. First distributed through the Rockefeller Institute, the drug was hailed by physicians not only as a cure, but also as something of a preventative that made patients much less infectious. This drug was widely used to treat syphilis until the development of penicillin in 1928. Discovery of this antibiotic helped solidify some aspects of the social hygiene movement* and preventive education for venereal diseases.* References: Clarke, Charles Walter, Taboo: The Story of the Pioneers of Social Hygiene (1961); Gardner, James F., Microbes and Morality: The Social Hygiene Crusade in New York City 1892-1917 (1973); Jordan, David Starr, The Heredity of Richard Roe: A Discussion of the Principles of Eugenics (1911). sanatorium Treatment centers for tuberculosis,* these facilities were generally in isolated rural areas or the mountains. The concept was European in origin. Hermann Brehmer (1826-1899), in Germany, founded the first successful sanatorium in 1859 in the mountains of Silesia. In 1876 Peter Detweiler (1837-1904), director of another German sanatorium, introduced the "rest cure," typified by patients lounging in reclining chairs on open porches to breathe fresh air. In 1875 a sanatorium based upon this method was established in Asheville, North Carolina. The inspiration for this outdoor treatment method lay in "cumulative empirical lore" concerning the apparent values of fresh air, nutritious food, and rest as a cure for TB. By the end of the nineteenth century the sanatorium became a hybrid of health spa, resort, and hospital. In 1885 Edward Trudeau* founded the Adirondack Cottage Sanatorium at Saranac Lake, New York. Because of successful personal experiences on the part of physicians such as Trudeau, Lawrence Flick,* and others, the sanatorium was advocated as the primary treatment modality for tuberculosis by the late 1890s. Treatment was considered to be more effective in special institutions than at home
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because it prevented the spread of the disease to the rest of the family and the community. In addition, the sanatorium provided longterm care and educated patients in personal hygiene* to further prevent spread of the disease once patients were discharged. Philip Jacobs,* publicity director of the organization that became the National Tuberculosis Association,* observed that "the sanatorium became the most important institution in the campaign against TB as it promised to restore patients to wage-earning capacity. This had great appeal to both legislators and private philanthropy." As treatment facilities began to be built, the standard treatment for tuberculosis included rest, fresh air, food such as "milk and raw eggs," and cod-liver oil. Many urban victims of the disease were impoverished, often working ten to twelve hours a day. They were undernourished and lived in substandard housing. The clean and restful environment of the sanatorium improved many aspects of their health. Establishment of the sanatorium and the sanatorium movement* constituted the first phase of the tuberculosis movement.* References: Charity Organization Society, A Handbook on the Prevention of Tuberculosis Reing the First Annual Report of the Committee on the Prevention of Tuberculosis (1903); Dubos, Rene, and Dubos, Jean, The White Plague: Tuberculosis, Man and Society (1952); Jacobs, Philip P., The Campaign against Tuberculosis in the United States (1908); Knopf, S. Adolphus, A History of the National Tuberculosis Association (1922); Shryock, Richard H., National Tuberculosis Association 1904-1954: A Study of the Voluntary Health Movement in the United States (1957). sanatorium movement (1895-1925) Construction of sanatoria* and the isolation and treatment of tuberculosis* cases in these facilities was the first phase of the tuberculosis movement.* The sanatorium movement had its beginnings in 1885 with Edward Trudeau's* founding of the Adirondack Cottage Sanatorium at Saranac Lake, New York. Following the success of this center, sanatorium construction began to grow in the late 1890s, peaking during the second decade of the twentieth century. In 1904 there were 96 sanatoria or special hospitals for treating TB in the United States. In 1908 their number had increased to over 250, in addition to 24 dispensaries (local clinics). Seven years later, in 1914, there were 550 sanatoria and 400 dispensaries. In 1920 construction of sanatoria and dispensaries grew more slowly. There were now 700 sanatoria and 550 dispensaries in the nation. As part of the sanatorium crusade, in conjunction with the public-health aspects of the tuberculosis movement a number of alternative-treatment institutions emerged for poorer patients in the first decade of the twentieth century. The Phipps Institute, endowed
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by Henry Phipps,* was established in 1903. It combined medical and nursing training with treatment and research for the cure and prevention of tuberculosis. Dispensaries, or local clinics, for early diagnoses and prevention education for the poor were established in most urban areas. "Day camps" were built for patients remaining at home, and "night camps" provided open-air sleeping quarters for tuberculosis sufferers who were forced to work during the day. "School camps," "open-air classes," and "preventoriums" for children who were considered at risk for the disease were instituted as a prevention measure. At all these facilities rest and good nutrition were provided. Health education, including personal hygiene,* bathing, and tooth-brushing, was also taught. Symbolic of the importance of the sanatorium movement for the identification and treatment of "open" (active) cases of tuberculosis, the American Sanatorium Association was organized in New York city in 1905. The object of the association was "to promote the professional and social relations of the members and to advance the knowledge of sanatorium treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis." From 1904 to 1919 the mortality rate from TB declined 33 percent. Observers attributed "the decline of tuberculosis chiefly to socioeconomic changes" such as better housing, food, and cleanliness. By the 1920s public clinics and dispensaries began to consolidate with other treatment facilities and the sanatorium movement waned. Private sanatoriums started to disappear in the mid-1930s. Most public-supported facilities were active until the mid-1950s. After this time these facilities began to close, consolidate with other medical institutions, or change their missions due to a dramatic decrease in both morbidity and mortality from tuberculosis as the result of newly discovered antibiotic treatments. References: Bates, Barbara, Rargaining for Life: A Social History of Tuberculosis, 1876-1938 (1992); Drotlet, Godias J., and Anthony, M. Lowell, A Half Century's Progress against Tuberculosis in New York City, 1900-1950 (1952); Jacobs, Philip P., The Campaign against Tuberculosis in the United States (1908); Knopf, S. Adolphus, A History of the National Tuberculosis Association (1922); Shryock, Richard H., National Tuberculosis Association 1904-1954: A Study of the Voluntary Health Movement in the United States (1957); Teller, Michael E., The Tuberculosis Movement: A Public Health Campaign in the Progressive Era (1988). Sanger, Margaret Higgins (September 14,1879-September 6,1966) Sanger was the most prominent leader of the birth-control movement,* so her life and the movement are closely intertwined. As a result of her lifetime crusade, attitudes changed from considering
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the dissemination of birth-control* information and devices as a crime to accepting it as a medical practice. In addition to crusading for every woman's right to have access to birth control, she also supported eugenics.* Sanger, one of eleven children, was born in Corning, New York, the daughter of an Irish* Catholic* immigrant* stonemason who was an outspoken atheist and socialist; her mother was a devout Catholic. Sanger attended the local school, but with financial support from older sisters attended Claverack College and Hudson Institute near Hudson, New York, from around 1896 to 1899. Afterward, she studied nursing at a hospital in White Plains, New York, but her education was cut short when she married William Sanger (1873?-1961), an architect and aspiring painter in 1902. For a brief time they lived in New York city, but in 1903 she went to Saranack Lake, New York, near Edward Trudeau's* sanatorium to recover from an incipient case of tuberculosis.* After her recovery she moved with her husband to Hastings-on-Hudson, and in 1912 to New York city, where she experienced a self-described "great awakening." Sanger became involved with young intellectuals, joined the Socialist Party, and participated in strikes in textile mills during 1912-1913. She also wrote articles for the socialist magazine The Call. One issue of the magazine containing her article on venereal disease* was banned by the U.S. Post Office under the Comstock Act.* She also worked as a visiting nurse on Manhattan's Lower East Side. There she encountered many women whose health had been subdued by excessive childbearing or botched abortions. In 1912 she resolved "to do something to change the destiny of mothers whose miseries were as vast as the sky." She traveled to Glasgow and Paris in 1913 to discover contraceptive information she claimed was unavailable in the United States. Upon her return, Sanger began to publish the Woman Rebel in March 1914, a radical sheet that attacked capitalists, denounced marriage, and discussed venereal diseases and birth control, a term she coined in the June issue of the magazine. During that year she also published a pamphlet, "Family Limitation," that contained the most complete information on contraceptive methods then available. Sanger was arrested for distributing her publications through the U.S. mail. To avoid prosecution, she fled in October 1914 to Europe, where she stayed until September 1915. In Europe, Sanger met Havelock Ellis (1859-1939), who became an intimate friend and who convinced her to focus on the single issue of birth control. Under his influence she also visited contraceptive clinics. Anthony Comstock,* head of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice,* in attempting to force Sanger back to the United States, entrapped her husband William into giving him a copy of "Family Limitations." However, Comstock died within a few
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weeks of this ploy. Sanger returned to New York and the federal government dropped the charges against her in February 1916. While Sanger was away, Mary Ware Dennett* had taken up the leadership of the birth-control movement. Dennett wished to repeal the Comstock Law. In attempting to wrest power from Dennett and gain physician support for birth control, Sanger changed her focus. Rather than calling her efforts a lay woman's movement, she now advocated that physicians dispense birth-control devices. Dennett was not successful in her campaign and by 1921 Sanger was again the primary leader of the birth-control movement. In the meantime, Sanger and a sister, who was also a nurse, opened the first birthcontrol clinic in the United States in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn in October 1916. Within weeks she was arrested and served a month-long sentence in February and March 1917. This and other arrests helped bring the movement to public attention. The New York Court of Appeals eventually upheld her conviction in January 1918, but greatly broadened its definition of the circumstances under which physicians could legally prescribe contraceptives. This ruling paved the way for the establishment of a birth-control clinic a few years later. In 1917 Sanger began to support the eugenics movement* and the eugenic benefits of contraception. In the Rirth Control Review* which she launched in January 1917, she promoted eugenics, or "race betterment,"* along with birth control and other sexuality topics such as social hygiene* education. Sanger addressed concerns about "overbreeding" among the working class as the source of many social problems. In November 1921 Sanger added to the masthead of the -Review, "Birth Control: To create a race of thoroughbreds," that reflected her support for eugenics. That same month she organized the first American Birth Control Conference,* held in New York city, and formed the American Birth Control League,* a lobby and educational group. After divorcing her husband in 1921, she married James Noah Henry Slee (1860-1943) the following year. Slee was the wealthy president of the Three-in-One Oil Company, whose fortune facilitated Sanger's birth-control activities. In 1923 Sanger opened the Clinical Research Bureau* in New York, the first legal birth-control clinic in the United States. Under its second medical director, Hannah Stone,* research supporting the effectiveness and safety of contraceptives was carried out and published. Sanger also tried unsuccessfully, in cooperation with gynecologist Robert Dickinson,* to get a dispensary licence for her clinic. She agreed to allow the clinic to be controlled by physicians and to step down as director if the license could be obtained. However, this did not occur due to politics at the state level, opposition from of the Catholic church, and
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resistance among physicians over the controversial nature of birth control. In June 1928 Sanger resigned as president of the league and a few months later as editor of Rirth Control Review due to conflicts with the board and difficulties in securing a dispensary license for the clinic. She retained control of the clinic, renamed the Birth Control Clinic Research Bureau, until she semiretired in 1939. In the 1930s Sanger lobbied for the repeal of various federal birthcontrol laws, established international birth-control and populationcontrol organizations, and traveled internationally in the cause of family planning as a basic human right. However, it was not until 1937 that the American Medical Association* accepted birth control as a legitimate medical practice. During and after World War II she lobbied for federal support of contraceptive services. Over her lifetime she was a prolific writer. Besides numerous articles, Sanger published several books, including My Fight for Rirth Control (1931) and Margaret Sanger: An Autobiography (1938). However, material from her autobiography and various biographical and other sources are sometimes in conflict as to dates, experiences, and interpretations. Throughout her later life she was honored by many organizations and countries. From Sanger's first marriage to William Sanger she had three children, one of whom died in infancy. She retired to Tucson, Arizona, where she died of arteriosclerosis in a nursing home. References: Chesler, Ellen, Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Rirth Control Movement in America (1992); Gray, Madeline, Margaret Sanger: A Riography of the Champion of Rirth Control (1978); Kennedy, David M., Rirth Control in America: The Career of Margaret Sanger (1970); Reed, James, From Private Vice to Public Virtue: The Rirth Control Movement and American Society since 1830 (1978); Sanger, Margaret, My Fight for Rirth Control (1931), Margaret Sanger: An Autobiography (1938); AR (1985), 718-721; BAR sup. 8 (1988), 567-570; NatCAR 52 (1970), 325-326; obituary, NYT, September 7, 1966. The Sanitarian This monthly journal discussed issues of importance in the field of personal hygiene* and physical activity, public health and sanitation, and other health topics during the early years of the Progressive movement. The magazine helped popularize the public health movement* among medical, sanitation, and health professionals. The stated purpose on the magazine's title page was "to present the results of various inquiries which have been, and which may hereafter be made for the preservation of health and the expectations of human life, as to make them more advantageous to the public and to the medical profession." The masthead carried the statement, "Public health is public wealth." The first issue of The
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Sanitarian was in April 1873. It was founded in that year by Agrippa Nelson Bell (1820-1911), a New York physician and supervisor of quarantine for the New York harbor. Bell remained editor until 1897. The magazine was also the organ of the New York Medico Legal Society. It covered physical culture and education,* personal hygiene and cleanliness, diet and nutrition,* food adulteration,* and "laws of physiology and general pathology . . . as the basis of health." Subjects pertaining to the public health and preventive medicine* movements and to sanitary science,* such as the health of the military, "quarantine, civic cleanliness, water supply, drainage and sewerage [sic]," were presented. As the overall Clean Living Movement* surged in the last decades of the nineteenth century and new scientific discoveries were made, such as the germ theory of disease, these topics were also included. The last issue of The Sanitarian was June 1904. After this date it merged into Popular Science Monthly. References: Mott, Frank L., History of the American Magazine: 1865-1885, vol. 3 (1957); The Sanitarian 52 (June 1904), 556-568. sanitarians Engineers and physicians who saw the need for organized community sanitation, fostered the emergence of improved sewage and solid-waste disposal systems, and called for action to prevent disease called themselves sanitarians. In the 1870s these professionals helped start the sanitation or public health movement* through the creation of the American Public Health Association,* the publication of The Sanitarian,* and a call for more community regulation of sanitation. Because of their efforts, by the last decades of the nineteenth century plumbing and waste disposal were transformed from individual household tasks to community functions in large towns and cities. With the introduction of the germ theory of disease in the 1880s, sanitarians demanded water and sewage systems that would be based upon scientific principles and that would be professionally connected to household fixtures whose properties would be regulated by law. Sanitarians suggested various methods for disposing of refuse in cities and towns, including community "garbage dumps" and garbage burning. They advocated teaching sanitary science* in the schools and the quarantine of immigrants* as a means of preventing infectious diseases.* By the end of the century these health workers were involved in many aspects of public health. References: Duffy, John, The Sanitarians: A History of American Public Health (1992); Leavitt, Judith Walzer, "The wasteland: Garbage and sanitary reform in the nineteenth-century American city," Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 35 (October 1980), 431-452; Ogle, Maureen, All the Modern Conveniences: American Household Plumbing, 1840-1890 (1996).
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sanitary science The term sanitary, or sanitation, science was often used interchangeably with public health during the early Progressive era. By the turn of the twentieth century, sanitary science tended to connote information about diseases and their prevention taught in the schools and to the public, while public health was the application of the science by government agencies. Sanitary science in the mid-1880s and 1890s embodied practical applications of the new findings of bacteriology and chemistry applied to environmental health problems and the prevention of disease. Sewage disposal and treatment, pure water and milk supplies, the elimination of diseasecarrying insects, and other problems fell under this science. The diet and nutrition movement* also evolved out of this new information. By the late 1890s scientists argued that "in order to attain the greatest success in the preservation of health, the prevention of disease, and the prolongation of life, something more is necessary than the discovery of disease germs, and of effectual measures for their destruction." Thus, the educational thrust of the sanitary sciences, besides the danger, spread, and best means of preventing disease, also included personal hygiene,* diet, and physical exercise. By the turn of the twentieth century, the sanitation movement had evolved into the public health* and preventive medicine movements,* including immunization* against infectious diseases.* Other branches included the tuberculosis* and sanatorium* movements. References: Duffy, John, The Sanitarians: A History of the American Public Health (1992); Fall, Delos, "A plea for the teaching of sanitary science in our schools," Education 17 (January 1897), 266-275; Purdy, Charles, "Popular errors in living and their influence over the public health," North American Review 164 (June 1897), 664-677. sanitation movement (see Public Health Movement) Sargent, Dudley Allen (September 28,1849-July 21,1924)A physician and pivotal leader of the physical education movement,* Sargent was also influential in other health-reform movements, including eugenics.* Born in Belfast, Maine, Sargent was the son of a ship carpenter and spar maker of old Puritan stock. His father died in 1856. Sargent attended local schools. At age fifteen he was influenced by a visiting circus and later by a gymnastic exhibition. Endowed with unusual strength and agility, he was soon the leader of a group of high school boys who mastered gymnastic feats and gave exhibitions in neighboring towns. In 1869 he became director of the gymnasium at Bowdoin College. Two years later he was admitted as a freshman. In 1872 Sargent spent three months at Yale College, where he introduced his physical culture and education* training plan.
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Until graduation from Bowdoin (1875), he continued to divide his time between the two institutions. He then became a gymnasium instructor at Yale College and a student of its medical school, from which he obtained an M.D. (1878). In 1878 Sargent also opened the Hygienic Institute and School of Physical Culture, a private gymnasium in New York. A year later he was appointed assistant professor of physical training and director of the Hemenway Gymnasium at Harvard University, where he remained until 1919. Sargent became the second physical education professor in the country and exerted much influence on the development of the field. Drawing upon several exercise systems, various sports, gymnastics, and the philosophy of muscular Christianity,* Sargent designed a new gymnasium, invented exercise equipment, and developed a program of physical activities that he introduced in 1881. This program became a model for schools, colleges, and gymnasiums, and influenced the YMCA* in its activities. As an aspect of his research with students, he classified the anthropometric status of college students that was used as a standard for years; this entailed classifying students according to their physical measurements. Sargent considered his physical culture and educational program as "training for life," not just for athletes, inasmuch as his approach was designed to meet the needs of all types of people. To meet the rising demand for physical education teachers, in 1881 Sargent founded a physical education teachers' training school at Harvard (later Sargent College of Boston University). These programs helped propel physical education into a national movement for school and community programs at all age levels. Sargent was instrumental in founding the American Association for the Advancement of Physical Education.* For six years between 1890 and 1901, he was intermittently president of this new organization. For Sargent, the ability to build sound bodies depended "largely upon the use we make of the six agents of health, namely exercise, diet, sleep, air, bathing, and clothing." Sargent supported the eugenics movement.* He participated in the Second National Conference on Race Betterment* and presented a paper on the relationship between physical education and eugenics at the 1909 eugenics conference of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. He argued, "When the adoption of regular systematic physical activity for our youth of both sexes becomes more universal a gradual improvement in physique will be accompanied by an improvement in mental and moral attainments." Over his lifetime, Sargent wrote numerous articles and books, including A Handbook of Developing Exercisers (1886), Health, Strength and Power (1914), and Physical Education (1906), a collection of his papers and essays, as well as an autobiography. He mar-
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ried Ella Fraser Ledyard (1881) and they had one child. However, she left him around 1898, and he lived alone the rest of his life. He retired from Harvard at the age of seventy, but continued to teach in his normal school until his death in Petersboro, New Hampshire, at a girl's camp named for him. References: Sargent, Dudley Allen, "A century of achievement: Gymnastics," Harper's Weekly 45 (January 26,1901), 81, 82, "The significance of a sound physique," in American Academy of Political and Social Science, Race Improvement in the United States (1909), 9-15, "The biological significance of physical education," American Physical Education Review 23 (December 1918), 521-532, Dudley Allen Sargent: An Autobiography ([c. 1927] 1974); DAR 16 (1935), 355-356; NatCab 7 (1897), 87-98; obituary, NYT, July 22, 1924. school hygiene education movement (1890-1940) A movement for school health or hygiene education surged over the duration of the Progressive era. School health education evolved from a merger of health topics promoted by several crusades within the Clean Living Movement.* Added to the areas of anatomy, physiology, and physical activity were scientific temperance instruction* offered by the WCTU,* sanitary science* from the public health movement,* and the modern health crusade* of the National Tuberculosis Association.* The program, as it evolved, included school environment and health services. Beginning in the 1880s, schools became the place where children learned about health and the human body. Due to the influx of peasant immigrants* to city tenements, basic concepts of cleanliness and diet were often found lacking. School hygiene instruction programs were considered essential for a healthier nation. Educators argued that young people were "much more susceptible to teaching and hence the plan is to make [a] strategic point in our campaign [the education of] minds of those who are now impressionable but who soon will be the active and determining forces of society." Scientific temperance instruction—teaching the negative effects of alcohol* and tobacco* on the body—was mandated in many states in the 1880s and 1890s after successful lobbying by the WCTU.* This aspect of health instruction became so pervasive that all topics in the hygiene curriculum were related to temperance* issues. Hygiene instruction for schoolchildren encompassed human physiology and scientific temperance, along with the positive effects of physical exercise and the dangers of patent medicines.* New York developed a model law to provide "for the study of the nature and effects of alcoholic drinks and other narcotics in connection with physiology and hygiene in the public schools." However, by the mid-
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1890s this restrictive instruction, fraught with inaccurate information and pushed by the WCTU, caused concern among many scientists. Although David Starr Jordan,* a noted educational and eugenics* leader, considered it important for children to learn the "rules of health," he was alarmed that nonscientists such as Mary Hunt* of the WCTU "manage to become the dictators of both the matter and methods of teaching of this science in almost all the States of the Union." He was opposed to hygiene books that in discussing the human body included the "effects of alcohol and tobacco, like the refrain of a song" at the end of every chapter, and called for more objective information. Recommendations for the inclusion of sanitary science* as part of hygiene instruction rose to the forefront in the 1890s. Based upon new scientific knowledge and the germ theory of disease, a push for mandatory instruction of disease prevention in the school was presented to state legislators. It was recommended that children be taught information concerning the germ theory, the mode, transmission, and prevention of common diseases, and the concept of isolation of the sick and disinfection of the "sick room." A conference of Michigan teachers around 1897 argued for a broad-based program. They suggested "that hygiene adapted to the capacity of young children may be profitably given on the subjects of personal cleanliness, pure air, and the relation of the carriage of the body to healthy respiration, wholesome foods and moderateness and regularity in their use; regular and sufficient sleep; regularity in other bodily habits; care as to temperature, and prudence concerning exposure; and abstinence from narcotics and stimulants, and from drugs generally." Issues of a healthy school environment were considered important for the health of schoolchildren. In the 1890s showers and lockers began to be installed at schools. Buildings in urban areas were constructed with adequate sanitation facilities, light, ventilation, and temperature control. Gymnasiums were built attached to schools and physical education was interlinked with school hygiene. During the first decade of the new century, new disease-prevention information, accurate information regarding the "evils of alcohol and nicotine," and methods to achieve healthy school environments were recommended. By 1910 Irving Fishers's* Committee on the National Vitality recommended a wide variety of instructional topics, including "hygiene of environment (air, soil, dwelling, clothing); hygiene of nutrition; and hygiene of activity." The National Tuberculosis Association's modern health crusade began to reemphasize personalhygiene habits in the schools around 1917. The crusade was not an organization, but a "system of health education." It was aimed at correcting nutritional defects and habits, fostering chaste practices,
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promoting correct posture, proper exercise, rest, and a healthy physique, and building up resistance against disease. Each child was given a checklist for double checking whether he or she had accomplished health habits such as brushing teeth, bathing, washing hands, and so on. School health services, including clinics and medical examinations of children, were promoted after the influenza* epidemic of 1918, which revealed many health problems among schoolchildren. Professional organizations were formed to lobby for school health educational programs. The American School Hygiene Association* was organized in 1906 to address the health needs of pupils. This organization was supplanted by the American Association of School Physicians, founded in 1927, which evolved into the American School Health Association, open to all professionals involved with the health of school-age children. This organization was still considered the premier professional educational association for those interested in the total health of the school-age child at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The crusade for school health education continued into the late 1930s and became a merger of many issues related to overall health and wellness. References: Burnham, John C, How Superstition Won and Science Lost: Popularizing Science and Health in the United States (1987); Fall, Delos, "A plea for the teaching of sanitary science in our schools," Education 17 (January 1897), 266-275; Fisher, Irving, National Vitality: Its Wastes and Conservation (1910); Jordan, David Starr, "Scientific temperance," Appletons: Popular Science Monthly 48 (January 1896), 343-354; Knopf, S. Adolphus, A History of the National Tuberculosis Association (1922); Means, Richard K., A History of Health Education in the United States (1962). Scientific Temperance Federation (1906-1933; Research Department of the Temperance Education Foundation, 1934-1970) This educational organization grew out of the WCTU's* Department of Scientific Temperance Instruction that mandated school-based alcohol* education. It also published research studies that detailed the deleterious effects of alcohol on humans. The WCTU, through Mary Hunt,* head of the Department of Scientific Temperance, instituted compulsory teaching of the negative effects of alcohol in the public schools. By 1904 every state required this "scientific temperance instruction."* Hunt, in the meantime, had formed the Scientific Temperance Association to study and endorse temperance* education texts. From her evaluation of materials, she received a portion of the royalties. Hunt died in 1906 and disputes over property rights led the WCTU to disavow its association with the group. Hunt's secretary, Cora Frances Stoddard (1872-1936), reincorporated
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the association as an independent organization on December 18, 1906, called the Scientific Temperance Federation, headquartered in Boston. The federation compiled "scientific information of the effects of the beverage use of alcohol upon the individual and through those effects upon society." It encouraged research on alcohol and disseminated information in its quarterly Scientific Temperance Journal, which had emerged out of a newsletter launched by Hunt in 1892. Stoddard served as editor of the Journal and executive secretary of the federation for life. The federation also published material in popular books, posters, and pamphlets, and presented exhibitions at health conferences. It became a major source of statistical material for temperance workers and the public. In 1912 it organized a traveling exhibit, first presented at the International Hygiene Congress held at Washington, D.C. However, the Federation struggled financially and in 1913 Stoddard arranged with Ernst Cherrington,* head of the Anti-Saloon League's* American Issue Publishing Company, to assume formal control of the group and publish the Journal. Stoddard continued to operate independently. Publication of statistical studies that discussed the dangers of alcohol achieved national prominence and helped persuade scientists, physicians, social workers, and industrialists to support prohibition.* During World War I* the federation produced material for the military. In 1919, subsequent to the creation of the World League Against Alcoholism,* the federation served as its scientific advisory board. Honorary members included Irving Fisher,* Adolf Meyer,* and Harvey Wiley.* After passage of the Eighteenth Amendment* for national prohibition, the WCTU shifted its emphasis from working with public schools toward sponsoring essay contests among youth. Concerned about this decline in school programs, the federation embarked, in 1923, on a long-range strategy of committing teachers and school administrations to a program of instruction. New curricular materials were prepared and in 1931 they were approved by the National Education Association. However, in 1933, due to the decline of the temperance movement* and the country's depression, the federation experienced deep financial trouble. The following year it merged with the newly formed Temperance Education Foundation, headed by Ernest Cherrington,* and functioned as the research department of the foundation. The federation, however, continued to publish the Scientific Temperance Journal in Boston until spring 1952. Afterward it was issued by the Temperance Education Foundation until December 1970, when the organization folded. References: Kerr, K. Austin, Organized for Prohibition: A New History of the Anti-Saloon League (1985); Timberlake, James H., Prohibition
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and the Progressive Movement, 1900-1920 (1963); SEAP 5 (1929), 2379-2380, 6 (1929), 2535-2536. scientific temperance instruction This referred to instruction required in the public schools concerning the physical effects of alcohol,* tobacco,* and narcotics* as part of physiology and hygiene courses. Laws mandating this instruction were worded so that, besides the physiological effects, social, economic, and moral viewpoints could also be discussed. Between 1882 and 1904 the WCTU* launched a campaign for this instruction. In 1878 Mary Hunt* convinced her local school system and other towns to teach temperance* instruction. Due to the success of this program, in 1879 Hunt persuaded the WCTU at its national convention to campaign for school-based temperance instruction. In 1880 the WCTU created the Department of Scientific Temperance Instruction in schools and colleges, with Hunt as superintendent. Its mission was to help create suitable instructional materials for textbooks and to advocate their inclusion in public-school curricula. In 1882 Vermont was the first state to mandate compulsory study in public schools of "physiology and hygiene, with special reference to the effect of alcoholic drinks and narcotics on the human system." Lobbying by the WCTU resulted in a federal law in 1886 for scientific temperance instruction in all federally run schools, including military academies. By 1902 every state in the country mandated scientific temperance instruction in its curriculum. The WCTU coerced local school boards into compliance. It only endorsed texts with an antialcohol message and actively recruited authors and publishers to produce "tee-totaling" texts. However, physiologists and other scientists such as David Starr Jordan,* who supported school hygiene instruction,* viewed much of this information as inaccurate and clashed with Hunt for the course of a decade concerning this school material. Due to concerns about misinformation concerning alcohol, in 1893 educators, clergy, and scientists formed the Committee of Fifty* to objectively study the physiological, social, and economic effects of alcohol. These results, published in a serious of reports by the committee in the first decade of the twentieth century, refuted much of the material being taught in the schools. However, texts still continued to teach only the negative aspects of beverage alcohol. Temperance instruction, however, enhanced personal hygiene* education inasmuch as alcohol education was taught in connection with anatomy and physiology. In 1920 Ernest Cherrington,* general secretary of the World League Against Alcoholism,* suggested that alcohol education "resulted in bringing up a generation of men as well as women schooled
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in the knowledge of the evil effects of alcohol upon the human body and mind," which likely served as an influencing factor in the passage of prohibition. * With passage of the Eighteenth Amendment* and national prohibition, alcohol education waned in many schools. However, most school health texts continued to discuss alcohol to some extent and it remained part of the school health curriculum. During the surge of the third Clean Living Movement* in the last two decades of the twentieth century, the negative aspects of alcohol again were reemphasized. References: Cherrington, Ernest Hurst, The Evolution of Prohibition in the United States of America (1920); Engs, Ruth C , "Resurgence of a new 'clean living' movement in the United States," Journal of School Health 61 (April 1991), 155-159; Engs, Ruth C , and Fors, S., "Drug abuse hysteria: The challenge of keeping perspective," Journal of School Health 58 (January 1988), 26-28; Fehlandt, August F., A Century of Drink Reform in the United States (1904); Jordan, David Starr, "Scientific temperance," Popular Science Monthly48 (January 1896), 343-354; Paulty, Philip J., "The struggle for ignorance about alcohol: American physiologists, Wilbur Olin Atwater, and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union," Rulletin of the History of Medicine 64 (Fall 1990), 366-392; Zimmerman, Jonathan, "'When the doctors disagree': Scientific temperance and scientific authority, 1891-1906," Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Science 48 (April 1993), 171-197; SEAP 5 (1929), 2380-2381. sex education (sex hygiene) Sex education was a component of the purity,* social hygiene,* and, later, the birth-control* movements. During the 1880s purity alliances had made sex hygiene a major project aimed at physicians, teachers, ministers, and other professionals. In the 1880s Alpha, the journal of the Moral Education Society, directed its message toward the social elite, but not the general public, concerning sex hygiene. During the mid-1890s journal articles reflected the concerns of some physicians regarding adequate sex education inasmuch as a "young woman who marries in infantile ignorance of all that pertains to her future as a wife and mother, is no longer lauded as a 'sweet innocent' by the members of her own sex." Parents were advised not to teach children and youth "falsehoods," but instead to instruct them in the simplest physiological facts and advised to answer questions truthfully. In the first decade of the twentieth century, Prince Morrow,* a New York physician, and his Society for Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis* (which evolved into the American Federation for Sex Hygiene*) began to enlist social workers to educate working-class men and women about venereal diseases,* which were considered a crucial aspect of instruction
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for social hygiene.* During this decade women physicians and women's clubs crusaded for sex education in the schools to include sexuality in general, not just coverage of venereal diseases. Sex education was also combined with eugenics* and the desirability of choosing a fit marriage partner. However, bitter school-board clashes arose regarding teaching sex education in the public schools. Groups opposing sex education included Christian Science.* By 1912, "sex hygiene [was] taught in 138 schools and colleges throughout the country" and was promoted as the sum product of the three great forces in society, "the school, the home, and the church." Sex education was also supported by birth-control pioneers such as Robert Dickinson* and Hannah Mayer Stone* in the 1920s. References: "Pacific Coast social hygiene conference," Survey (August 29,1914), 554; Daggett, Mabel Poitter, "Women building a better race," The World's Work 25 (December 1912), 228-234; Scammon, Laura, "Knowledge the preserver of purity," Arena 8 (November 1893), 702709; Pivar, David J., Purity Crusade: Sexual Morality and Social Control, 1868-1900 (1973), Purity and Hygiene: Women, Prostitution and the "American Plan," 1900-1930 (2002). Sharp, Harry Clay (1871?-October 31,1940) Sharp, a physician, perfected and promoted vasectomy for eugenical sterilization. He was born in Charleston, Indiana. However, little is known about his childhood or background. He studied medicine at Ohio State Medical School and received his M.D. from the University of Louisville (1893). In 1895 he became a physician at the Indiana State Reformatory in Jeffersonville (1895-1908). Sharp originally employed vasectomy as a "therapy" for masturbation to "reduce sexual excitation in delinquent boys" at the reformatory. He considered it an alternative therapy to castration and many inmates "volunteered" for the procedure. Later he saw it as a tax-saving measure to counter the rapid increase in the number of institutionalized "degenerates." Between 1899 and 1907, Sharp, without any legal authority, began sterilizing inmates. In 1907 he helped persuade the Indiana legislature to enact the first state eugenical laws* authorizing compulsory sterilization "to prevent procreation of confirmed criminals, idiots, imbeciles, and rapists." Over the duration of this legislation, almost 450 male inmates were sterilized until the law was repealed in 1921 on grounds that it did not provide for due process. The legislation, known as the Indiana Plan, became a model for sterilization in other states. Harry Laughlin* incorporated this legislation as part of his model sterilization law. Sharp promoted vasectomy nationwide and consulted with legislative bodies to enact eugenic* sterilization laws. In 1908 Sharp left
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the reformatory and became Indiana state hospital superintendent and a member of the Board of Trustees of State Institutions (c. 19091913). He and colleagues also established a hospital at West Baden, Indiana. When World War I* broke out, Sharp was assigned to head surgical operations for the U.S. Army Medical Corps in France. After the war he briefly engaged in private practice in Indianapolis, but soon became a surgeon for the U.S. Public Health Service* and served in several positions. He married a woman by the name of Lillian and produced one son. Sharp died a month before his planned retirement date as chief medical officer of the U.S. Veterans Administration Hospital in Lyons, New Jersey. References: Gugliotta, Angela, '"Dr. Sharp with his little knife': Therapeutic and punitive origins of eugenic vasectomy: Indiana, 1892-1921," Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 53 (October 1998), 3 7 1 406; Haller, Mark H., Eugenics: Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought (1963); Kevles, Daniel J., In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity (1985); Reilly, Philip, The Surgical Solution: A History of Involuntary Sterilization in the United States (1991); Sharp, Harry C , "The severing of the vasa deferentia and its relation to the neuropsychopathic constitution," New York Medical Journal 75 (March 8, 1902), 411-414; CurRio (1940), 729; obituary, NYT, November 1,1940. Sherley Amendment of 1912 An amendment to the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906,* the Sherley Amendment called for the elimination of false claims regarding curative or therapeutic effects of patent medicines.* Reformers such as Harvey Wiley* noted soon after passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 that although patent medicines were required to list the drugs they contained, most consumers were not aware of the nature of the substances. To enlighten the public, Wiley and others began publishing articles in various magazines that listed addictive drugs such as opium* and cocaine and discussed the addiction process and the dangers of other common substances found in patent medicines. This educational campaign, along with physicians' reluctance to prescribe opiates, led to a decline in medically acquired opiate addiction. Not satisfied with loopholes in the 1906 Act, reformers began pushing for legislation regarding a "standard of purity for drugs." Wiley recommended that false claims for cures of cancer, epilepsy, and the drug habit* be removed from all labels and advertising. Changes in the law were fought by proprietary medicine interests. Finally, after continued pressure from reformers and the public, the Sherley Amendment was enacted by Congress and signed into law on August 23, 1912, by President William Taft (1857-1930). The amendment provided
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that a drug shall be deemed misbranded "if its package or label shall bear or contain any statement, design, or device regarding the curative or therapeutic effect of such article or any of the ingredients or substances contained therein, which is false and fraudulent." To further tighten food and drug labeling, the Net Weight Act of 1913 required that all packages shipped in interstate commerce "be plainly and conspicuous marked to show the quantity of the contents." References: Goodwin, Lorine Swainston, The Pure Food, Drink, and Drug Crusaders, 1897-1914 (1999); Young, James H., "Two Hoosiers and the two food laws of 1906," Indiana Magazine of History 88 (December 1992), 303-319, Pure Food: Securing the Federal Food and Drugs Act of 1906 (1989), "Extensions of the Food and Drugs Act," Scientific American 110 (March 7, 1914), 194; Wiley, Harvey W., "Why headache remedies are dangerous," Ladies' Home Journal (February 1907), 29. Sinclair, Upton Beall, Jr. (September 20, 1878-November 25, 1968) A well-known journalist and novelist, Sinclair promoted several Progressive-era health-reform crusades through his writings. These included the diet and nutrition,* pure food and drug,* prohibition,* physical culture,* and social hygiene* movements. He was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the only child of an alcoholic* wholesale liquor salesman whose family had lost its fortune following the Civil War. His mother was vehemently against alcohol,* coffee, and tea. When Sinclair was ten years old the family moved to New York city, where he attended an East Side grammar school for three years. At fourteen he entered the College of the City of New York, graduating in 1897 with a B.A. (1897). While in college Sinclair wrote juvenile stories for pulp magazines and adventure novels for youth to support himself and pay for graduate study at Columbia University. Although he intended to study law, he became interested in literature and contemporary politics and did not finish a graduate degree. In 1902 he joined the Socialist Party to live the Social Gospel* and the ethics of Jesus as a friend of the poor and lowly; religiously he was Episcopalian. He moved to the Princeton, New Jersey, area around 1902. After earning a large income for his novel The Jungle* Sinclair established a Socialist Utopian community, Helicon Hall, in Englewood, New Jersey, in late 1906. However, the community burned under suspicious circumstances in March 1907. For the next decade he lived in various places, including Europe. Sinclair became a noted Progressive-era author. His writings, including his investigative reports, personal experiences, and novels, helped promote several health-reform crusades. During his college years around 1901 he began to have an "unruly stomach" from in-
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tense writing. In order to find a cure, he tried several regimens. Around 1902-1903 he read Horace Fletcher's* article on thorough mastication of food and proclaimed this method as "one of the great discoveries" of his life. During 1907, when his problems worsened after the Helicon fire, he spent time at John Harvey Kellogg's* Battle Creek Sanitarium. * He then checked into Bernarr Macfadden's* Healthorium in 1909, also at Battle Creek, Michigan, that was a rival to Kellogg's institution. Based upon these experiences, Sinclair coauthored with Michael Williams (1879-1950), an alcoholic writer who had also undergone several cures, Good Health and How We Won It (1909). This work described the Kellogg and Fletcher dietary regimens and the research of Irving Fisher* and Russell H. Chittenden.* Two years later, in The Fasting Cure (1911), dedicated to Macfadden, Sinclair described in more detail his dietary and cure experiences and promoted the fast as "the key to eternal youth, the secret of perfect and permanent health." This helped promote the diet and nutrition movement. Sinclair championed the physical culture movement and for a few years (1910-c. 1914) wrote for and was on the editorial board of Macfadden's Physical Culture* magazine. He wrote The Rook of Life (1922), which championed birth control,* diet, exercise and other health topics in addition to mental health, divorce, sexuality, and New Thought* religions. Sinclair's most noted work, The Jungle, concerning the unsanitary conditions of the meat-processing industry, helped solidify passage of pure food and drug laws, and brought the pure food and drug movement to its peak. With the publication of The Jungle, which was translated into numerous languages, Sinclair become a muckraking* journalist. He subsequently wrote a number of other exposes or "anti-Capitalist" books and articles that dealt with different issues. These included, but were not limited to, a coal strike, corrupt religions, the subsidized press, exploitation of the oil fields, and the educational system. He became one of the most widely read American writers abroad. Sinclair advanced the social hygiene movement through Damaged Goods (1913), a novelized form of a popular French play, and the novel Sylvia's Marriage (1914). In these works an infant is born infected with a venereal disease* from the indiscretion of the father, who has infected the mother. These novels supported the single standard of sexuality crusade on the part of purity* and White Cross Pledge* reformers. Sinclair also supported the birth-control movement* and was sympathetic to eugenics.* Sinclair was an avid prohibitionist and against the use of all intoxicants. He asserted, "I have never in my life used tea or coffee, alcohol or tobacco." He supported national prohibition* and pushed for strict enforcement of
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the Volstead Act,* the enforcement aspect of the Eighteenth Amendment* in his novel The Wet Parade (1931). Outraged by crime,* corruption, and lax enforcement of prohibition, he stated in the last sentence of this book, "PROHIBITION HAS NOT FAILED! PROHIBITION HAS NOT BEEN TRIED! TRY IT!" In the 1920s and 1930s Sinclair ran unsuccessfully for several offices in several states. Over his lifetime he wrote more than eighty books and many pamphlets, some of which he published himself. He published his autobiography in his eighties. This and his other works give important insights into the Progressive era, including its health-reform crusades. Sinclair married Meta H. Fuller (1900) and had one child before their marriage ended in divorce in 1913 when she ran off with his best friend. Later that year he married Mary Craig Kimbrough, who died in 1961, and several months later married Mary Elizabeth Hard Willis. An active writer nearly to the end of his life, Sinclair died in his sleep in a nursing home in Bound Brook, New Jersey. References: Dell, Floyd, Upton Sinclair: A Study in Social Protest (1927); Leon, Harris, Upton Sinclair: American Rebel (1975); Harte, James L., This Is Upton Sinclair (1938); Sinclair, Upton, The Fasting Cure (1911), Sylvia's Marriage (1914), The Wet Parade (1931), Autobiography (1962); Sinclair, Upton, and Williams, Michael, Good Health and How We Won It (1909); Whorton, James C , "'Physiologic optimism': Horace Fletcher and hygienic ideology in Progressive America," Rulletin of the History of Medicine 55 (Spring 1981), 59-87; DAR sup. 8 (1988), 593-595; NatCAR 14 (1917), 320-321; obituary, NYT, November 26,1968. Smoking Opium Exclusion Act (February 9, 1909) This act led to coercive measures against those who imported or manufactured smoking opium* and led to increased coercive measures against drug abusers. This Smoking Opium Exclusion Act banned all imports of opium after April 1, 1909, other than by registered pharmaceutical firms, and imposed stiff penalties on traffickers. The law resulted from an international movement to regulate opium use in countries of the Far East under the control of European nations and the United States. Attempts to curb the use of habit-forming drugs at the international level forced federal measures in the United States. American missionaries pressed President Theodore Roosevelt* to support an international conference planned for the winter of 1909 in Shanghai. However, the American delegation realized that complete lack of domestic antinarcotic legislation would limit their leadership in the call for suppression of the Far East opium traffic. To save face, a bill was quickly drafted to prohibit the importation and use of opium for other than medical purposes in the United States. It was signed
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into law a week after the conference convened in Shanghai. In the wake of another international treaty, the Hague Convention,* and an increase in illicit narcotics* use, the act was amended on January 17, 1914, in an effort to purge the drug habit* from the nation. It imposed a prohibitive tax of $300 per pound for the manufacturing of smoking opium and required anyone engaged in the manufacture of the substance to be bonded for at least $100,000 to insure collection of the tax. This act solidified the image of drug-dependent individuals as criminals rather than being sick, and demonized opium. These attitudes more or less continued into the twenty-first century. References: "Congress acts in the nick of time," The Outlook 91 (February 13, 1909), 316-317; Booth, Martin, Opium: A History (1996); Courtwright, David T., Dark Paradise: Opiate Addiction in America before 1940 (1982); Engs, Ruth Clifford, Clean Living Movements: American Cycles of Health Reform (2000); Low, A. Maurice, "To make opium contraband," Harper's Weekly 57 (May 31, 1913), 8; Weir, Hugh, "The American opium peril," Putnam's Magazine 7 (December 1909), 329-336; Zentner, Joseph, "Opiate use in America during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: The origins of a modern scourge," Studies in History and Society 5 (Spring 1974), 40-50. Snow, William Freeman (July 13,1874-June 12,1950) A physician and leader of the social hygiene movement,* Snow also supported various public health causes and the eugenics movement. * Through his leadership in the American Social Hygiene Association,* he was instrumental in changing attitudes toward syphilis, from consideration of it as a sin that could not be discussed to an infectious disease* that could be openly attacked as a public health problem. Snow was born in Quincy, Illinois, the younger of two boys. The family soon moved to Biggs, California, where his father owned a grocery store. Although brought up in the Protestant* tradition, he rejected religion as a young man. As an adult he abstained from alcohol.* Snow went to high school in Oakland, California, graduated from Stanford University with a B.A. (1896) in chemistry and a M.A. in physiology (1897), then entered Cooper Medical College in San Francisco, where he graduated with an M.D. (1900). He then studied ophthalmology at Johns Hopkins University (1901-1902) and returned to Stanford as assistant professor of hygiene. He was promoted to professor of hygiene and public health in 1909. In the meantime, he had taken positions as deputy county health officer and volunteer epidemiologist for the California Board of Health, where he personally encountered the devastation of individuals and families from venereal diseases.* This spurred his interest in methods to prevent these diseases, even though they were considered
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unmentionable topics in polite company. As president of the California Public Health Association, in 1909 Snow helped form the California Association for the Study and Prevention of Syphilis and Gonococcus Infections. He left Stanford to become secretary and executive officer of the California State Board of Health. There he demonstrated methods to attack venereal diseases, including public education. Under Snow's direction, the board of health greatly expanded health information programs, and in 1910 California became the first state to require physicians to report cases of syphilis and gonorrhea. That same year Snow was a founder and first secretary of the California Public Health League, designed to coordinate the activities of various groups fighting tuberculosis* and other health problems. Through these efforts he gained a reputation as an effective leader in the public health movement. * Snow's period of greatest influence ranged from around 1914 until the late 1930s, when he led the social hygiene movement. In 1910 Snow helped form the constitution and bylaws of the newly formed American Federation for Sex Hygiene,* an organization that grew out of the Society for Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis,* founded by Prince Morrow,* a New York physician. Three years later leaders of the federation and the American Vigilance Association,* an antiprostitution group, joined forces to form the American Social Hygiene Association.* Snow moved to New York city in 1914 and became one of the founders and the executive head of the new association. Under his leadership the association launched programs to change the aura of silence surrounding venereal diseases. The association issued leaflets, published articles, arranged symposia, and instituted a professional journal, Social Hygiene, of which Snow was editor (1914-1918). In 1916 Snow convinced America's armed forces to work toward eliminating prostitution* and alcohol from around military camps and to establish social hygiene education and "wholesome recreation" for servicemen as a preventive against venereal disease. During World War I* Snow helped wage a successful venereal disease campaign while serving in Europe as a U.S. Army medical corps officer in the social hygiene campaign. After his discharge from the army in 1919, he remained a colonel in the Medical Reserve Corps until his death. In the postwar period Snow was involved with the formation in 1923 of the International Union against the Venereal Diseases, designed to serve as an educational and coordinating agency for national organizations. He argued that the "world-wide prevalence of disease and suffering is in considerable measure due to causes which science has not yet disclosed, but a great part of it is due to widespread ignorance and lack of application of well-established facts
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and methods capable either of largely restricting disease or of preventing it altogether." Snow was a lecturer in hygiene at Johns Hopkins University (1920-1926). He served as chairman of a League of Nations committee to study traffic in women and children (19241928) and was a health education lecturer at Columbia University from 1928 to 1940. Snow also supported eugenics* concepts. He was a participant at the second National Conference on Race Betterment* and on the advisory council of the American Eugenics Society.* He was a member of the Life Extension Institutes's* hygiene reference board. Over his lifetime Snow received many honors and awards and wrote numerous articles and one book, The Venereal Diseases: Their Medical, Nursing, and Community Aspects (1924). He married Blanche Malvina Boring in 1899 and they had two sons. Active until his death, he collapsed on a street from a heart attack in Bangor, Maine. He was buried near his summer home at East Orland, Maine. References: Clarke, Charles Walter, Taboo: The Story of the Pioneers of Social Hygiene (1961); Snow, William E, "A forward step in international promotion of the social hygiene campaign," Social Hygiene 5 (October 1919), 473-496; "Pioneer experiences: Dr. William Freeman Snow, New York," Social Hygiene 5 (October 1919), 579-582; ANR 20 (1999), 345-347; DAR sup. 4 (1974), 758-759; DAMR 2 (1984), 703-704; NatCAR 39 (1954), 262-263; obituary, NYT, June 13, 1950. Social Darwinism This philosophical theory, developed in Europe during the second half of the nineteenth century, drew analogies between Darwinian evolutionary process in nature and human social development. The theory posited that individuals, groups, and societies were subject to the same laws of natural selection as found among plants and animals, resulting in "survival of the fittest," a phrase coined by British scientist Herbert Spencer (1820-1903). Social Darwinists believed that the process of natural selection acting on a human population would result in the survival of the best competitors, in terms of economics, or the healthiest and fittest humans, in terms of eugenics.* As part of Social Darwinian thought, different "races" were considered at different stages of development in the "upward ascent of man." Some races, such as the Anglo-Saxons* or "Aryans," were considered biologically and culturally superior, while others, such as Southern Europeans, were considered inferior. Social Darwinist tenets were held by many intellectuals during the Progressive era, lending support to the eugenics,* nativism,* public health,* and Social Gospel movements* in the United States. Some public health advocates argued that newly developed immu-
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nizations* against infectious disease* and life-saving medical treatment would lead to racial degeneration* inasmuch as the "unfit" would be allowed to survive. Likewise, eugenicists advocated eugenical sterilization laws* to keep the unfit from breeding; some were opposed to birth control* on grounds it would lead to racial suicide* among the "fit" middle class. Paul Popenoe,* a eugenicist, for example, viewed the high infant-morality rate among the poor as an example of natural selection at work. Infant mortality was seen as the effect of "weeding out the unfit." Tuberculosis* was also considered a natural process to eliminate the inferior through natural selection. Those who died of the disease did so because they inherited low resistance to it. However, other reformers were opposed to this noncompassionate view. They considered the primary duty of public health to be the improvement of everyone's health. Social Darwinist thought declined after the third decade of the twentieth century as increased knowledge of environmental and biological mechanisms undermined its basic tenets. References: Bannister, Robert C , Social Darwinism: Science and Myth in Anglo-American Social Thought (1988); Hofstadter, Richard, Social Darwinism in American Thought (1959); Hawkins, Mike, Social Darwinism in European and American Thought, 1860-1945: Nature as Model and Nature as Threat (1997); Popenoe, Paul, "Natural selection in man," in Official Proceedings of the Second National Conference on Race Retterment (1915), 54-61. Social Gospel This concept defined Christianity in terms of the ethics of Jesus Christ and challenged traditional modes of Protestant* thought and social action. The term "Social Gospel" did not come into common use until after 1900. Before then, the designation most widely used was "Social Christianity" or "Christian socialism." Social Gospelists as a whole were native-born middle-class Americans of Anglo-Saxon* heritage who were concerned with the problems spawned by massive immigration* and rapid urbanization. Social Gospel philosophy was opposed to social injustice and industrial greed and sought to create a better society. It was an underlying philosophy in the child labor, purity,* and temperance* movements. Early leaders of the Social Gospel movement,* such as Washington Gladden,* argued that if people followed the "law of love" they could bring about a perfect, sinless society. Social Gospel became a formalized concept in December 1908 when the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America adopted what became known as the "social creed of the churches." This was a significant document inasmuch as it was the first time Christianity was defined in terms of the ethics of Jesus. It represented the union of mainstream Protestant churches,
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including the Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Congregationalists, and others, in addition to agreement on the nature of a "right Christian social order." Although the philosophy kept pace with the times, many parishioners opposed the Social Gospel because they felt the church should focus on spiritual ministry and not be influenced by social and health problems. References: Handy, Robert T., The Social Gospel in America 1870-1920 (1966); Hopkins, Charles Howard, The Rise of the Social Gospel in American Protestantism, 1865-1915 (1940); Phillips, Paul T., A Kingdom on Earth: Anglo-American Social Christianity, 1880-1940 (1996). Social Gospel movement (1880-1920) This religious social-reform movement was the liberal aspect of the Third Great Awakening* and ran counter to the rising strength of fundamentalism in the early twentieth century. The movement peaked during the last decade of the nineteenth and first decade of the twentieth centuries. It was an integral part of the Progressive era's Clean Living Movement. * Although influences came from Britain and Germany, "the Christian social movement in the United States was fundamentally indigenous." Edward Bellamy's (1850-1890) novel, Looking Rackward (1888), which described a Utopian society, helped boost the movement. This fictional account suggested that the United States needed an economic organization based upon cooperation and service rather than on "greed and self-seeking" to create a better human race. The book made socialism respectable in some middle-class circles and helped sparked creation of Nationalist Clubs, of which Frances Willard* was an early promoter. This nationalist movement inspired a group of radical Protestant* ministers to promote "Christian socialism" in the 1890s and popularize the Social Gospel* movement. These Christian socialists constituted the movement's radical wing. They attacked the existing economic and social order as un-Christian and demanded its replacement with a socialist state. The more conservative group believed in scientific reform through individual and state action. In addition to ministers and social scientists, others gravitated to the movement, including Benjamin Flowers,* who promoted the message in his magazine articles. The movement in the 1890s interlinked with moral and health-reform crusades such as the age-of-consent,* temperance,* and purity* movements. Its success was found in the alignment of religious groups and reform organizations focused on exerting direct political action, leading to legislation against gambling, lotteries, prostitution,* alcohol,* and the saloon.* Leaders such as Washington Gladden* and Francis Greenwood Peabody* were involved with or supported several of these health movements. The growth of Muscular Christianity,* a
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form of Social Gospel* that affirmed the compatibility of robust physical life with a Christian life of morality and service, was also an aspect of the Social Gospel movement. After World War I* the Social Gospel movement faded, along with other aspects of the Progressive era. References: Atkins, Gaius Glenn, Religion in Our Times (1932); Dorn, Jacob H., Washington Gladden: Prophet of the Social Gospel (1967), "The Social Gospel and socialism: A comparison of the thought of Francis Greenwood Peabody, Washington Gladden, and Walter Rauschenbusch," Church History 62 (March 1993), 8 2 100; Handy, Robert T., The Social Gospel in America 1870-1920 (1966); Hopkins, Charles Howard, The Rise of the Social Gospel in American Protestantism, 1865-1915 (1940); Phillips, Paul T., A Kingdom on Earth: Anglo-American Social Christianity, 1880-1940 (1996); Satter, Beryl, Each Mind a Kingdom: American Women, Sexual Purity and the New Thought Movement, 1875-1920 (1999). social hygiene This term was a euphemism for sex, venereal disease, and morality education. The phrase was first used around 1907 by a Chicago newspaper to indicate the scope of activities proposed by Prince Morrow,* a New York physician and leader of the developing social hygiene movement* for preventing venereal diseases.* Because it suggested broad interests, many new organizations of the movement adopted the expression. The term also relieved people of using taboo words such as syphilis, gonorrhea, and prostitution.* "Social hygiene" was the term selected in 1913 by Charles Eliot* and others at the formation of the American Social Hygiene Association* to designate a new and somewhat complex concept combining purity,* venereal disease, sex education,* and prostitution-abatement concerns under one umbrella. Social hygiene was also linked with birth control,* eugenics,* and anti-saloon* concerns. The concept was both a philosophy and program of action in relationship to all aspects of sexuality. Sexually related issues in this era were not discussed openly in the press or in polite conversation. It was illegal to publish explicit material due to the Comstock Law* of 1873, which deemed many sex education topics obscene until the mid-1930s. However, social hygiene reformers considered it important to openly discuss sexuality to prevent and treat sexually transmitted diseases and "destroy the antiquated opinion that chastity in young men is injurious." By the 1920s social hygiene involved four aspects: education to instruct the public concerning venereal disease and a single standard of sexuality to avoid venereal diseases, recreation programs and physical education* aimed at minimizing the sexual desire and giving "wholesome activities" to youth, medical programs to detect and treat syphilis and gonorrhea, and law
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enforcement measures that included arrests of prostitutes. References: "Society to prevent syphilis and gonorrhea," Survey 23 (March 5, 1910), 831-832; Clarke, Charles Walter, Taboo: The Story of the Pioneers of Social Hygiene (1961); Gardner, James F., Microbes and Morality: The Social Hygiene Crusade in New York City, 1892-1917 (1973); Hooker, Edith H., "The modern social hygiene program," Survey 43 (March 1920), 707-712. social hygiene movement (1895-1920) This movement evolved in the last decade of the nineteenth century out of the crusade to eliminate prostitution,* the "double standard" of sexuality between men and women, and venereal disease.* It was largely supported by physicians and other health professionals, in contrast to the purity movement,* which was supported by clergy and social workers. The social hygiene* movement had links with, and arose simultaneously with, the eugenics movement* in the first decade of the new century. It also interwove with the anti-saloon* and prohibition* movements inasmuch as prostitution and the saloon* were seen as important factors in the spread of venereal disease. It blossomed in the second decade of the twentieth century as an effort to break the policy of silence concerning these issues through social hygiene and sex education. * It peaked in influence during World War I* and the postwar era. In 1874 the American Medical Association,* reflecting European beliefs, supported the regulation of prostitution. This caused reformers of the purity movement, who championed abolition of the practice, to launch a campaign under the leadership of Aaron Powell* to change medical opinion. Articles were placed in medical and public health journals, and presentations were made at the AMA and American Public Health Association* conventions. After 1882, journals reflected changed attitudes among medical and health professions that sparked a social hygiene movement. In 1895 the American Purity Alliance* emerged out of various vigilant and purity alliances that had formed earlier. This national organization represented the culmination of nineteenth-century purity reform and marked the first stirring of the social hygiene movement. In 1905 Prince Morrow* and other physicians organized the Society for Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis,* a venereal disease education society. This group advocated openness in educational efforts about venereal disease and sexuality issues. Some West Coast reformers considered the term "social hygiene" as still contributing to the conspiracy of silence with regard to sexually transmitted disease. Therefore, in May 1910 the California Public Health Association launched a new group, the Society to Prevent Syphilis and Gonorrhea, for its campaign against
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these diseases, using a "perfectly definite title." More than half of the group's founders were physicians or represented public health interests. Educator and eugenicist David Starr Jordan* was vice president, and William F. Snow* from the California Department of Public Health was active in the group. The society focused on education to prevent venereal diseases and to "destroy the antiquated opinion that chastity in young men is injurious." In 1910 several events marked a turn in the social hygiene movement from a strictly educational focus to a broader-based, diverse movement. The Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis Society reorganized into the national American Federation for Sex Hygiene;* the white slave* grand jury, with John D. Rockefeller, Jr.* as foreman, convened and recommended a permanent bureau to investigate prostitution; and Salvarsan* was introduced as a treatment of syphilis. The American Breeders Association* raised its eugenics committee to a section, and the Eugenics Records Office* was founded; Jordan was chairman of the board of both. The social hygiene movement shared overlapping leadership and membership with the eugenics movement. A concern among eugenicists was the prospect of race degeneracy* caused by venereal diseases. These diseases, considered "racial poisons,"* were spread through prostitution and passed onto children, causing many mental and social health problems. In the early years of the second decade, a campaign to register individuals with venereal diseases for both eugenic and public health reasons was championed by many, including Irving Fisher* and David Starr Jordan, who suggested that "once the public is properly informed concerning the true and serious nature of these diseases, public sentiment will not simply tolerate, but indeed demand, registration." A campaign for premarital examinations was launched, and by 1922, thirteen states had laws promoting restrictive marriages because of venereal diseases. In 1911 the Bureau of Social Hygiene* was organized and funded by Rockefeller. This bureau collected data on social purity and social hygiene and funneled the information to numerous vice* commissions. Rockefeller and the bureau financially supported the efforts of various organizations associated with the social hygiene movement. The culmination of the movement was the merger in 1913 of the American Vigilance Association* with the American Federation for Sex Hygiene to form the American Social Hygiene Association,* with "the purpose of promoting public health and morality." During this year the French play Damaged Goods, a drama dealing with the consequences of syphilis, was produced in major American cities. In 1914 the ASHA began publishing the Journal of Social Hygiene,
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devoted to discussion of venereal disease, prostitution, and related issues. Despite programs for social hygiene education, communities were reluctant to discuss venereal disease or to promote education programs. However, between 1914 and 1917 the social hygiene movement helped change public opinion regarding prostitution and venereal diseases. Attitudes among the middle class changed when reports of venereal disease among soldiers stationed along the Mexican border and the prevalence of these diseases among young recruits drafted for World War I were reported. Families, schools, churches, clubs, and social organizations became more willing to protect society against these scourges and to take measures for prevention and education during the war years. Similar to other healthreform movements during this era, the social hygiene movement had run its course by the mid-1920s. References: "Society to prevent syphilis and gonorrhea," Survey 23 (March 5, 1910), 831; Clarke, Charles Walter, "The promotion of social hygiene in war time," Annals of the American Academy of Political Science 79 (September 1918), 178-189; Taboo: The Story of the Pioneers of Social Hygiene (1961); Jordan, David Starr, "The eugenical aspect of venereal disease," American Rreeders Magazine 3 (fourth quarter 1912), 256258; Laughlin, Harry H., Eugenical Sterilization in the United States (1922); Pivar, David J., Purity Crusade: Sexual Morality and Social Control, 1868-1900 (1973); Purity and Hygiene: Women, Prostitution and the "American Plan," 1900-1930 (2002). Society for Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis (1905-1910) This society was the first group organized specifically for venereal disease* prevention and education. Aimed at physicians, it had links with the purity* and eugenics* movements and placed emphasis on science and medicine and not moral education. It was the first organization to "break with the existing policy of silence and inaction and to organize a social defense against a class of diseases which are most injurious to the highest interest of society." Prince Morrow,* a New York physician, attended an international congress addressing the education of the public on the dangers of venereal diseases. He was encouraged to launch a society in the United States. Morrow delayed organizing a society until he had finished Social Diseases and Marriage: Social Prophylaxis (1904). On May 23, 1904, he issued a call for the formation of a Society for Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis to study legislative, medical, and moral measures to control venereal disease. Morrow's proposal, however, did not engender enthusiasm among physicians. On February 8, 1905, an organization meeting at the New York Academy of Medicine was held
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with twenty-five other physicians to found the society. The purpose of the group was to prevent infection among youth through education, to protect virtuous wives and innocent children from infection, and to protect the health of the unborn. The society was against the double standard for men and women as a false doctrine of "sexual necessity for men," and promoted "continence as the surest prophylactic against venereal infection." It was opposed to the contemporary moral crusade to find and imprison prostitutes* while allowing men to go free. In addition, society leaders felt the treatment of those infected was also important to prevent the spread of the diseases. The society, headquartered in New York at the Medical Society, soon had thirteen branches across the nation, with most headed by physicians. By 1906 it had 244 members and societies were eventually established in thirty states, generally as part of local medical societies. Despite the hope to include lay leaders, the social hygiene movement* remained primarily medical in membership and support. Prominent members included Charles W. Eliot,* Homer Folks,* James B. Reynolds,* and Upton Sinclair.* Morrow, as president of the society, forged alliances with the purity, eugenics, and women's movements. He and his colleagues and supporters educated both physicians and the general public. So successful was this campaign that social hygiene* began to influence the purity movement. Morrow encouraged newspapers to publish facts about venereal diseases and the dangers of prostitution as a source of infection. However, it was difficult to persuade editors to use proper medical terms. Syphilis was termed a "blood disease," and prostitution still went under the euphemism of the "social evil." People in general resisted using correct terms. Edward Bok,* editor of the Ladies' Home Journal, began publishing articles on the dangers of venereal disease in 1906. By 1907 Morrow referred to his group as the American Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis. Morrow worked with Luther Gulick* and others to incorporate sex physiology in public and normal schools. Sex education pamphlets were given to young men through the YMCA.* Although no official relations with the WCTU* were established, the purity division of the WCTU distributed Morrow's pamphlets. Most of the pamphlets were based upon scientific information. However, some borrowed purity movement materials and contained a moral theme. Symposiums on prostitution and venereal disease were held with different organizations. The society gave numerous lectures on the subject, and John D. Rockefeller, Jr.* lent financial support for Morrow's educational pamphlet, Health and the Hygiene of Sex for College Students (1911), which was distributed to colleges and universities throughout the East. In 1910 Morrow's organization merged
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with various state hygiene societies to form the American Federation for Sex Hygiene.* After Morrow's death, this group merged with the American Vigilance Association* to form the American Social Hygiene Association* in 1913. References: Burnham, John C , "The Progressive era revolution in American attitudes toward sex," Journal of American History 59 (March 1973), 885-908; Gardner, James F., Microbes and Morality: The Social Hygiene Crusade in New York City, 1892-1917 (1973); Morrow, Prince, "Prophylaxis of social diseases," American Journal of Sociology 13 (July 1907), 20-33; Pivar, David J., Purity Crusade: Sexual Morality and Social Control, 18681900 (1973); Purity and Hygiene: Women, Prostitution, and the "American Plan," 1900-1930 (2002). Stoddard, Lothrop Theodore (June 29,1883-May 1,1950) Stoddard, an author and eugenicist,* helped shape the nativistic* segment of the eugenics movement. * He also championed immigration restriction* and birth control* as eugenic measures. Born in Brookline, Massachusetts, to an old New England family that took pride in its pedigree, Stoddard grew up in a privileged environment. He was the only child of a noted lecturer and travel writer. Religiously he was Unitarian. Although his parents separated when he was young, he enjoyed frequent boyhood travels with his father. After private school he attended Harvard University where he graduated magna cum laude (1905). He then studied law at Boston University and was admitted to the bar in 1908. After graduation Stoddard made a grand tour of Europe and became convinced the world was soon headed for war. This led him to study international relations, in which he received an M.A. (1901) and Ph.D. (1914). Stoddard wrote several books concerning European political complexities and in 1918 he took over the foreign affairs department of the popular periodical The World's Work. Over his lifetime he wrote twenty-two books and numerous magazine articles focused on political, social, and racial theory. In the early 1930s he moved to Washington, D.C. In the immediate post-World War I* era, Stoddard became increasingly concerned about the demise of the old Anglo-Saxon* stock. He helped shape the nativism faction of the eugenics movement, and through a series of books and articles helped popularize eugenics and immigrant restriction. His most noted work, The Rising Tide of Color against White-World-Supremacy (1920), included an introduction by Madison Grant,* a noted eugenicist. In this and other works, Stoddard claimed that the United States, originally settled almost exclusively by "Nordics," had been harmed by the late nineteenth-century invasion of a "horde of immigrants" from Eastern and Southern Europe (termed Alpines and Mediterraneans), in addition to "Asi-
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atic elements" and Jews.* The influx of these "inferior immigrants," who were crowding out and interbreeding with the original Nordics, was, in his view, threatening to destroy America and leading to the "mongrel chaos of the declining Roman Empire." In Revolt against Civilization: The Menace of the Underman (1922), his second most popular book, Stoddard considered unrestricted immigration* of these "undermen" a grim peril to civilization on grounds the "biologically unfit" were taking power from the "eugenically elite." Stoddard was active in numerous organizations, including several eugenics societies. He was a member of the Advisory Council of the American Eugenics Society,* on the organizing committee and head of publicity for the Second International Congress of Eugenics,* and an early member of the elite Galton Society.* Similar to other nativist eugenic leaders, such as Harry Laughlin* and Madison Grant,* Stoddard supported immigration restriction as a eugenics measure. He testified at Albert Johnson's* immigration restriction hearings that led to the passage of the Johnson-Reed Immigration Restriction Act of 1924.* Stoddard championed birth control and advocated combining the Rirth Control Review,* the official journal of Margaret Sanger's* American Birth Control League,* with a eugenics magazine of the American Eugenics Society. He suggested, "As a convinced eugenist, it is the eugenic side of the Birth Control movement which most interests me. Anything which ties the two groups together for mutual aid and collaboration naturally wins my approval." He was on the board of directors of the American Birth Control League (19211928) and contributed to the First American Birth Control Conference* in 1921. Stoddard married Elizabeth Guildford Bates in 1926 and fathered two children. His wife died in 1940 and he married Zoya Klementinovskaya in 1944. At the dawn of World War II in 1939, he served as special correspondent for the North American Newspaper Alliance in Germany and wrote sympathetically of the early Nazi regime in a work Into the Darkness (1940). On his return to the United States, he served as a foreign policy expert for the Washington Evening Star (1940-1944). In the aftermath of the war and Nazi horrors, his reputation as a theorist was dissipated and his eugenics ideals were rejected. Stoddard died of cancer in Washington, D.C, almost a forgotten man. His ashes were buried at West Dennis, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod, where he spent his summers. References: Haller, Mark H., Eugenics: Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought (1963); Higham, John, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925 (1955); Laughlin, Harry H., "His-
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torical background of the Third International Congress on Eugenics," in Perkins, Harry F., ed., A Decade of Progress in Eugenics: Scientific Papers of the Third International Congress of Eugenics (1934); Paul, Diane B., Controlling Human Heredity: 1865 to the Present (1995); Stoddard, Lothrop, The Rising Tide of Color against White-World-Supremacy (1920), Revolt against Civilization: The Menace of the Underman (1922), "The future of the Rirth Control Review^ Rirth Control Review 7 (August 1928), 238; ANR 20 (1999), 823-824; DAR sup. 3 (1973), 791-793; NatCAR 40 (1955), 370-371; obituary, NYT, May 2,1950. Stone, Mayer Hannah (October 15, 1893-July 10, 1941) Stone, a physician and pioneer of contraceptive research, was the long-time medical director of the first legal birth-control* clinic in the United States. She provided a test case to counter the restrictiveness of the Comstock Law,* and established one of the first marriage counseling centers in the country. Stone was born in New York city, the daughter of a Jewish* immigrant* pharmacist. She attended local schools and received a degree in pharmacology from Brooklyn College in 1912. That same year she was hired as a bacteriologist and serologist at Bellevue Hospital. She attended Columbia University (1914-1916) and graduated with an M.D. from New York Medical College (1920) and Flower Hospital. She joined the staff at Woman's Lying-in Hospital in New York city (1920-1925) until dismissed because of her involvement in the highly controversial birth-control movement.* Stone met Margaret Sanger* in November 1921 at the First American Birth Control Conference.* When Sanger dismissed the first physician at her clinic, the Clinical Research Bureau,* Stone became medical director there in 1925 and continued through her lifetime. At the clinic she collected detailed information on her patients and provided clinical evidence of the safety and effectiveness of the diaphragm combined with spermicidal jelly. In 1928 she published some of her findings, "Therapeutic Contraception," which was one of the first detailed reports on the subject to appear in a medical journal. In 1931 Stone coedited with Sanger The Practice of Contraception, which presented additional data. She was also medical director of the New Jersey Birth Control League (1928-1939), helped to establish a number of maternal health centers in the state, had a private practice in gynecology, and supported sex education.* Stone's activities were considered controversial and not respectable. She and four other staff members were arrested during a police raid of the clinic in 1929. While the charges against Stone were dismissed and the raid generated long-sought-after support from the city's medical community, she was denied admission to the New
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York Medical Society until 1932. In the mid-1930s Stone participated in a test case designed to challenge the federal Comstock Law restricting importation of contraceptive devices. Stone ordered a box of contraceptives from Japan, then informed the U.S. Customs Office of the package so that it was seized upon arrival in the country. Stone brought suit on behalf of her clinic, arguing that as a licensed physician she was permitted to receive the devices for legitimate medical applications. The case, U.S. v. One Package, went to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, which ruled in 1936 that physicians could legally import contraceptive devices for medical purposes. This landmark decision paved the way for the legalization of birth control under the supervision of doctors. Under Stone's guidance, thousands of medical students and physicians came to the bureau to receive instructions concerning birth control. Stone offered marriage counseling, which was also considered controversial at the time. She and her husband organized the Marriage Consultation Center in 1931. Four years later they published A Marriage Manual: A Practical Guide-Roon to Sex and Marriage (1935), based upon their experiences, which remained a standard for years. As a pioneer of both birth cont rol and marriage counseling, Stone noted, "The change in attitude that has taken place . . . is indeed one of the striking phenomena in our social history, within less that twenty-five years the practice of birth control has become an accepted and integral part of our family mores." Stone married Abraham Stone, also a physician (1917), and they had one daughter. At the peak of her career she died unexpectedly of a heart attack. Her husband replaced her as the medical director of the birth-control clinic. References: Chesler, Ellen, Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Rirth Control Movement in America (1992); Gray, Madeline, Margaret Sanger: A Riography of the Champion of Rirth Control (1978); Kennedy, David M., Rirth Control in America: The Career of Margaret Sanger (1970); Reed, W. James, From Private Vice to Public Virtue: The Rirth Control Movement and American Society since 1830 (1978); Stone, Hannah Mayer, "Birth control and population," in Steams, Harold Edmund, ed., America Now: An Inquiry into Civilization in the United States (1938), 456-468; ANR 20 (1999), 838-839; NatCAR 30 (1943), 41-42; obituary, NYT, July 11, 1941. strenuous life Coined by Theodore Roosevelt,* this term embodied the principles of Muscular Christianity.* Roosevelt first presented the concept in a speech at the Hamilton Club in Chicago in April 1899. He considered "the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife." He argued that a "healthy state can exist only when
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the men and women who make it up lead clean, vigorous, healthy lives." This undercurrent of eugenic* thought embodied the concept of women being fit mothers and men industrious workers so as to produce healthy, strong children. References: Roosevelt, Theodore, The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses (1900). Sunday, William "Billy" Ashley (November 18,1862-November 6, 1935) A colorful evangelist and prohibitionist,* "Billy Sunday," as he was popularly known, was also involved with the YMCA's* physical fitness movement. Born in Ames, Iowa, Sunday was the third of three sons of an impoverished Civil War soldier of Pennsylvania German descent. His father died of pneumonia within a month of his birth. Living with relatives, Sunday endured a childhood of poverty and hard work and also lived in a series of orphanages. Soon after leaving the Soldiers' Orphans' Home in Glenwood, Iowa, Sunday moved in with his grandfather and worked at odd jobs in Nevada, Iowa. He attended high school by working as a janitor, but never graduated. Drifting to Marshalltown in the next county around 1880, he worked as an undertaker's assistant and a furniture salesman and played on the local baseball team. He was "discovered" there as a baseball player in 1883 and began a professional career with the Chicago "White Stockings." After five years with the team, he spent three years with the Pittsburgh and Philadelphia teams. Sunday had a conversion experience around 1887 at a Chicago street mission, and in 1891 gave up his sports career to become assistant secretary of Chicago's YMCA (1891-1893). He also assisted an evangelist for several years as an "advance man" to organize the community in preparation for revivals. In January 1896 Sunday began to conduct his own religious revivals, starting in Midwest towns and then moving to larger cities. He introduced theatrics into revival meetings, including acrobatics, colored lights, and music. Sunday was the embodiment of the Muscular Christian.* Ordained by the Chicago Presbytery in 1903, having been licensed to preach in 1898, Sunday soon became widely known as a fundamentalist* preacher and foe of alcohol,* tobacco,* and the liquor traffic* Sunday's "hatred for alcohol and the saloon . . . had much to do with making America 'dry.'" His revivals were a major factor in preparing the country for passage of the Eighteenth Amendment,* which mandated national prohibition. His most famous sermon, "Booze or get on the water wagon," extolled the audience to vote for prohibition. The peak of his impact was between 1910 and 1920. With the "roaring twenties" society became more permissive and interest in revivals waned, although Sunday continued to hold meetings until his death. During his peak of power and influence, he held revivals
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prior to elections in which there was voting on the "dry" question and worked in close cooperation with the Anti-Saloon League's* campaign. On the day the prohibition amendment became law, Sunday supposedly proclaimed, "The reign of tears is over. The slums will soon be a memory. We will turn our prisons into factories and our jails into storehouses and corncribs. Men will walk upright now, women will smile and the children will laugh. Hell will be forever for rent." Middle-class mainstream Protestants* for the most part looked down upon revivalists such as Sunday as being untheological and mercenary. Sunday was reputed to have amassed a large fortune from his revivals. In the wake of his crusades, many individuals claimed salvation. Conversions at these meetings were known as "hitting the sawdust trail," as sawdust was used to cover the dirt floor. Saloons* and prostitution* were eliminated, at least temporarily, in numerous communities. Sunday held nativist* sentiments and was vehemently against immigrants,* whom he saw as destroying the nation through urban corruption and alcohol. He also accepted support from the Ku Klux Klan.* Sunday wrote several religious books, including Seventy-Four Complete Sermons of the Omaha Campaign (1915). In 1888 he married Helen A. Thompson, by whom he had four children. In his later years he made his home at Winona Lake, Indiana, where he died of a heart attack. References: Dorsett, Lyle W., Rilly Sunday and the Redemption of Urban America (1991); Fea, John, "The town that Billy Sunday could not shut down," Illinois Historical Journal 87 (Winter 1994), 242-258; Ellis, Wiliam T, "Rilly" Sunday: The Man and His Message (1914); Kobler, John, Ardent Spirits: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition (1973); Martin, Robert R, "Billy Sunday and Christian manliness," The Historian 58 (Summer 1996), 811-823; McLoughlin, William G., Rilly Sunday Was His Real Name (1955); ANR 21 (1999), 150-152; DAR 11, sup. 1 (1958), 679; DATR (1984), 475-476; DARR (1993), 530-531; NatCAR (1926), 123; SEAP 6 (1930), 2552-2553; obituary, NYT, November 7, 1935.
T temperance Up to the last decades of the nineteenth century, temperance meant the use of alcoholic* beverages in moderation without intoxication. However, it also referred to abstinence from all "ardent spirits" or liquor. By the second decade of the twentieth century, when the prohibition movement* was at its peak, "total abstinence" from all alcoholic beverages was the common usage for the term. References: SEAP 6 (1930), 2616. temperance movement (1873-1933) The temperance or antialcohol movement of the Progressive era's Clean Living Movement* was led by three groups: the Woman's Christian Temperance Union,* the National Prohibition Party,* and the Anti-Saloon League.* The temperance movement encompassed both the anti-saloon movement* and the prohibition movement.* The symbolic beginnings of this temperance surge began with the women's crusades of 1873, culminating in 1920 with the institution of national prohibition* under the Eighteenth Amendment* and its enforcement arm, the Volstead Act.* A variety of factors contributed to the movement. These included, but were not limited to, public health,* eugenics* and purity* concerns; nativist,* anti-German,* anti-Roman Catholic,* and anti-immigrant* sentiments; World War I;* middle-class progressivism; and a fear that the saloon* and alcohol* led to urban crime,* pauperism,* venereal diseases,* and family and racial disintegration. The temperance movement exhibited the classic phases of a healthreform, or clean-living, cycle; namely, moral suasion, coercion, backlash, and complacency. However, these phases did not progress simply from one to the other in this cycle. From 1873 to 1893 the movement was dominated by women and church-based groups on
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the local, and in some cases, state level. Frances Willard* of the WCTU was its leading figure. Although the beginnings of this era fostered moral suasive (education and social pressure) aspects, a call for abstinence and coercive (negative sanctions) components were also evident. The National Prohibition Party was formed in the late 1890s and reached its peak in 1904. It joined with the WCTU in an effort to pass statewide prohibition but was largely unsuccessful. The coercive phase of the cycle began around 1893. From this date the Anti-Saloon League was a major force in the movement and supported nonpartisan efforts for legislative prohibition on the local and state levels until 1913. Leaders included Wayne Wheeler,* Purley Baker,* Howard Russell,* and Ernest Cherrington.* From 1913 to 1920, the third era of strategy called for a national constitutional amendment for national prohibition that culminated with the Eighteenth Amendment. The backlash phase (1920-1933) emerged with the "roaring twenties," as opposition toward prohibition arose from the beverage industry, urban sophisticates, the press, and other groups. The complacency stage, in which alcohol was perceived to be relatively harmless, prevailed from World War II through the late 1960s. References: Blocker, Jack S., Jr., American Temperance Movements: Cycles of Reform (1989); Burnham, John C, Rad Habits: Drinking, Smoking, Taking Drugs, Gambling, Sexual Misbehavior, and Swearing in American History (1993); Cherrington, Ernest H., The Evolution of Prohibition in the United States of America (1920); Engs, Ruth Clifford, Clean Living Movements: American Cycles of Health Reform (2000); Hamm, Richard F., Shaping of the Eighteenth Amendment: Temperance Reform, Legal Culture, and the Policy, 1880-1920 (1995); Odegard, Peter H., Pressure Politics: The Story of the AntiSaloon League (1928); Timberlake, James H., Prohibition and the Progressive Movement, 1900-1920 (1963); SEAP6 (1930), 2616, 2722. temperance reformers These reform-minded figures tended to be middle-class, Protestant* Anglo-Americans.* Reformers believed that if alcohol* and the saloon* could be eliminated from society, problems such as poverty,* alcoholism,* prostitution,* venereal disease,* crime,* and insanity could be reduced or eliminated. Major leaders, agitators, or contributors to the Progressive era's temperance,* antisaloon,* and prohibition* movements included Ernest Cherrington,* Anna Gordon,* Mary Hunt,* "Pussyfoot" Johnson,* Carry A. Nation,* Howard Russell,* William "Billy" Sunday,* Frances Willard,* and Wayne Wheeler.* References: Blocker, Jack S., Jr., American Temperance Movements: Cycles of Reform (1989); Burnham, John C, Rad Habits: Drinking, Smoking, Taking Drugs, Gambling, Sexual Misbehavior, and Swearing in American History (1993); Cherrington,
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Ernest H., The Evolution of Prohibition in the United States of America (1920); DATE (1984), 16. Third Great Awakening This stirring of Protestant* religious fervor arose in the last decades of the nineteenth century. Since colonial times, Great Awakenings have occurred in the United States in roughly 80- to 100-year cycles. These movements have typically begun with religious revivals from which significant political, economic, educational, medical, health, and other social changes emerged. They generally extend from one to two generations, during which a reorientation in beliefs and values occurs. Awakenings attempt to bring society back to an imagined "golden age," free of crime,* disruption, and immorality. Common themes that emerge in these massive social movements are women's rights, ideals of recapturing "family values" and sexual "purity," elimination of alcohol,* tobacco,* or drugs, construction of a perfect or millennial society, a return to nature, concerns about the environment, emergence of new religious sects, fear of immigrants* and other "dangerous classes," and a healthy life free of disease. Out of the Third Great Awakening three religious factions came onto the scene that influenced Progressive-era health reforms. These were the Social Gospel movement* among liberal and more educated religious groups, a fundamentalist movement* aligned with conservative and rural Protestants, and New Thought* religions based on mental science or mind cure,* such as Christian Science.* These three factions helped precipitate the antismoking,* anti-saloon,* prohibition,* physical culture and education,* pure food and drug,* and purity* movements, among others. Some of the factions had eugenic* and nativistic* undertones. A writer in 1905 suggests of this awakening, "History . . . reveals that every great religious revival which has swept over a whole country is usually followed by attempts at social reformation. The revival does more than reinvigorate religion and raise the moral tone of the individual moral life. It seems to recall nations to their national responsibility, to inspire and promote needed reforms, to give the signal for a new start in national life." Many reformers of the Progressive era's second Clean Living Movement,* including Anthony Comstock,* Lucy Page Gaston,* Harvey Wiley,* and Frances Willard,* had deep religious convictions that they funneled into health crusades. References: Engs, Ruth Clifford, Clean Living Movements: American Cycles of Health Reform (2000); Fogel, Robert W., "The fourth great awakening and the political realignment of the 1990s," Rrigham Young University Studies 35 (Winter 1995), 31-43; Lindsay, Thomas M., "Revivals," Contemporary Review 88 (September 1905), 344-362; McLoughlin, William G., Revivals,
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Awakenings, and Reform (1978); Strauss, William, and Howe, Neil, The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy (1997). tobacco This popular substance, which is generally smoked or chewed, is a plant indigenous to the Americas. Native Americans smoked tobacco in pipes for medicinal and ceremonial purposes, and European explorers introduced it around the world at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Even though Old World cultures prohibited the use of tobacco, its consumption increased. Early colonists, including women and children, smoked tobacco in clay pipes. During the mid-eighteenth century, snuff (finely pulverized tobacco inhaled through the nose) became popular among the wealthy. In the early nineteenth century snuff declined in popularity, as did tea, when chewing tobacco and coffee replaced these primarily British habits. Cigars formed the bridge between the calumet and clay pipes of colonial times and the twentieth-century briar pipe and cigarette.* Imported "Spanish" or "Havana" segars came to the Republic under John Quincy Adams's presidency in the mid-1820s. Tobacco consumption increased in the late 1840s, when the cigar was popularized during the Mexican War (1846-1847). The gold rush and the prosperous early 1850s also increased tobacco use. During the Civil War cigars and pipe tobacco increased in popularity. Cigar consumption continued to increase over the nineteenth century, peaked in 1907, then began a long decline until it reached a plateau in the 1950s. Use of chewing tobacco declined after 1890 when laws were introduced to forbid spitting in an effort to prevent tuberculosis.* Cigarette consumption began to increase after the introduction of the machine-rolled cigarette in 1894 and became the dominant tobacco form in 1921. Reformers of the second Clean Living Movement* believed tobacco, particularly cigarettes, led to intemperance,* insanity, crime,* and vice.* By the first decade of the twentieth century, tobacco was considered a racial poison* that could lead to race degeneracy.* During World War I* an increase in cigarette smoking caused it to become, by 1921, the most popular form of tobacco. References: Griscom, John H., The Use of Tobacco: And the Evils, Physical, Mental, Moral, and Social, Resulting Therefrom (1868); Heimann, Robert K., Tobacco and Americans (1960); Robert, Joseph C , The Story of Tobacco in America (1949); Wagner, Susan, Cigarette Country, Tobacco in America: History and Politics (1971). Trudeau, Edward (October 5, 1848-November 15, 1915) A pioneer of the sanatorium movement,* Trudeau, a physician, established the first sanatorium* in the United States and helped launch the tuberculosis movement. * Trudeau was the third child of a prominent New
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York city physician. Soon after his birth his parents separated. Trudeau with his mother and brother moved to her Parisian home, where he studied at the Lycee Bonaparte. Returning to New York with his grandparents in 1865, he entered the Naval Preparatory School in Newport, Rhode Island, with plans to enter the U.S. Naval Academy. However, he left to care for his brother, who developed tuberculosis* and cared for him until his death a few months later. This close contact likely caused him to also become infected. His grandfather died less than a year later. For a time Trudeau studied mining and did other odd jobs. In 1868 he went to medical school at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, where he graduated with an M.D. (1871). Trudeau practiced briefly in a hospital, but in 1872 went into teaching and dispensary (clinic) work in New York city. When his tuberculosis became active in 1873, he was forced to give up his practice. Thinking he was dying, he retreated to the Adirondack region of upstate New York to hunt and fish and spend his final days in the open air and wilderness. Instead, he found he recovered from the disease. He started to practice medicine in the region at Paul Smiths during the summer and Saranac Lake during the winter. In 1884, with the help of some physician colleagues and Adirondack guides, he built two small cottages on Saranac Lake for the treatment of working men and women with early pulmonary tuberculosis. This was the symbolic beginning of the sanatorium movement in the United States. Based upon European writings and his own experience living in the open air, he used fresh air, good nutrition, and rest as the bases of his treatment. The small Adirondack Cottage Sanitarium facility grew to become an influential center for both research and treatment of tuberculosis. This center, along with its publication, Journal of the Outdoor Life,* were also influential in spreading the tuberculosis movement. While at Saranac Lake in the mid-1880s, Trudeau began to experiment with artificial immunity against tuberculosis in a home laboratory after Robert Koch's (1843-1910) confirmation in 1882 that microorganisms cause disease. Trudeau was one of the first North Americans to isolate the tubercle bacillus. After a laboratory fire destroyed his home in 1893, benefactors and friends built Trudeau the first laboratory in the country to study tuberculosis, where he continued to focus upon early diagnosis, immunization,* and a cure for the disease. With Lawrence Flick,* Adolphus Knopf,* and others he founded the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis, which later became the National Tuberculosis Association,* to educate the public concerning the disease. He was its first president (1904-1905). He was also president of other medical organizations.
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From his research Trudeau published numerous articles on his immunization experiments. He married Charlotte Gordon Beare, by whom he had four children. His young family went with him to the Saranac Lake region and he considered his wife a great support in his work. A daughter died of tuberculosis and a son from pneumonia. His own tuberculosis, long quiescent, became more active in his later years. Trudeau died at his Saranac Lake home of the disease for which he had spent thirty years attempting to find a cure. Soon after his death in 1915, his book, An Autobiography, was published. References: "Edward L. Trudeau: A devoted public servant," The Outlook (April 28, 1906), 975-979; Dubos, Rene, and Dubos, Jean, The White Plague: Tuberculosis, Man and Society (1952); Knopf, S. Adolphus, A History of the National Tuberculosis Association (1922); Shyrock, Richard H., National Tuberculosis Association 1904-1954: A Study of the Voluntary Health Movement in the United States (1957); Trudeau, Edward Livingston, An Autobiography (1915); ANR 21 (1999), 852-853; DAR 19 (1936), 2-4; NatCAR 13 (1906), 564-565; obituary, NYT, November 16, 1915. tuberculosis This ancient affliction, also known as the "white plague," "phthisis," and "consumption," was the major cause of death at the beginning of the Progressive era. The campaign to eradicate the disease led to one of the most visible health-reform movements of the era and became a model for other health crusades. The illness, caused by a rod-shaped bacterium, was generally contracted by breathing the bacillus disbursed by coughing or arising from the dried secretions of an infected person, or by drinking unpasteurized milk from an infected cow. Over the centuries, tuberculosis, like most infectious diseases, waxed and waned in terms of severity. The tuberculosis cycle is thought to be about 200 years. During its increase or epidemic phase, there is generalized "scrofula" (tuberculosis of the joints, bones, and other organs), as well as phthisis (tuberculosis of the lungs). In the declining or endemic phase, a less generalized infection is seen and chronic phthisis becomes the most common manifestation of the infirmity. Within specific nations, rural areas have generally lagged behind urban areas in the epidemic cycle, and thus in incidences of the disease. In times of war, tuberculosis has also increased. For generations it had been noted that tuberculosis tended to "run in families." In the nineteenth century tuberculosis was thought to be inherited. At the dawn of the "bacteria age" at the turn of the twentieth century, tuberculosis's familial occurrence was equated with a common source of infection in the household, or a person was considered to inherit the tendency to become infected with the disease.
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The increased prevalence of tuberculosis in the eighteenth century was precipitated by social changes brought on by the industrial revolution. A deterioration in living standards in towns led to urban slums. Overcrowding, poor diets, long working hours, lack of fresh air, and generally unsanitary habits and surroundings led to increased susceptibility and incidence of the disease. In the United States the first statistics concerning tuberculosis date to around 1850. It was noticed that states that were newly settled, such as the Rocky Mountain areas and the Southwest, were free from the disease and even acquired a reputation as health resorts for patients. As these areas became urbanized, tuberculosis morbidity increased. The more crowded the cities, the higher the death rate from consumption became. The death rate from tuberculosis in major cities, including New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, rose after 1850 and remained high until after 1880, when it began to decline. It is estimated that the death rate fell by one-half over the first two decades of the twentieth century. The mortality rate from pulmonary tuberculosis in 1880 was approximately 350 per hundred thousand. Census data suggest that from all forms of tuberculosis, the death rate was 245.4 per hundred thousand in 1890, 194.4 in 1900, 153.8 in 1910, and 113.1 in 1920. This decline had actually started before the beginning of the tuberculosis movement* and was due chiefly to socioeconomic improvements, which included less crowding, better nutrition, better ventilation, reduction of the work week, and public health* measures such as antispitting ordinances and the pasteurization of milk. Tuberculosis was prevalent among immigrant* groups living in the New York city slums. Irish* immigrants had a tuberculosis rate almost three times that of native-born whites and about twice that of other European-born immigrants. The "colored component" (African Americans* and Chinese*) had a rate nearly five times that of native-born whites in the city. The high rate among the Irish was blamed on "the predilection of the Irish for the crowded parts of cities, the Celtic tendency to take no thought for the morrow, their frequent intemperance, and the generations of poverty behind them." Italians, Russians, Hungarians, and Poles* were considered much less likely to die from tuberculosis, even though they also lived in the tenements of New York. Temperance* advocates noted that these particular immigrants were "comparatively free from drunkenness" and considered their more moderate drinking patterns the reason for lower tuberculosis rates. Due to the accepted medical belief that the disease was inherited, many orthodox physicians, as manifested by the American Medical Association,* resisted the idea of the communicable nature of tuberculosis. However, Edward Janeway* published an article in 1882,
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the same year Robert Koch (1843-1910) identified the tuberculosis bacillus, recommending that tuberculosis be a reportable disease; however, he was ignored. After Lawrence Flick* presented and published a paper in 1888 on the disease's communicability based upon his study in Philadelphia, one dissident physician dismissed the report by suggesting that Flick "infers that the poison of phthisis may linger in a house for a long period of time, and give rise to the disease in those successively inhabiting such a house. I think that precisely similar facts might be proved with reference to syphilis. For instance, sailors suffer very largely from syphilis. Sailors are usually in ships at sea. It might, therefore, be argued that the poison of syphilis exists in the sea air and lingers in the fabric of ships. Such a line of argument would easily be reduced to absurdity." In 1889 the communicability of tuberculosis was officially recognized by the New York city health department. However, it was not until 1907 that the disease was "declared a communicable and infectious disease, and as such reportable in all instances." References: "Vital statistics and health and medical care," Statistical History of the United States from Colonial Times to the Present (1975), 58; Bates, Barbara, Rargaining for Life: A Social History of Tuberculosis, 18761938 (1991); Charity Organization Society, A Handbook on the Prevention of Tuberculosis Reing the First Annual Report of the Committee on the Prevention of Tuberculosis (1903); Dubos, Rene, and Dubos, Jean, The White Plague: Tuberculosis, Man and Society (1952); Flick, Lawrence, "The contagiousness of phthisis," Transactions of the Medical Society of the State of Pennsylvania at Its Annual Session (1888), 164-186; Knopf, S. Adolphus, A History of the National Tuberculosis Association (1922); Shryock, Richard H., National Tuberculosis Association 1904-1954: A Study of the Voluntary Health Movement in the United States (1957); Williams, Linsly R., "Tuberculosis on the wane," Current History 18 (April 1923), 146-151. Tuberculosis Congress, International This congress, the first to be held in the United States, popularized the tuberculosis movement* throughout the country and influenced the educational phase of the movement. The conference planning committee for this, the Sixth International Congress was headed by Lawrence Flick.* Most of the pioneers of the tuberculosis movement had some input in the planning. Theodore Roosevelt* was selected honorary president and Edward Trudeau* an honorary vice president. Organization and publicity were carried out by state committees and in some cases health departments. "The aims of the Congress were presented by word of mouth to all of the leading medical and health organizations at that time in existence." This massive promotion campaign
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paved the way for the development of state and local associations throughout the United States. State committees, in many instances, became the nuclei around which permanent state associations were later formed. The congress was held from September 28 to October 12, 1908, at the Natural History Museum in Washington, D.C, and had over 5,000 in attendance. Besides lectures and seminars, a large exhibit that later traveled to other cities on the prevention and treatment of the disease, was viewed by thousands. Eight volumes of transactions of the congress were published. Topics included "pathology and bacteriology," "tuberculosis in children," "clinical study and therapy of tuberculosis," "hygienic, social, industrial, and economic aspects of tuberculosis," "state and municipal control of tuberculosis," and "tuberculosis in animals and its relations to man." As the result of organizing and promoting the congress, The Campaign against Tuberculosis in the United States (1908), sponsored by the Russell Sage Foundation, was published. This document, prepared by Philip Jacobs,* outlined the existing facilities in the nation, including sanatoria,* hospitals, day camps, dispensaries, and clinics. It also listed state and county committees. This document, and the congress, helped foster communication between agencies, gave more central control over state groups from the national office, and facilitated the developing educational phase of the tuberculosis movement. References: Jacobs, Philip P., The Campaign against Tuberculosis in the United States (1908); Knopf, S. Adolphus, A History of the National Tuberculosis Association (1922); Shryock, Richard H., National Tuberculosis Association 1904-1954: A Study of the Voluntary Health Movement in the United States (1957). tuberculosis movement (1895-1930) One of the most important health-reform movements of the Progressive era, the tuberculosis movement set the pattern for successful health crusades and became the model for voluntary associations worldwide. The movement pioneered many contemporary methods of public health,* including the voluntary association devoted to a specific disease, close cooperation between physicians and laity and between public and private health agencies, and campaigns of mass public education. The crusade against tuberculosis* began in the last decade of the nineteenth century and reached maturity in 1917 when the last state agency was formed. The crusade consisted of four stages: the sanatorium,* public health, voluntary efforts, and health education. Each period grew out of the preceding one and generally overlapped subsequent stages. Similar to other movements of the Progressive era's Clean Living Movement,* the antituberculosis campaign had phases of moral suasion and coercion. Like other health crusades, the cam-
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paign against tuberculosis did not intensify until after the problem was already on the wane. The initial focus of the tuberculosis movement was the isolation and treatment of "open," or active, cases of tuberculosis in sanatoria, which led to the sanatorium movement.* This movement had its beginnings in 1885 with Edward Trudeau's* founding of the Adirondack Cottage Sanatorium at Saranac Lake, New York. Following the success of this center, sanatorium construction began to grow in the late 1890s. In 1904 there were 96 sanatoria or special hospitals for treating tuberculosis in the United States. In 1920 construction of sanatoria and dispensaries grew more slowly, but at that time 700 sanatoria and 550 dispensaries were in operation. Sanatorium treatment consisted of fresh air, nutritious food, and rest as a cure for the disease; by the end of the nineteenth century it had became a hybrid of health spa, resort, and hospital. This phase of the tuberculosis movement peaked around the World War I* period. During the mid-1890s an "official" public health crusade against the disease, which was part of the overall public health movement, emerged. Programs to make the environment more sanitary and to identify cases ensued. By 1894 many physicians and health workers had begun to accept the premise that tuberculosis was not hereditary. Predisposition to the disease among children began to be perceived as the result of household infection by breathing air containing "germs." This acceptance led to a sanitation movement* on the part of municipal and state public health agencies to clean up infectious households and isolate patients from noninfected family members. New York city, with its teeming tenements and poverty,* became one of the first cities to enact public health measures to stamp out tuberculosis in the late 1890s, under the guidance of Hermann M. Biggs,* medical director of the board of health. These included changes in the health code that required compulsory reporting of cases, free examination of the patient's sputum, and home visitation of patients. In 1901 the board adopted regulations to permit the compulsory segregation of "recalcitrant cases of tuberculosis." However, the success of this measure was limited. Other public health measures included inspection of milk sheds and the milk supply, beginning in 1902, and mandatory pasteurization of milk, beginning in 1912. These measures had the immediate effect of reducing rates of infection from nonpulmonary forms of tuberculosis, as well as other infectious diseases.* This public health phase of the tuberculosis movement reached its peak by 1925. Development of voluntary agencies began the third stage of the movement. These agencies focused upon measures to educate the public in methods of preventing the spread of the disease. The first
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organization, the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Tuberculosis, was founded by Lawrence F. Flick* in 1892. This organization, which launched an educational and prevention campaign throughout the state, was unique in that it was founded on a principle of medical, public health, social work, and lay-member cooperation. This structure became a model for many other voluntary health associations formed during the Progressive era. During the first decade of the twentieth century, numerous antituberculosis associations organized in most states for the purpose of case finding and preventing the spread of infection. These organizations also supported the facilitation of public health measures and the construction of treatment centers. The Committee on Prevention of Tuberculosis of the Charity Organization Society* of the city of New York, a social work group, was formed in 1902. The most important organization of the era was the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis, founded in 1904 by Trudeau, Biggs, Flick, and others. It was renamed the National Tuberculosis Association* in 1918. The fourth stage of the tuberculosis movement emerged in the second decade of the twentieth century. It included health-education campaigns for both adults and children. The educational programs promoted personal responsibility for maintaining good health so as to build up resistance to the disease through personal hygiene,* nutrition, physical exercise,* and rest. These programs were carried out by public health agencies, voluntary groups, and schools. The best example of this educational campaign was the Modern Health Crusade,* sponsored by the NTA in 1917 to teach hygiene practices among schoolchildren. This crusade was not an organization, but rather a "system of health." Unlike many other health-reform crusades during this era, concern about tuberculosis did not disappear when the movement faded in the interwar period (1930s and 1940s). As tuberculosis declined over the course of the century, the National Tuberculosis Association broadened its interest to encompass all pulmonary diseases. Although the sanatorium era and other stages of the tuberculosis movement may have had little effect on the decrease in tuberculosis, the movement did make important lasting contributions. These included public education concerning the fact that the disease could be detected long before there were obvious symptoms, and the importance of early diagnosis to aid the patient and to prevent the spread of the disease to the community. The movement brought together the cooperation of government, voluntary, education, and treatment organizations and associations. It became a model for other chronic disease health campaigns. References: Dubos, Rene, and Dubos, Jean,
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The White Plague: Tuberculosis, Man and Society (1952); Drotlet, J. Godias, and Lowell, Anthony M., A Half Century's Progress against Tuberculosis in New York City, 1900-1950 (1952); Engs, Ruth Clifford, Clean Living Movements: American Cycles of Health Reform (2000); Jacobs, Philip P., The Campaign against Tuberculosis in the United States (1908); Knopf, S. Adolphus, A History of the National Tuberculosis Association (1922); Long, Esmond R., "Development of the voluntary health movement in America as illustrated in the pioneer National Tuberculosis Association," Proceeding of the American Philosophical Society 101 (April 1957), 142-148; Shryock, Richard H., National Tuberculosis Association 1904-1954: A Study of the Voluntary Health Movement in the United States (1957); Teller, Michael E., The Tuberculosis Movement: A Public Health Campaign in the Progressive Era (1988). "Typhoid Mary" Mallon (September 23, 1869-November 11, 1938) A domestic cook, Mallon was the first person in America to be identified as a healthy carrier of the typhus bacillus and was the first and only carrier imprisoned for much of her life. During the Progressive era, nativistic* animosities resulted in the quarantine of immigrant* groups suspected of spreading infectious disease. Mallon, a Catholic,* became a symbolic casualty of this attitude. Born in 1869 in County Tyrone, Ireland, Mallon emigrated to the United States in 1883. She earned a good living working as a domestic cook. In the summer of 1906, Mallon took a job at the rented home of a wealthy New York banker in Oyster Bay, New York. A few weeks after she arrived, six of the eleven-person household came down with typhoid fever and Mallon suddenly left. A sanitary investigator, George Soper (1870-1948), was hired to determine the cause of the outbreak. Soper was unable to find the usual causes of the disease: contaminated water or food or contact with a sick individual. This led him to suspect that Mallon was a healthy carrier and was unknowingly spreading the disease. By using epidemiological methods he was able to track Mallon in 1907 to a home on Park Avenue in Manhattan where she worked as a cook. However, she refused to cooperate in being tested for the disease. Unable to get any lab samples from Mallon, Soper reconstructed her work history. Within the previous ten years, she had worked for eight families and seven had experienced typhoid outbreaks. Convinced by Soper's data, Hermann Biggs* and other officers of the New York city health department allowed Mallon to be forcibly carried off to a hospital in March 1907 for testing. Since her feces showed a high concentration of typhoid bacilli and she refused to have her gall bladder removed to eliminate the bacteria's source, she was imprisoned in an isolated cottage on the
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grounds of a hospital for infectious disease on North Brother Island. Mallon remained there for three years, despite legal action and an appeal to the New York supreme court. During that time the newsmedia dubbed her "Typhoid Mary." Mallon, however, protested throughout her life that she was healthy. In 1910 she was allowed to go free as long as she stayed in touch with the health department and did not work with food. For a time she worked as a laundress and in other unskilled occupations. However, unable to earn enough money, Mallon disappeared from the health department's view and returned to cooking. She was found in 1915 after infecting the staff at the Sloane Maternity Hospital in Manhattan. During her three months there, she had spread typhoid to at least twenty-five people. Mallon was again sent to North Brother Island, this time for life. She lived alone in a one-room cottage and worked in the hospital laboratory. In 1932 she suffered a stroke and died six years later. Her moniker, "Typhoid Mary," became a metaphor for a person who inflicts harm on others. References: Kraut, Alan M., Silent Travelers: Germs, Genes, and the "Immigrant Menace" (1994); Leavitt, Judith Walzer, Typhoid Mary: Captive to the Public's Health (1996); Soper, George, "The curious career of Typhoid Mary," Rulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine 15 (October 1939), 698-712; ANR 14 (1999), 377-378; obituary, NYT, November 12, 1938.
u Union Signal (1883-present) The official news organ of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union,* the Union Signal helped popularize the temperance* cause during the Progressive era. It also addressed other health-reform issues, including age of consent,* purity,* woman suffrage,* and patent medicines.* In June 1874, a periodical, the Woman's Temperance Union, was founded as the official newsletter of the WCTU. In 1875 it changed its name to Our Union. In 1883 this newsletter was consolidated with the Signal, a temperance periodical that had been published in Chicago for three years (1880-1882) by the Woman's Temperance Publishing Association. With this merger it was renamed the Union Signal and became one of the most influential temperance newspapers of the 1880s. From 1886 to 1901 the Woman's Temperance Publishing Association became the official publishing house of the national WCTU, issuing pamphlets, books, and other materials to reach the public with the temperance message. Its masthead through the end of the nineteenth century read, "Thou hast given a banner to them that fear Thee; that it may be displayed because of the truth; that Thy beloved may be delivered." In 1903 the publishing house was purchased by the national WCTU, and in 1909 the Union Signal began to be published in Evanston, Illinois, the headquarters of the WCTU, which had formed its own publishing company. In addition to temperance messages, the magazine actively supported a broad social-reform program in the 1880s through the mid18908 and attempted to uplift the quality of life for men and women. The journal carried a special page of news for young people, gave advice, and discussed the progress of temperance throughout the nation and later the fifty-one countries that affiliated with the interna-
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tional organization, the World's WCTU. After Frances Willard,* the WCTU president, died in 1898, the WCTU began to distance itself from the woman suffrage, purity, and other movements. It focused primarily on prohibition,* which was reflected in the publication. Over its lifespan, the Union Signal was a weekly, semimonthly, monthly, and quarterly. It continued into the early twenty-first century, publishing educational material focused on alcohol,* tobacco,* and illegal drugs. References: Bordin, Ruth, Woman and Temperance: The Quest for Power and Liberty, 1873-1900 (1981); McKeever, Jane L., "The woman's temperance publishing association," Library Quarterly 55 (October 1985), 365-397; Mott, Frank L., History of the American Magazine: 1741-1850, vol. 3 (1957), 310; SEAP 6 (1930), 2897. U.S. Public Health Service A major effort of the public health movement during the Progressive era was the formation of a federal-level health board. By 1872 most urban areas had full-time local health departments. The first state health department was created in Massachusetts in 1878. By the end of the nineteenth century, most states had established health boards, but the majority of these entities proved to be powerless and ineffective. The creation of a national health organization was a difficult, protracted matter, fraught with politics that became a national campaign spanning the years of second Clean Living Movement.* A major reason for the lack of a permanent federal health board was fear it would interfere with states' rights and take away local political power. In 1878 a devastating yellow fever epidemic swept up the Mississippi Valley. Because the disease was known to have entered the country through the port of New Orleans, authorities were charged with laxity and the public demanded Congressional action. As a result, the American Public Health Association,* along with the Marine Hospital Service, serving sailors, sponsored legislation for a national health department. John Hamilton,* the new surgeon general, fought to keep the authority for public health in the Marine Hospital Service and battled against John Shaw Billings,* who advocated creating a federal board of health. On March 3,1879, Congress established a temporary National Board of Health, giving the new board a four-year mandate. Hamilton, through political maneuvering, convinced Congress in 1882 to limit the board to yellow fever, cholera, and smallpox prevention and eradication. The following year Congress failed to authorize the board due to political maneuvering by Hamilton and local Louisiana politicians, suspicious of federal interference. The board's jurisdiction returned to the Marine Hospital
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Service, whose primary job was to examine and quarantine immigrants* for contagious diseases and maintain mortality statistics. By the mid-1890s momentum for coordinating of public health on the national level had mounted. During the first decade of the twentieth century, various federal entities were involved in some way with public health. However, there was no overall coordinated effort, which often led to duplication of service and lack of communication among agencies. Pressure from several health organizations, including the American Medical Association,* the Committee of One Hundred* led by Irving Fisher,* and the APHA spurred Congress on August 14, 1912, to create the Public Health Service for nationwide disease prevention. It incorporated the Marine Hospital Service, which had been renamed in 1902 the Public Health and Marine Hospital Service. This new monitoring agency, headed by a surgeon general, was chartered to study and investigate a range of health problems, including infectious diseases,* sanitation, sewage, and pollution of navigable streams and lakes throughout the country. This service institutionalized the late nineteenth-century notion of effective disease prevention based on the interdependence of all health agencies. In the wake of the influenza* epidemic of 1918, continued lack of coordination among public health agencies was apparent. To remedy this situation, the U.S. Public Health Service became a centralized national department, with powers surpassing its original focus. References: Duffy, John, The Sanitarians: A History of American Public Health (1992); Marcus, Alan I., "Disease prevention in America: From a local to a national outlook, 18801910," Rulletin of the History of Medicine 53 (Summer 1979), 184203; Rosen, George, "The Committee of One Hundred on National Health and the campaign for a National Health Department, 1906-1912," American fournal of Public Health 62 (February 1972), 261-263; Schieffelin, William Jay, "Work of the Committee of One Hundred on national health," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 37 (March 1911), 321-330; Waserman, Manfred, "The quest for a national health department in the progressive era," Rulletin of the History of Medicine 49 (Fall 1975), 353-387.
V vegetarianism or vegetarian This lifestyle and belief system eschewed consumption of meat from animals and in some cases animal products such as milk and eggs. Although a centuries' old philosophy, vegetarianism was initially promoted in the Progressive era's Clean Living Movement* in the 1880s through John Harvey Kellogg's* Battle Creek (Michigan) Sanitarium* and was a component of the diet and nutrition movement. * During the Progressive era, vegetarianism was defined as "a system of living which teaches that the food of man should be derived directly from the plant world." It was also associated with the physical culture movement.* Vegetarian reformers considered meat a stimulant that could inflame body systems, increase sexual urges, and cause or incite a desire for alcohol.* The vegetarian diet was rich in raw fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and nuts. By the mid-1890s reports of vegetarian cyclists and long-distance "walking-racers" beating their meat-eating competitors were found in the popular magazines, which helped promote a vegetarian movement. In the first decade of the twentieth century studies were carried out on various diets. Irving Fisher,* a researcher, found in 1907 that "flesh abstainers" from the Battle Creek Sanitarium were more fit compared to "flesh eaters." Horace Fletcher,* Luther Gulick,* Bernarr Macfadden,* and Upton Sinclair* popularized vegetarian or semivegetarian diets in their publications. However, vegetarianism began to wane in the second decade of the century. References: "The joy of vegetarianism," The Outlook 49 (March 31, 1894), 600; "The vegetarian triumph," The Spectator 70 (June 10,1893), 767; Mendel, LaFayette B., "Some historical aspects of vegetarianism," Popular Science Monthly 64 (March 1904), 4 5 7 465; Whorton, James C., Crusaders for Fitness: The History ofAmeri-
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can Health Reformers (1982), "'Physiologic optimism': Horace Fletcher and hygienic ideology in progressive America," Rulletin of the History of Medicine 55 (Spring 1981), 59-87, "Muscular vegetarianism: The debate over diet and athletic performance in the progressive era," Journal of Sport History 8 (Summer 1981), 58-75. venereal diseases The sexually transmitted diseases gonorrhea and syphilis were called venereal diseases, social diseases, or the "red plague"* during the Progressive era. A campaign to eliminate these infections was a factor in several health-reform campaigns, including the social hygiene,* purity,* anti-saloon,* and eugenics* movements. Syphilis transmitted from mother to infant caused death or permanent damage of the infant. In later years it could lead to mental illness or heart conditions. Gonorrhea caused sterility among adults and blindness among infants. These diseases, believed to have been brought home to "innocent wives" by unfaithful husbands, were considered racial poisons* by eugenicists. To treat venereal diseases, many dangerous or ineffective cures were advertised by the patent medicine* industry, inasmuch as the medical profession had little to offer. To prevent transmission of these diseases, purity and temperance movement reformers sought socialcontrol measures such as the elimination of the saloon* and the prostitutes* who frequented them. The social hygiene movement, beginning in the first decade of the twentieth century, sought to prevent venereal disease through education. Campaigns to test for syphilis before marriage, as both a eugenics* and preventive medicine* measure, emerged. In 1907 to prevent neonatal blindness resulting from gonorrhea that was contracted during childbirth, New York city midwives were required to use a silver nitrate solution in the eyes of newborns. However, this practice was not always enforced until the following decade. In 1910 the first drug to offer an effective cure for syphilis, Salvarsan,* was introduced into New York city. Publications by Robert Dickinson,* Prince Morrow,* and David Starr Jordan* helped to erase the "conspiracy of silence" regarding the mention of these diseases in print. Upton Sinclair's* fictional works in the second decade of the century further dramatized their dangers. By 1912 physical examinations to rule out venereal disease were required in Connecticut, Washington, Utah, Michigan, and Colorado before a marriage licence was granted. The new American Social Hygiene Association* began to disseminate factual information in the early 1910s. During America's involvement in World War I,* the military considered venereal diseases a serious problem, as a high percentage of recruits were found to be infected. In an effort to curb the problem, mandatory treatment of military personnel and
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the elimination of saloons and prostitutes around bases were instituted, along with sexual-abstinence educational programs. The death rate from syphilis in 1900 was 12 per hundred thousand, and in 1910, 13.5. It reached a peak in 1917 at 19.1, declined to 16.5 in 1920, and rose again in the mid-1920s to 17.3 per hundred thousand. After 1925 the death rate continued to decline for the rest of the century. Effective cures for both gonorrhea and syphilis was not readily available until the introduction of antibiotics in the World War II era. References: "Vital statistics and health and medical care," Statistical History of the United States from Colonial Times to the Present (1975), 58; Brandt, Allan M., No Magic Rullet: A Social History of Venereal Disease in the United States since 1880 (1985); Clarke, Walter, "The promotion of social hygiene in wartime," Annals of the American Academy of Political Science 79 (September 1918), 178-189; Daggett, Mabel Poitter, "Women building a better race," The World's Work 25 (December 1912), 228-234; Hooker, Edith H., "The modern social hygiene program," Survey 43 (March 1920), 707-712; Jordan, David Starr, The Heredity of Richard Roe: A Discussion of the Principles of Eugenics (1911). Volstead Act (January 17,1920) The National Prohibition Act, generally known as the Volstead Act, was the federal enforcement code of both wartime prohibition and the Eighteenth Amendment.* It was the final major legislative act of the prohibition movement.* The act enabled Congress to set the penalties and fines necessary to enforce the new prohibition* laws. Its purpose was "to prohibit intoxicating beverages, and to regulate the manufacture, production, use, and sale of high-proof spirits for other than beverage purposes, and to insure an ample supply of alcohol and promote its use in scientific research and in the development of fuel, dye, and other lawful industries." The act takes its name from Congressman Andrew N. Volstead (1860-1947) of Minnesota, who introduced the bill on May 27, 1919. Mostly written by Anti-Saloon League* leaders, the law included the best features of prohibition laws of various states. The bill was vetoed by President Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), who returned it to the House. Overriding the veto, Congress passed he measure by a two-thirds majority in the House on October 27,1919, and the Senate on October 28. This law to enforce national prohibition under the Eighteenth Amendment took effect on January 17, 1920. Official enforcement fell to the Internal Revenue Agency. However, in some areas of the country the Ku Klux Klan,* which had strong ties with the Anti-Saloon League, raided illegal saloons* and harassed moonshiners. References: Kerr, K. Austin, Organized for Prohibition: A New History of the Anti-Saloon League (1985); Shaw,
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Elton Raymond, Prohibition: Going or Coming? The Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act: Facts versus Fallacies and Suggestions for the Future (1924); Simmons, William Joseph, The Klan Unmasked (1924); SEAP 6 (1930), 2777-2783.
w Wald, Lillian (March 10, 1867-September 1, 1940) A nurse and health reformer, Wald founded the field of public health nursing in the United States. She championed health-reform crusades of the Progressive era aimed at improving the health of children and immigrants.* Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, of German* Jewish* immigrants, Wald was one of four children of a well-to-do dealer in optical goods. Most of her youth was spent in Rochester, New York. She grew up in a cultivated home and was educated at private schools. She became interested in nursing while interacting with a nurse who was attending her sister. In 1889 Wald entered the New York Hospital Training School for Nurses in New York city, from which she graduated in 1891. After a year as a nurse in a New York juvenile asylum, she began medical studies at the Women's Medical College in New York. In 1893, while a student, she was asked to organized a course in home nursing. Wald taught immigrant families on New York's Lower East Side and discovered the deplorable poverty* and unsanitary conditions in which immigrant slum dwellers lived. Concerned about the conditions and rampant diseases, such as tuberculosis,* in the tenements, she left medical school to live in a tenement as a visiting nurse with a fellow nurse, Mary M. Brewster, and formed a visiting nurse center. While this project was strictly nonsectarian, Wald's work was in the mold of the Social Gospel* found among liberal main-line Protestants.* In 1895 a benefactor donated larger quarters on Henry Street, which became her home for nearly forty years. First called "the nurses' settlement," it became the Henry Street Settlement House. Out of this center many reform campaigns emerged that became part of the public health movement.* She organized a citywide visiting nurse service, developed school health nursing,
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and originated the concept of public health nursing, a term she coined for the profession. Wald was instrumental in instigating a rural public health nursing service, which the American Red Cross inaugurated in 1912 as a part of the rural health movement.* Wald helped found and was the first president (1912) of the National Organization for Public Health Nursing. She championed clean streets and immunizations* and persuaded President Theodore Roosevelt* to support the creation of a federal Children's Bureau, which finally came to fruition in 1912. Wald supported the woman suffrage movement* and strongly opposed war. She wrote of her experiences in The House on Henry Street (1915) and Windows on Henry Street (1934). Over her lifetime she was awarded many honors for her efforts. Wald never married. Deteriorating health led her in 1933 to give up her position as head worker at Henry Street. She died at her country home in Westport, Connecticut, several years after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage. References: Duffus, R. L., Lillian Wald, Neighbor and Crusader (1938); Daniels, Doris, Always a Sister: The Feminism of Lillian D. Wald (1989); Wald, Lillian, Windows on Henry Street (1934); ANR 22 (1999), 472-474; DAR 11 (1964), 687-688; DAMR 2 (1984), 770-771; NatCAR 29 (1941), 25-26; obituary, NYT, September 2, 1940. War Prohibition Act (July 1,1919) This act forbade the use of grain and foodstuffs for the manufacture of intoxicating beverages for the duration of World War I.* Congress, as part of the Lever Food and Fuel Control Act* of August 10, 1917, wrote an amendment, effective September 10,1917, until the end of the war, forbidding the use of foodstuffs for the production of distilled beverages. Although the loss of food through the manufacture of liquor was only 2 percent of annual cereal production, this was considered enough by prohibition movement* forces to aid the war effort and was a method to eliminate the manufacture and sale of liquor. Under this act, beer* and wine could still be manufactured. However, the Anti-Saloon League,* WCTU,* and other groups wanted to eliminate beer and wine also. Many breweries* were owned by German Americans* and the anti-German sentiments of the war cried for the elimination of their breweries. On November 21,1918, the War Prohibition Act, as the measure came to be called, forbade the manufacture of beer and wine after May 1,1919, and outlawed the sale of all intoxicating beverages after June 30, 1919. This act was intended to remain in effect until the termination of troop demobilization. Although the fighting had already ceased on November 11, 1918, wartime emergency continued in force, resulting in the nation actually going dry under War Prohibition on July 1, 1919, rather than on January 16,
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1920, when the Eighteenth Amendment* took effect. References: "Distilleries interned for the war," Literary Digest 55 (September 22, 1917), 18; "President Wilson secures a reprieve for beer and wine," Current Opinion 63 (August 1917), 71-72; Blocker, Jack S., Jr., American Temperance Movements: Cycles of Reform (1989); Hamm, Richard F., Shaping of the Eighteenth Amendment: Temperance Reform, Legal Culture, and the Policy, 1880-1920 (1995); Kerr, K. Austin, Organized for Prohibition: A New History of the Anti-Saloon League (1985); Odegard, Peter H., Pressure Politics: The Story of the AntiSaloon League (1928); Timberlake, James H., Prohibition and the Progressive Movement, 1900-1920 (1963). Washington, Booker Taliaferro (April 5,1856?-November 14,1915) A noted educational leader, Washington opposed alcohol* and encouraged health and moral development within the African-American* community. Born on a plantation near Hale's Ford, Virginia, to a slave mother and an unknown white father, he was one of three children. Soon after emancipation he moved with his mother and stepfather to Maiden, near Charleston, West Virginia. As a child he learned to read and attended schools in the evening after working all day packing salt and, when older, in a coal mine. Around 1870 he took the name Washington, the first name of his stepfather, although he had been given the last name of Taliaferro by his mother. Around age eleven he secured a position as a houseboy and served a year and a half learning domestic duties. In 1872 Washington entered Hampton Institute, in Hampton, Virginia, a traditionally black college, and worked as a janitor to support himself. He learned the trade of brick masonry and graduated in 1875. Washington then returned to Maiden for three years to teach in a black school. He spent a year (1878-1879) at Wayland Seminary, Washington, D.C, but did not feel he was suitable for the ministry and so went back to Hampton to run the night school and supervise the "Indian dormitory." In May 1881 a charter for a normal school in Tuskegee, Alabama, was granted by the state. Washington was asked to be its principal and spent the rest of his life building it into what became the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute. Modeled on the Hampton Institute, it trained teachers and skilled workers. As part of the curriculum, emphasis was placed on moral development and personal hygiene* because he found students often lacking in basic life skills. Under his leadership of over thirty years, the institution gained a national reputation for producing students of high character and leadership ability. By the mid-1880s, lectures, presentations, and influential contacts brought Washington national recognition as a black leader. In 1895 his presentation at an international exposition in Atlanta, dubbed
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the "Atlanta Compromise," impressed both African Americans and European Americans. In his remarks he acquiesced to the existence of the segregation of blacks and whites, urged blacks not to push for integrated facilities and other civil and political rights, and pushed for education and hard work to win economic advantage and selfsufficiency. This speech secured Washington's position as the leading black spokesperson for the white power structure. Washington succeeded Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), who had recently died, as the country's major black leader. However, by the first decade of the new century his views were increasingly opposed by many AfricanAmerican intellectuals, such as W.E.B. Du Bois,* who favored agitation for political, civil, and educational rights. This group of leaders derisively called him the "great accommodator." Animosity grew between Washington and Du Bois and Washington successfully maneuvered to thwart Du Bois and his activist organizations. Washington's correspondence, however, suggests that he supported the full agenda of civil and political rights advanced by Du Bois and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and secretly helped in some cases but refused to go public with such efforts. Washington was tangentially involved with several health movements of the Progressive era. In 1906 he instituted the "Tuskegee Movable School," which lasted until 1944 and provided health programs for rural blacks as well as a training program in domestic science and agriculture. This traveling school became a model for other southern health programs. Washington opposed the use of alcohol among blacks and advocated prohibition* but did not crusade for it. After state prohibition in Georgia in 1907 and in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1908, Washington reported a reduction in crime* in both cities after breweries,* saloons,* and other liquor outlets were shut down. Although not officially listed, he was probably a member of the Committee of One Hundred* during the first decade of the century, which advocated the creation of a national public health department. For a health problem, Washington had been treated by a healer trained by John Harvey Kellogg.* Invited to attend Kellogg's First National Conference on Race Betterment* in 1914, Washington addressed the issue of alcohol use among blacks and argued, "Those of you who would keep the body of my race strong, vigorous, and useful, should use your influence to keep the bar-room closed—to keep whiskey away from the Negro race." Washington was also against patent medicines* on grounds they weakened the race. He also advocated the teaching of personal hygiene. In April 1915 he sounded the call for the creation of a national health movement based upon health statistics that underscored poor health of blacks, including a high death rate from tuberculosis.* He argued that disease knew no
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racial barriers and that the health of African Americans also affected European Americans. His National Negro Health Week was supported by both black and white health officers. By the 1920s the U.S. Public Health Service* joined the health campaign in the black communities. Health education, hygiene, and sanitation* was its focus. Over his lifetime Washington was a prolific writer. His most famous publications were two autobiographies, Up from Slavery (1901) and My Larger Education (1911). He was married three times: Fannie N. Smith (1882), who died in 1884 leaving a daughter; Olivia A. Davidson (1885), who died in 1889, leaving two sons; and Margaret James Murray(1893). Washington died the day after a visit to New York, where he had collapsed as a result of overwork and arteriosclerosis. References: Harlan, Louis R., Rooker T Washington: The Making of a Rlack Leader, 1856-1901 [1972], Rooker T Washington: The Wizard of Tuskegee, 1901-1915 (1983); Washington, Booker T., "Prohibition and the Negro," The Outlook 88 (March 14,1908), 587589, "The Negro race," in Robbins, Emily F , ed., Proceedings of the First National Conference on Race Retterment, fanuary 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 1914 (1914), 410-420; ANR 22 (1999), 751-756; DAR 10 (1964), 506-508; obituary, NYT, November 15, 1915. Webb-Kenyon Act (March 1, 1913) The Webb-Kenyon Act prohibited the transportation of intoxicating liquors into any state where alcohol* had been banned by state law. It was a major victory in the prohibition* and anti-saloon* movements and an important step that led to national prohibition.* The Wilson Act of August 8,1890, stipulated that intoxicating liquors transported into any state were subjected upon arrival to state laws to the same extent if they had been produced within the state, although still in the original packages. However, the statute did not apply until the liquor was delivered to the buyer. It was often not enforced. Lobbying efforts on the part of the Anti-Saloon League* worked to tighten this law and its lax enforcement. Their efforts resulted in Congress passing the WebbKenyon Act. This act prohibited the transportation of intoxicating liquors into any state when it was intended that they should be "received, possessed, sold, or in any manner used," in violation of its state laws. The act was passed over a veto by President William Howard Taft (1857-1930), suggestive of the increased national support for prohibitory legislation. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutional validity of this law as a regulation of interstate commerce. It was supplemented by an act of March 3, 1917, known as the Reed Amendment, that prohibited the introduction of liquor into dry territory. Although the Webb-Kenyon Act was challenged on several occasions, it was upheld by the Court and became a major
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step toward the Eighteenth Amendment* and national prohibition. References: Blocker, Jack S., Jr., American Temperance Movements: Cycles of Reform (1989); Cherrington, Ernest Hurst, History of the Anti-Saloon League (1913); Hamm, Richard R, Shaping of the Eighteenth Amendment: Temperance Reform, Legal Culture, and the Policy, 1880-1920 (1995); Kerr, K. Austin, Organized for Prohibition: A New History of the Anti-Saloon League (1985); Odegard, Peter H., Pressure Politics: The Story of the Anti-Saloon League (1928). Wheeler, Wayne Bidwell (November 10, 1869-September 5, 1927) Wheeler, an attorney, was the primary strategist and lobbyist of the prohibition movement* and embodied the zealous drive and political acumen that characterized the movement. He was born on a farm near Brookfield, Ohio, the son of a stock buyer from an old-line New England family. As a child he had several terrifying encounters with drunken men that led to a lifetime antipathy toward alcohol.* He worked on the farm as a child and graduated from a Sharon, Pennsylvania, high school at age sixteen. To earn tuition fees for college he taught school for two years and then entered Oberlin College, where he received an A.B. (1894). While attending Oberlin, he worked as a janitor, waiter, and salesman. In 1893 he met Howard Hyde Russell,* who had just organized the Anti-Saloon League of Ohio. Upon his graduation, Wheeler became manager of the league's Dayton district. While working, he studied part time as a law student at Western Reserve University and graduated with an L.L.B. (1898). Upon receiving his law degree he was elected attorney for the league's Ohio branch and named legislative secretary. In 1904 Wheeler became superintendent of the Ohio league and continued in this post until 1915, when he went to Washington as general counsel and lobbyist for the Anti-Saloon League of America. * Wheeler also served as a trustee of the league's American Issue Publishing Company and was a member of the permanent international committee for the World League Against Alcoholism.* Wheeler was adept at political strategy and campaigning and led the local option fight for the league. As part of the anti-saloon movement* efforts to eliminate alcohol, he developed pressure politics, coined "Wheelerism," which set the standard for state and national grassroots lobbying efforts into the twenty-first century. He was active in lobbying for the War Prohibition Act.* After the Eighteenth Amendment* for national prohibition* passed Congress, his work with state legislatures helped to bring about ratification in the short period of thirteen months. Wheeler helped draft the Volstead Act.* He was strident in his attack against alcohol and the liquor traffic,* using tactics that sometimes bordered on unscrupulousness. He ad-
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vocated "the most severe penalties . . . the most relentless prosecution" and often stated, "we'll make them believe in punishment after death." Over his lifetime Wheeler prosecuted more than 2,000 cases against saloons,* collaborated in writing state and national prohibition legislation, and defended the constitutionality of prohibition laws before state, federal courts, and the U.S. Supreme Court. His political maneuvering was also felt within the Anti-Saloon League. After the death of Purley Baker,* the president of the league, he was able to wrest control of the league's policies from his rival Ernest Cherrington,* who favored education over strident enforcement and legislation. The election of a Wheeler-backed president led to the slow demise of the league as public opinion concerning prohibition and its enforcement changed. In 1901 he married Ella Belle Candy and fathered three sons. He died from kidney failure at the Battle Creek Sanitarium* only a few weeks after his wife burned to death in their country home and his father-in-law died at the shock of his daughter's death. References: Blocker, Jack S., Jr., American Temperance Movements: Cycles of Reform (1989); Cherrington, Ernest H., History of the Anti-Saloon League (1913); Kerr, K. Austin, Organized for Prohibition: A New History of the Anti-Saloon League (1985); Odegard, Peter H., Pressure Politics: The Story of the AntiSaloon League (1928); Steuart, Justin, Wayne Wheeler, Dry Ross: An Uncensored Riography of Wayne R. Wheeler (1928); ANR 28 (1999), 144-145; DAR 10 (1964), 54-55; NatCAR 20 (1929), 13-14; SEAP 6 (1925), 2832-2835; obituary, NYT, September 6, 1927. whiskey (see distilled spirits) White Cross pledge for chastity The purity, or chastity, pledge from the White Cross Society* urged a single standard of sexuality. The campaign to establish a single standard of chastity was a major aspect of the purity movement.* In 1886 the Woman's Christian Temperance Union* began to distribute the pledge to legislators, the YMCA,* and to churches for their Sunday school and youth programs. The pledge as distributed by the WCTU reads as follows: I promise to treat all women with respect, and endeavor to protect them from wrong and degradation. To endeavor to put down all indecent language and coarse jests. To maintain the law of purity as equally binding upon men and women. To endeavor to spread these principles among my companions, and try to help my younger brothers. To use all possible means to fulfill the command, "keep thyself pure."
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References: Hirshman, Linda R., and Larson, Jane E., Hard Rargains: The Politics of Sex (1998); Pivar, David J., Purity Crusade: Sexual Morality and Social Control, 1868-1900 (1973); Willard, Frances, "Arousing the public conscious," Arena 11 (January 1895), 198-200, Glimpses of Fifty Years: The Autobiography of an American Woman (1889); ESR (1897), 88. White Cross Society This semireligious organization was formed with the goal of a single standard of sexuality for both men and women. This concept was a major aspect of the purity movement.* Purity* reformers borrowed the White Cross Society from the British, where the first group had formed in 1883. During the winter of 1883-1884, the rector of the Church or St. John the Evangelist of New York city, Benjamin F. De Costa (1831-1904), started the first society in the United States. Other societies were soon formed across the country. The purpose of the organization was, "(1) to urge upon men the obligation of personal purity; (2) to raise the tone of public opinion upon the subject of morality; (3) to secure proper legislation in connection with morality." The Woman's Christian Temperance Union* added White Cross and White Shield, the female equivalent of the society, as adjuncts to its other purity activities. Frances Willard* and David Starr Jordan* gave public lectures and prepared circulars to publicize the society and its philosophy. Other churches and the YMCA* included purity reform and the White Cross pledge* as a component of their work. References: Hirshman, Linda R., and Larson, Jane E., Hard Rargains: The Politics of Sex (1998); Pivar, David J., Purity Crusade: Sexual Morality and Social Control, 18681900 (1973); Willard, Frances, "Arousing the public conscious," Arena 11 (January 1895), 198-200, Glimpses of Fifty Years: The Autobiography of an American Woman (1889); ESR (1897), 88. white plague (see tuberculosis) white slavery or white slave trade During the Progressive era the term "white slavery" came to mean the forced prostitution* of white Anglo-Saxon* women and girls by non-Anglo-Saxon men through trickery, narcotics,* and coercion. The term was coined in 1907 in the muckraking* magazine McClure's. White slavery was largely a myth that became popularized during the first two decades of the twentieth century. It grew in tangent with nativism* and anti-immigrant sentiments during this period. Popular culture suggested that the enslavement of young girls into brothels was being perpetrated by Jewish,* Italian,* and Chinese* immigrants* lurking in the urban shadows to exploit native-born girls. In reality, both older prosti-
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tutes and young girls found in brothels tended to be from poor immigrant families, and under 10 percent were engaging in this work under coercion. In some cases they may have been sold by their parents. Some studies during the first decade of the century suggested that rural girls were procured through advertising agencies in cities. Once the young women arrived in the cities, they found themselves being recruited for prostitution. Between 1909 and 1914, novels, silent films, religious tracts, and muckraking articles chronicled horror stories portraying innocent young girls forced into prostitution and dying of venereal disease* after forced servitude. To eliminate this supposed situation, purity reformers pushed to abolish prostitution traffic across state lines, culminating with the Mann Act of 1910.* References: Cordasco, Francesco, The White Slave Trade and the Immigrants: A Chapter in American Social History (1981); Grittner, Frederick K., White Slavery: Myth, Ideology and American Law(1990); Kraut, Alan M., Silent Travelers: Germs, Genes, and the "Immigrant Menace" (1994); Pivar, David J., Purity Crusade: Sexual Morality and Social Control, 1868-1900 (1973), Purity and Hygiene: Women, Prostitution and the "American Plan," 1900-1930 (2002); Roe, Clifford, The Great War on White Slavery ([1911] 1979). Wiley, Harvey Washington (October 18, 1844-June 30, 1930) A chemist, physician, and pure food and drug* crusader, Wiley was a major Progressive-era health reformer and the chief architect of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.* He also supported the temperance movement* and opposed artificial birth control.* Wiley was born in a log cabin in Kent, Indiana, one of seven children of a lay Disciples of Christ minister, farmer, and schoolmaster. Both sides of the family were descendants of Scotch-Irish pioneers who had fought in the Revolutionary War. As a child, Wiley was very religious. He was educated at home and in local schools and entered Hanover College near Madison, Indiana, in 1863. However, his studies were interrupted when he became a "hundred-day volunteer" in the Civil War before completing his A.B. at Hanover (1867). After teaching for a year (1868), he entered the Medical College of Indiana in Indianapolis and graduated with an M.D. (1871). While attending medical school he taught Greek and Latin at Northwestern Christian University (later Butler College). He then went to Harvard University and received a B.S. (1873) in chemistry and returned to Indianapolis to assume professorships of chemistry, for a year, at both Butler and the Medical College. He then became a chemistry professor at Purdue University (1874-1883) and also served as the Indiana state chemist. Spending a year in Germany (1878), he studied food adulteration and upon his return continued this line of research.
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Wiley became chief chemist of the federal Department of Agriculture in 1883. In this post over the next twenty-nine years, he transformed the Bureau of Chemistry into one of the most effective agencies of the federal government and began a campaign against adulterated foods.* In 1887 Wiley authored Foods and Food Adulterants, which addressed adulteration of oleomargarine, butter, and milk. Over the next sixteen years he examined packaged foods for poisonous chemicals used as additives and preservatives. He also held a position as professor of agricultural chemistry at George Washington University (1899-1914) in Washington, D.C. For a number of years Wiley struggled to obtain pure food and drugs, honest labels, and the elimination of "poisons" from patent medicines.* He acted as an intermediary between congressmen and industrial interests. In the mid-1890s he joined state agricultural chemists in a campaign to secure a national law protecting foods at a time when groups such as the Woman's Christian Temperance Union* began to exert pressure for Congressional action. His most famous venture was the "poison squad" experiments, a term coined by a Washington Post journalist who reported the study. Between 1902 and 1904 Wiley investigated the effect of food preservatives such as borax, alum, and formaldehyde upon the health of young male volunteers. Newspaper reports of the experiment brought Wiley into the limelight. His conclusion that preservatives were harmful to health aroused much criticism. However, because of public pressure the use of food preservatives diminished. After much opposition from the patent medicine and food industry, Wiley, with the help of Upton Sinclair's* novel The Jungle,* exposing the meat-packing business, was instrumental in pressuring Congress to pass the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906. The act put the testing of foods, drugs, and beverages in the hands of Wiley's Bureau of Chemistry laboratories. Wiley tested products and opposed labels or claims that misrepresented a product. His zealousness attempting to enforce the new law earned him enemies in both the federal government and the food and drug industries. A board to oversee his decisions was soon instituted that usurped his authority. Wiley was accused of mismanagement but was cleared of any wrongdoing. However, due to these political pressures and discouragement concerning the lack of enforcement, he resigned his post at the Department of Agriculture in 1912. Upon retirement, Wiley became a private advocate of more stringent reforms and sought to accomplish though journalistic and academic means what he was unable to do as an administrator. Wiley became director of the bureau of foods, sanitation and health (1912-1930) for Good Housekeeping, a magazine targeted to women, and wrote many articles on a variety of health topics.
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Besides food and drug reforms, Wiley also advocated other public health campaigns, especially prohibition.* After retiring in 1912 he began to advocate national prohibition and considered "alcohol and its various forms . . . an unmitigated evil." During the 1920s he lauded the Volstead Act,* the enforcement arm of the Eighteenth Amendment,* even though popular opinion was swinging toward repeal of the amendment. From 1925 until the end of his life he was a vice president of a local Anti-Saloon League.* Wiley supported eugenics* inasmuch as he considered alcohol* and other drugs to be dysgenic, and served on the central committee of the Second National Conference on Race Betterment.* He was against birth control and considered the teaching of artificial birth control "highly immoral." Over his lifetime of public service, Wiley was awarded many honors, both at home and abroad, and lectured and traveled extensively. He wrote numerous government publications and several books, including Reverages and Their Adulteration (1919) and History of a Crime against the Food Law (1929). He married Anna Campbell Kellon (1911) and fathered two sons. Wiley died at his residence in Washington, D.C, of heart disease. References: Anderson, Oscar Edward, The Health of a Nation: Harvey W. Wiley and the Fight for Pure Food (1958); Dunn, Arthur Wallace, "Dr. Wiley and pure food," The World's Work 22 (October 1911), 14958-14965; Goodwin, Lorine Swainston, The Pure Food, Drink, and Drug Crusaders, 1897-1914 (1999); Wiley, Harvey W., Harvey W. Wiley: An Autobiography (1930); Young, James H., Pure Food: Securing the Federal Food and Drugs Act of 1906 (1989), "Two Hoosiers and the two food laws of 1906," Indiana Magazine of History 88 (Spring 1992), 303-319; ANR 23 (1999), 391-392; DAR 10 (1964), 215-216; SEAP 6 (1930), 28472848; obituary, NYT, July 1, 1930. Willard, Frances Elizabeth Caroline (September 28, 1839-February 18, 1898) An educator and temperance,* purity,* and woman suffrage* reformer, Willard was president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union* during its most influential years. She supported many health-reform crusades, including exercise, hygiene, and pure food and drugs at the dawn of the Progressive era's Clean Living Movement.* Known as "Frank" to her friends, Willard was born at Churchville, New York, into an educated middle-class family proud of its old-line New England ancestry. Both her parents were teachers who focused on religion and education. As a child she moved with her parents, first to Oberlin, Ohio, and then to a homestead in Janesville, Wisconsin. She loved outdoor activities but they were not approved by her father. Willard was taught mostly by her mother and became an omnivorous reader. Reared in a temperance family,
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she signed a total-abstinence pledge as a child. As a young woman she experienced a religious conversion and joined the Methodist Church. At seventeen she went to the Milwaukee Female College, and then to the Northwestern Female College in Evanston, Illinois, where she graduated with a "Laureatte of Science" (1859). She was engaged to be married in 1861 but broke it off. From 1860 to 1867 she taught at a series of schools and traveled and studied in Europe for two years (1868-1870). When she returned home she was appointed president of the Evanston College for Ladies (1871-1873) and then dean of the Woman's College when it merged with Northwestern University. She resigned due to differences of opinion with her former fiance, who was now Northwestern's president. She began to write articles for magazines and papers and wrote a book, Nineteen Reautiful Years (1868), eulogizing her sister, who had died of tuberculosis.* When her brother died, she became editor, with her sister-in-law, of the Chicago Daily Post for a year in 1879. In 1874 Willard joined the temperance crusade and became president of the Chicago WCTU. She soon became secretary of the Illinois WCTU and then corresponding secretary of the national WCTU. In this position she traveled extensively throughout the United States helping form local organizations. In 1877 Willard participated in evangelical work in Boson with evangelist Dwight Moody (18371899) to further the temperance cause. In 1879 she was elected president of the national WCTU. Under Willard's charismatic leadership, the WCTU, or the Union, as it was sometimes called, became a powerful organization that shaped the temperance movement* during the last two decades of the nineteenth century. Willard adopted a "Do-Everything Policy" that engaged the Union in many reform issues. A key to Willard's temperance crusade, which also championed the woman suffrage* and purity* movements, was a commitment to "home protection," or the preservation of the family unit to promote national stability and morality. She saw the saloon* as a breeding ground for prostitution,* political corruption, poor schools, venereal disease,* and degeneracy. In 1876 she launched a campaign to endorse woman suffrage and in 1883 finally persuaded the WCTU to endorse suffrage as a home-protection measure. Willard convinced the National Prohibition Party,* which she had helped organize in 1882, to include woman suffrage on its platform. She unsuccessfully attempted to merge the Prohibition Party with the new Peoples Party in 1892. She participated in campaigns to secure state constitutional prohibition amendments. Through the WCTU, Willard supported purity reforms and advocated "habits of physical purity." In 1886 she began to distribute the White Cross pledge for chastity* and demanded "equal chastity for man and women." In 1879 she
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fostered the establishment of organizations to rescue prostitutes, and throughout the 1880s and 1890s championed legislation to raise the age of consent* for female sexual activities. Willard supported the tenets of the diet and nutrition,* pure food and drug,* and physical culture and exercise* movements. As early as 1881 she campaigned for whole-wheat bread, exercise, and fresh air. She perennially agitated for legislation forbidding women to deform their figures with corsets and long skirts that swept the streets. She was against the consumption of coffee, tea, alcohol,* and narcotics.* In 1883 Willard founded the World's WCTU and in 1891 became president until her death. For this new organization, she wrote, in 1883, the "polyglot petition" against the liquor traffic* and the opium* trade. The petition was presented to the International Anti-Alcohol Congress in Belgium in 1885 and at the first World's WCTU convention, held in Boston in 1891. Willard believed that boys and girls should be trained alike and should engage in "abundant outdoor activity." She was against girls playing with dolls on grounds it caused dullness and passivity. At the National Purity Congress* in 1895 she suggested that the bicycle* was "one of the greatest allies of purity and temperance the world has ever seen," as it promoted exercise and encouraged the consumption of nonalcoholic beverages. Willard also explored other issues of the day, including investigating psychic research that was interwoven with the New Thought movement.* Over her lifetime Willard published numerous articles and several books, including Woman and Temperance (1883), Glimpses of Fifty Years (1889), and A Wheel Within a Wheel: How I Learned to Ride the Ricycle (1895). She was editor-in-chief of the Union Signal,* the publication of the WCTU, for several years. Willard's close emotional ties were with her mother and other women. After her mother's death in 1892 her health began to decline, but she continued to hold onto the reins of power in the WCTU. To recuperate, she spent two years with her friend, Lady Henry Somerset (1851-1921), a British temperance reformer. Willard died from complications of influenza and anemia in New York city. After her death, her longtime secretary and companion, Anna Gordon,* destroyed much of her correspondence. Willard was so highly regarded in her era that the state of Illinois donated a statue in her honor in 1905 to be placed in the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C. References: Bordin, Ruth, Woman and Temperance: The Quest for Power and Liberty, 1873-1900 (1981); Dillon, Mary Earhart, Frances Willard from Prayers to Politics (1944); Gordon, Anna A., The Reautiful Life of Frances E. Willard (1898); Willard, Frances, "Arousing the public conscious,"
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Arena 11 (January 1895), 198-200, Glimpses of Fifty Years: The Autobiography of an American Woman (1889); ANR 23 (1999), 410411; DAR 10 (1964), 233-234; SEAP 6 (1930), 2848-2851; obituary, NYT, February 18, 1898. woman suffrage movement The movement for the right of women to vote emerged before the dawn of the Progressive era. Woman suffrage was intimately intertwined with women's temperance* groups, in particular the Woman's Christian Temperance Union.* It also had links with the sexual purity, pure food and drug,* and antismoking* crusades. In the pre-World War I* era, during the peak of agitation for prohibition* and suffrage, the temperance and woman suffrage movements were seen as identical by some reformers. From 1874 until about 1900 the WCTU was both the leading temperance and the leading women's organization in the United States. After 1900 the National American Woman Suffrage Association* became the main force for suffrage and the Anti-Saloon League* the most powerful lobby group for prohibition. Symbolic of the interest in suffrage and health-reform issues was the International Council of Women Conference (1888), with representatives from purity,* temperance, and suffrage causes. Soon after the Civil War, in and effort to encourage women to migrate West, suffrage was granted to Wyoming women. However, forty years of struggle ensued before passage of the Nineteenth Amendment,* giving women the same voting rights as men throughout the nation. Between 1869 and 1900 seventeen states and/or territories held referenda for woman suffrage. All but three were west of the Mississippi. Two states, Wyoming in 1869 and Idaho in 1896, and two territories, Utah in 1870 and Colorado in 1893, enfranchised women. On the West Coast, liquor interests fought against suffrage out of fear that women would support prohibition if allowed to vote. The suffrage movement gained momentum in 1890 when two suffrage groups united to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Leaders of this organization and the suffrage movement included Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902), Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906), Lucy Stone (1818-1893), and Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910). Suffrage workers attempted to get their cause endorsed by political parties. In the early 1890s, Anthony and Frances Willard,* head of the WCTU, unsuccessfully attempted to secure endorsement for woman suffrage from the Peoples Party (Populists). Over the course of the movement only two parties, the Prohibition Party,* organized in 1872, and the Socialist Party, which emerged in 1901, endorsed woman suffrage. Constitutional amendments for suffrage were de-
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feated in 1887, 1914, and 1915. Suffrage suffered setbacks and defeat between 1896 and 1910, a period known among suffragists as "the doldrums." No new woman suffrage states were won; only six state referenda were held and all were lost. The movement began to gain momentum at the end of the century's first decade with the activism of Harriot Stanton Blatch (1856-1940), the daughter of Stanton. Blatch organized the Equality League of SelfSupporting Women (1907), which tapped the energy of self-supporting professional women, social workers, and other young, college-educated women. The movement increasingly became more militant. Women held parades, organized outdoor meetings, and barnstormed their states in automobiles. These activities were successful inasmuch as eight states enfranchised women between 1910 and 1914. In 1913 a vigorous campaign for a federal woman suffrage amendment began. The beginning of the war in Europe in 1914 increased nationalism and strengthened the call for more democratic suffrage. In January 1917 women picketed the White House, asking "How long must women wait for liberty?" After the nation entered the war a few months later, women began to fill traditional male occupations, such as working on farms, in munition plants, and as clerks. During the war women continued to picket for suffrage and were often attacked and jailed. These activities brought out the contradiction of denying democracy at home while the United States embarked on a war to "make the world safe for democracy." Following the signing of the armistice on November 11,1918, both major political parties were concerned about the women's vote in the 1920 election. Thirty states now had woman suffrage by constitutional amendment or legislative act. Congress met in a special session in 1919 and passed the Nineteenth Amendment. Ratification of the amendment by two-thirds of the states occurred on August 18, 1920, at which point women in the United States were finally enfranchised on an equal basis with men. References: Beeton, Beverly, "How the West was won for woman suffrage," in Wheeler, Majorie, ed., One Woman One Vote: Rediscovering the Woman Suffrage Movement (1995), 99-116; Buhle, Mari Jo, and Buhle, Paul, eds., The Concise History of Woman Suffrage: Selections from the Classic Work of Stanton, Anthony, Gage and Harper (1978); Catt, Carrie Chapmann, ed., Victory: How Women Won It: A Centennial Symposium 1840-1940 (1940); Du Bois, Ellen C , Harriot Stanton Rlatch and the Winning of Woman Suffrage (1997); Flexner, Eleanor, Century of Struggle: The Woman's Rights Movement in the United States (1975); Graham, Sara Hunter, Women Suffrage and the New Democracy (1996); Harper, Ida H., ed., The History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 5 (1922); Severn, Bill, Free but Not Equal: How Women Won the Right to Vote (1967).
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Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) (1874-present) This organization was one of the most powerful and influential women's groups in the history of the nation. It was a driving force for many Clean Living Movement* causes. The Woman's Christian Temperance Union, or the Union for short, was the first large-scale mass movement of American women for any cause. These "white-ribbon women"—members of the WCTU wore white ribbons and often referred to each other by this name—excluded males from voting membership and became visible leaders from coast to coast. The Union grew out of the anti-saloon "woman's crusade" of 1873 and 1874, which succeeded in closing, at least temporarily, many local retail liquor outlets and disrupted the liquor trade.* Women involved with this national crusade formed the WCTU at a convention on November 18, 1874, in Cleveland, Ohio. Annie Wittenmyer (1827-1906) was elected its first president and Frances Willard* corresponding secretary in charge of organizational work. Under Wittenmyer, the Union advocated the use of moral suasion and evangelical means to reform society; twenty-three states were organized as auxiliaries of the national organization. Willard was elected president in 1879. During Willard's tenure, however, it is difficult to separate her own personal goals from those of the membership in terms of policy and programming. Under Willard's leadership the WCTU adopted a "doeverything policy" that engaged in many health and social reform issues in addition to temperance.* It experienced rapid growth and expansion in the 1880s and women became for two decades the dominant force in temperance reform. The Union led campaigns devoted to changing age-of-consent* laws. It championed the purity* and pure food and drug* movements. It embraced immigration restriction* as a eugenics* reform and championed school hygiene,* physical education,* antismoking,* and scientific temperance instruction.* The Union supported woman suffrage* and the equality of women. Within the structure of the WCTU, different committees focused on particular reform issues. Under Willard's leadership committees were reorganized into departments, and by 1889 the Union had thirty-nine separate departments. Any woman who agreed with the total abstinence pledge could join the Union. WCTU membership was mostly made up of middleclass Protestant* Anglo-Americans,* who by the 1890s embraced nativist* sentiments that alleged connections between Catholics,* immigrants,* and the liquor traffic. At the Union's 1895 convention a resolution was passed to formally invite Jewish* and Catholic women to join the organization, but due to its militant Protestantism, most non-Protestant women interested in temperance formed separate organizations. The previous year Willard had lent her sup-
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port for a separate African-American* WCTU. The Union had a national headquarters that moved over the years. From 1874 to 1886 it was located in New York city, and then moved to Chicago. In 1900 it moved to Evanston, Illinois, a Chicago suburb where it still remained in the early twenty-first century. In 1895 a national legislative office was opened in Washington, D.C., to push for legislation. The official journal of the WCTU was the Union Signal.* During the Willard years the WCTU became a prime mover for social purity* reform. It provided activities for youth to foster moral education and was concerned with preventing white slavery* in lumber and mining camps. In 1879 it initiated rescue work for prostitutes* and in 1880 created a Department of Suppression of Social Evil, with John Harvey Kellogg* and his wife Ella as superintendents. The Department for the Suppression of Impure Literature was formed in 1884. Beginning around 1886 the Union, through Willard, distributed the White Cross pledge,* and in 1888 the Department of White Cross and White Shield, to work toward the elimination of the double standard of sexuality, was formally added. Other departments concerned with health reform were formally organized. In 1883 the Union board allowed Willard to promote woman suffrage as a temperance measure. The Department of Hygiene and Heredity was created in 1884 to study and lobby for legislation that would limit the "propagation of vagrant and criminal classes," along with other eugenics and immigration reforms. The WCTU took a stand against patent medicines* containing alcohol* and drugs, suggested that smoking should be done only where it did not affect others, and formed the Department of Narcotics in 1886 to counter the drug habit.* It condemned the indiscriminate use of nostrums that contained opium,* cocaine, and morphine, and warned of the danger of babies becoming addicted through their mothers. The Department of Physical Education was created in 1903, and was combined with Health and Heredity in 1914. In 1919, at its victory celebration, the Union voted to push for a constitutional amendment to eliminate tobacco.* However, this effort proved to be ineffective. The WCTU supported a variety of temperance activities. In the 1880s some state WCTUs petitioned legislators for state prohibition referenda; however, this proved to be only minimally successful. In 1884, through Willard's persuasion, the Union supported candidates for the Prohibition Party.* Throughout the next ten years Willard unsuccessfully attempted to forge an alliance between this political party and the Populists. After Willard's death in 1898 the Union dropped its endorsement of the Prohibition Party. The Union oversaw alcohol, tobacco, and hygiene education in the public schools by endorsing textbooks through the leadership of Mary H. Hunt,*
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head of the Union's department of scientific temperance instruction.* During the first decade of the twentieth century, the WCTU campaigned against "the patent-medicine evil." The Department of Non-Alcoholic Medicine determined the percentage of alcohol in medications, which was then published in popular magazines. In 1903 the Union pushed through a law that banned alcohol sales from the U.S. Capitol building. After Willard's death, Lillian M. N. Stevens (1844-1914) was elected president and Anna A. Gordon* vice president. During Steven's administration the Union focused on an anti-canteen law and the abolishment of legalized vice* in the Philippines. In 1911 it endorsed a national constitutional amendment for prohibition and a "saloonless nation." Upon Steven's death in 1914, Anna Gordon was elected president. During World War I* the WCTU campaigned to eliminate prostitution from around military bases. It actively campaigned to ratify the Eighteenth Amendment* and agitated for woman suffrage, cumulating in adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment* in 1919 "just in time to aid the enforcement of Prohibition." After 1920, however, a decline in support for prohibition developed. Local WCTU leadership changed in social composition, showing a decrease in upper-middle-class women with connections to the political power structure and an increase in women from lower-middle-class and lower-class backgrounds. Upper-middle-class women gravitated toward associations that opposed the prohibition amendment. As the Union lost power over the rest of the century, it faded into obscurity. However, it still continues to publish educational materials on alcohol, drugs, tobacco, and other health issues. References: Blocker, Jack S., Jr., American Temperance Movements: Cycles of Reform (1989); Bordin, Ruth, Woman and Temperance: The Quest for Power and Liberty, 1873-1900 (1981); Dillon, Mary Earhart, Frances Willard from Prayers to Politics (1944); Epstein, Barbara, The Politics of Domesticity: Women, Evangelism, and Temperance in Nineteenth-Century America (1981); Kerr, K. Austin, Organized for Prohibition: A New History of the Anti-Saloon League (1985); Pivar, David J., Purity and Hygiene: Women, Prostitution and the "American Plan/' 1900-1930 (2002); SEAP 6 (1930), 2891-2901. World League Against Alcoholism (June 7,1919-c. 1970) This group was formed after passage of the Eighteenth Amendment* to bring about international prohibition.* Assured of the triumph of national prohibition, leaders of the Anti-Saloon League,* the Woman's Christian Temperance Union,* and other organizations raised their sights even higher and embarked on a campaign to "extend the benefits of prohibition to the entire world." An international prohibition con-
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ference met in Washington, D.C, June 3, 1919, and four days later the World League Against Alcoholism was created. Behind this move was the belief that just as prohibition was necessary to help preserve American democracy, so it was necessary to help make the world safe for democracy. It was an outgrowth of the inauguration of a joint effort on the part of the Anti-Saloon League, the Canadian Temperance Alliance, and temperance groups in Great Britain and other countries. American presidents of this new organization included Anna Gordon* and Howard H. Russell.* Ernest H. Cherrington* was general secretary and the driving force behind the organization. Members of the general council included Wayne B. Wheeler,* Irving Fisher,* Ella Bool (1858-1952), and William "Pussyfoot" Johnson.* Its executive office was located at Westerville, Ohio, with the Anti-Saloon League, until 1929, when it moved to Washington, D.C. It provided educational materials, posters, and speakers to promote worldwide prohibition. At its peak it served more than fifty countries on six continents. By 1933 it lost much momentum, and when prohibition was repealed it discontinued many of its activities due to lack of funding. Cherrington was the American coordinator of activities until his death in 1950. The league finally disbanded in the early 1970s. References: "World League Against Alcoholism," (visited December 26, 2000); Cherrington, Ernest Hurst, "World-wide progress toward prohibition legislation," Annals of the American Academy 109 (September 1923), 208-224, America and the World Liquor Problem (1922); Timberlake, James H., Prohibition and the Progressive Movement, 1900-1920 (1963); SEAP 6 (1930), 2911-2926. World War I (America's Involvement) (April 6,1917-November 11, 1918) The first major war of the twentieth century, called the Great War* until the onset of World War II, halted the momentum of many Progressive-era health-reform crusades. The war, however, increased the momentum of the social hygiene movement* and assured the fate of national prohibition.* World War I embroiled most of the Western- and Eastern-European nations, the United States, the Middle East, and other regions. Two opposing factions had emerged by 1910: the "Central Powers," which included Germany, AustriaHungary, and Turkey, in opposition to the "Allies," including France, Great Britain, Russia, Italy, Japan, and, in 1917, the United States. The assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria at Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, led to a general war between these two alliances by mid-August. President Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) asked for a declaration of war on April 2,1917, and on April 6,1917, Congress declared war on Germany. The war ended with the defeat of the Central Powers.
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The war halted the momentum of many subcrusades of the Clean Living Movement.* The antismoking movement* reached its peak in the prewar era. Reformers from many health campaigns were vehemently opposed to cigarettes* or tobacco.* However, during the war the use of cigarettes by servicemen was sanctioned by both official edict and public consensus as necessary for the war effort. The Salvation Army, Red Cross, and YMCA* reversed their antitobacco policies and dispensed cigarettes to military personnel. Antismoking reformers, such as Lucy Page Gaston,* who still attempted to seek sanctions against smoking and tobacco were considered unpatriotic and un-American. The diet and nutrition movement* and vegetarianism,* which had begun to wane at the beginning of the decade, were of little interest as efforts to produce enough food products for the war effort surged. The war, however, solidified the campaign for national prohibition. Even before the beginning of the war much of the nation was already under prohibition due to local option or state laws. Various wartime prohibition measures, such as the Lever Food and Fuel Control Act* and the War Prohibition Act,* which had been pushed by the Anti-Saloon League,* strengthened the antialcohol position. The Eighteenth Amendment* was anticlimatic. At the onset of the war in Europe, the Anti-Saloon League, in particular, initiated attacks against German Americans* and breweries,* suggesting they were engaging in unpatriotic and un-American activities. Anti-German sentiment accelerated following the U.S. entry into the war in 1917, leading to the closing of "beer gardens" and the renaming of sauerkraut to "liberty cabbage." National prohibition, which included beer* and breweries, was an aspect of anti-German sentiments. Due to concern about venereal disease* transmitted by prostitutes* who frequented saloons* around military bases, the war accelerated the social hygiene movement. The American Social Hygiene Association* and the reorganized U.S. Public Health Service* directed venereal disease control. Social hygiene reformers, including William F. Snow,* were part of this effort. Poster campaigns aimed at soldiers to win the war through being "physically fit and morally clean" were instituted. Saloons and red-light districts were closed around army bases and "wholesome" activities such as sports were provided. The campaign for woman suffrage* also reached a peak in the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment* immediately after the war ended. In the aftermath of the war, a backlash against many restrictive measures of the Progressive era erupted in the roaring twenties. References: Behr, Edward, Prohibition: Thirteen Years That Cleansed America (1996); Blocker, Jack S., Jr., American Temperance Movements: Cycles of Reform (1989); Burnham, John C , Rad Habits: Drinking, Smoking, Taking Drugs, Gambling, Sexual Misbe-
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havior, and Swearing in American History (1993); Clarke, Walter, "The promotion of social hygiene in wartime," Annals of the American Academy of Political Science 79 (September 1918), 178-189; Hart, B. H. Liddell, A History of the World War, 1914-1918 (1934); May, Ernest R., The World War and American Isolation, 1914-1917 (1959); Tate, Cassandra C , The American Anti-Cigarette Movement, 1880-1930 (1995); Timberlake, James H., Prohibition and the Progressive Movement, 1900-1920 (1963).
Y Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) (1851-present) This parareligious Protestant* organization was imported from Britain in 1851. In the United States it reached a peak of influence during the Progressive era and carried out the philosophy of the Social Gospel movement.* It was an important organizational link with many health reforms and philosophies during the second Clean Living Movement.* The YMCA, called the "Y" for short, offered a place to hold meetings and provided speakers and tracts for various health reforms of the time. In its early years the YMCA offered young men, regardless of ethnic or class background, an alternative to the saloon.* During the last decades of the nineteenth century, when Social Darwinism* and nativistic* concerns began to influence its philosophy, its leaders increasingly focused on native-born, AngloAmerican* middle-class youth who migrated from the rural areas to the cities in an effort to save them from vice. The Y provided activities such as libraries and prayer meetings as a means to bring young men back, or convert them, to Protestant Christianity and to exert social control over their lives. However, these methods proved to be only marginally effective. In order to attract and hold the interest of young men, the YMCA experimented with other activities and gradually began to incorporate sports and physical fitness into its mission. It opened its first gymnasiums in 1869 in New York, Washington, D.C, and San Francisco, and in 1885 established a training school for gymnasium directors in Springfield, Massachusetts. It increasingly embraced muscular Christianity* and the concept of "the whole man." This philosophy included the unity of the "body, mind and spirit," introduced by Luther H. Gulick,* an instructor at the training center in
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1891. This concept of "all-around Christian manhood" demanded character building and fostering physical strength, discipline, and mental toughness. The YMCA was linked to many health-reform crusades and formed the core of the physical education movement.* It exerted a formative role in antiobscenity* laws. Its New York city members supported Anthony Comstock,* the leader of the antivice movement, and established the New York Committee for the Suppression of Vice.* The association sponsored the White Cross Societies* of the purity movement.* It offered its facilities for educational programs about good hygiene habits and the prevention of tuberculosis.* The Y was stridently antialcohol and was involved in temperance* and prohibition* work. It was integral to the antismoking movement.* Its executives endorsed the work of the Antismoking Leagues* and provided a forum for Lucy Gaston* and other antismoking leaders. During the second Clean Living Movement's backlash era of the 1920s, decreased interest was shown in the muscular Christian philosophy. As a result, membership and activities at the YMCA began to decline, only to blossom again in the 1970s with the late twentiethcentury fitness craze. References: Boyer, Paul S., Purity in Print: The Vice-Society Movement and Rook Censorship in America (1968); Calkins, Raymond, Substitutes for the Saloon (1901); Putney, Clifford, "Character building in the YMCA, 1880-1930," Mid-America: An Historical Review 73 (January 1991), 49-70, Muscular Christianity: The Strenuous Mood in American Protestantism, 1880-1920 (1994).
Selected Chronology 1880 James A. Garfield is elected president. German pathologist Karl Joseph Eberth identifies the typhoid bacillus, the pathogen that causes typhoid fever. French Chemist Louis Pasteur discovers streptococcus pneumoniae. French physician Alphonse Laveran discovers the parasite that causes malaria; Laveran receives the Nobel Prize in 1907. A new treaty with China (ratified in 1881) modifies the Burlingame Treaty of 1868 and allows the American government to "regulate, limit or suspend," but not prohibit, immigration of Chinese laborers; a supplementary treaty (ratified in 1881) prohibits Chinese subjects from importing opium into the United States and American citizens from importing opium into China. The Salvation Army, organized in London in 1865, is established in the United States. At its national convention in Cleveland, the Prohibition Party nominates Neal Dow of Maine for president. An amendment to the Kansas state constitution prohibits alcoholic beverages; the amendment goes into effect May 1,1881. Anthony Comstock publishes Frauds Exposed; or, How the People are Deceived and Robbed, and Youth Corrupted. 1881 President Garfield is shot, and upon his death Chester Alan Arthur becomes president. Clara Barton organizes the American Association of the Red Cross (named the American National Red Cross in 1893 and the American Red Cross in 1978). Booker T. Washington founds the Normal and Industrial Institute for Negroes (later the Tuskegee Institute).
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1882 Thomas Edison's steam-powered central electricity station on Pearl Street in New York city begins operation. German bacteriologist Robert Koch isolates the bacillus responsible for tuberculosis. Massachusetts passes the first pure food laws, in large part thanks to research done by Ellen Swallow Richards. The immigration law of August 3, 1882, bars the immigration of "undesirables": idiots, lunatics, convicts, and persons likely to become public charges; it also levies a fifty-cent tax on immigrants landing at American ports. Congress passes the Chinese Exclusion Act over President Arthur's veto; the law prohibits Chinese laborers from entering the United States for ten years. The Edmunds Act prohibits polygamists from voting, holding office, or serving on juries; it makes unlawful cohabitation a misdemeanor. 1883 The Brooklyn Bridge opens. German pathologist Edwin Klebs discovers the diphtheria bacillus. British physician Thomas Barlow describes infantile scurvy and distinguishes it from rickets. German bacteriologist Robert Koch discovers the cholera bacillus. The Pendleton Act (the Civil Service Act) provides for the regulation and improvement of the civil service of the United States and creates the Civil Service Commission. The Union Signal, a journal of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, begins publication. Journal of the American Medical Association begins publication. Francis Galton publishes Inquiries into Human Faculty and Development. Anthony Comstock publishes Traps for the Young. 1884 Grover Cleveland is elected president. German physician Arthur Nicolaier discovers the tetanus bacillus. German bacteriologist Friedrich Loeffler isolates the diphtheria bacillus (the Klebs-Loefiler bacillus), which Edwin Klebs discovered in 1883. Ophthalmic surgeon Carl Koller uses cocaine as a surface anesthetic during eye surgery. Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau establishes the Trudeau Sanitarium in Saranac Lake, New York. The New York Cancer Hospital, the first hospital in the United States devoted entirely to the treatment of cancer, is founded in New York city. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1884 amends the 1882 act and increases restrictions on the immigration of Chinese laborers.
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At its national convention in Pittsburgh, the Prohibition Party nominates John P. St. John of Kansas for president. 1885 French chemist Louis Pasteur develops a vaccine for rabies. The Association for the Advancement of Physical Education is formed; in 1886 it changes its name to the American Association for the Advancement of Physical Education, and in 1903 it becomes the American Physical Education Association. In response to anti-Chinese riots in the Washington Territory in October, President Cleveland sends federal troops to maintain order and end the unrest, which continues into 1886. The Women's Christian Temperance Union begins a campaign to raise the age of consent and forms a Social Purity Department within the organization. 1886 President Grover Cleveland dedicates the Statue of Liberty. The Apache leader Geronimo surrenders to General Nelson Miles. German surgeon Ernst von Bergmann introduces steam sterilization of surgical instruments and dressings. In Haymarket Square, Chicago, police attempt to disperse a crowd protesting the treatment of strikers at the McCormick Harvester plant; a bomb explodes and kills seven officers and four workmen. Eight men are brought to trial, seven of them are sentenced to death, and four are hanged. Atlanta pharmacist John S. Pemberton creates Coca-Cola, a beverage first touted as a tonic for common ailments; among its ingredients is cocaine from the coca leaf. The cocaine is removed from the formula in 1905. The Philanthropist, the journal of the New York Committee for the Prevention of State Regulation of Vice, begins publication. John Harvey Kellogg publishes Plain Facts for Old and Young: Embracing the Natural History and Hygiene of Organic Life, a new and revised edition of the title that he originally published as Plain Facts about Sexual Life in 1877. 1887 The Dawes Act authorizes the dissolution of Indian tribal lands by "allotment of lands in severalty to Indians on the various reservations." Following the terms of the Treaty of 1880, the Opium Traffic Act makes it a misdemeanor for Chinese subjects to import opium or for American citizens to import, transport, buy or sell, or engage in any traffic in opium in the ports of China. The Marine Hospital Service establishes a bacteriological laboratory, known as the "Laboratory of Hygiene," under Dr. Joseph J. Kinyoun at the Marine Hospital on Staten Island, New York.
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The Pasteur Institute is established by decree on June 4, 1887, and inaugurated on November 14,1888, by the president of the French Republic. The Edmunds-Tucker Act disincorporates the Mormon Church and authorizes seizure of its property, except buildings used exclusively for worship; it also dissolves plural marriages and disenfranchises women. In Clinton Iowa, Henry Bowers founds the American Protective Association, a secret society concerned about the growth in population and political power of cities with large numbers of immigrants. The American Physiological Society is formed in New York. Newspaper reporter Nellie Bly (Elizabeth Cochrane) feigns insanity and spends ten days in the mental hospital on Blackwell's Island, New York; her expose of the deplorable treatment of inmates of the asylum appears in the New York World. American Journal of Psychology'begins publication. 1888 Benjamin Harrison is elected president. The Exclusion of Chinese Laborers Act makes it unlawful for Chinese laborers who have left the United States to return. A second Exclusion of Chinese Laborers Act bars any Chinese person from entering the United States, with the exception of "Chinese officials, teachers, students, merchants, or travelers for pleasure," and they must have the permission of the U.S. government. An epidemic of yellow fever breaks out in Jacksonville, Florida, in July and lasts until December. The International Council of Women, assembled by the National Woman Suffrage Association, meets in Washington, D.C. The National Equal Rights Party nominates lawyer Belva Lockwood of Washington, D.C, for president; she had also been a candidate in 1884. At its national convention in Indianapolis, the Prohibition Party nominates Clinton B. Fisk of New Jersey for president. Edward Bellamy publishes Looking Backward, 2000-1887. Frederick Wines publishes Report on the Defective, Dependent and Delinquent Classes of the Population of the United States, as Returned at the Tenth Census (July 1, 1880). Oscar M. McCulloch publishes The Tribe of Ishmaeh A Study in Social Degradation. 1889 Jane Addams and Ellen Starr establish Hull House in Chicago. The Johns Hopkins Hospital opens in Baltimore, Maryland. President Benjamin Harrison authorizes opening Oklahoma (Indian Territory) to white settlement. The Age of Consent Act of February 9,1889, prohibits "carnally and unlawfully" knowing "any female under the age of sixteen" in the District
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of Columbia and other places "over which the United States has exclusive jurisdiction." The Arena begins publication. Frances Willard publishes Glimpses of Fifty Years; The Autobiography of an American Woman. 1890 Sequoia National Park and Yosemite National Park are established in California. U.S. troops defeat the Sioux at Wounded Knee, South Dakota; it is the last major battle of the Indian wars. William Stewart Halsted introduces the use of rubber gloves to help ensure sterile conditions in the operating room. The Sherman Antitrust Act to protect trade and commerce against unlawful restraints and monopolies makes unlawful "every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade among the several states, or with foreign countries." German bacteriologist Emil von Behring, working with Kitasato Shibasaburo, discovers that sublethal injections of blood serum of an animal infected with tetanus confer passive immunity to the disease on another animal; he calls the technique "antitoxic immunity." In Leisy v. Hardin the Supreme Court rules that as a matter of interstate commerce states may not regulate liquor imported into their jurisdictions if the article remains in its original package. The Original Packages Act (the Wilson Act), passed in response to the Leisy v. Hardin decision, makes "intoxicating liquors or liquids" subject to the laws of the state or territory into which they are imported. Mormon church president Wilford Woodruff issues a manifesto formally renouncing the practice of polygamy. Dr. Lawrence Flick establishes the Rush Hospital for Consumption and Allied Diseases in Philadelphia. Wyoming enters the union; its constitution includes women's right to vote (territorial law since 1869). The National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution is organized in Washington, D.C. Swedish pediatrician Oskar Medin, after involvement in the 1887 outbreak of poliomyelitis in Stockholm, categorizes the various types and stages of the disease and notes that it is epidemic in form. The Duke family forms the American Tobacco Company; it will eventually control virtually the entire American tobacco industry. In 1911 the courts find the company in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act and order it dissolved. Two factions of the woman suffrage movement, the National Woman Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association, reunite to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association. In United States v. the Late Corporation Church of Jesus Christ of LatterBay Saints, the Supreme Court upholds the constitutionality of the 1887 Edmunds-Tucker Act.
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Jacob Riis publishes How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York. 1891 An act amending various immigration and alien labor acts excludes from admission to the United States idiots, insane persons, paupers or persons liable to become a public charge, persons suffering from a loathsome or a dangerous contagious disease, polygamists, and felons. The act also creates the Office of Superintendent of Immigration and provides inspection of immigrants by federal inspection officers and medical examinations by surgeons of the Marine Hospital Service. The American Cereal Company incorporates in Ohio with Henry P. Crowell as vice president and general manager; the company aggressively markets the already established "Quaker" brand and promotes the wholesomeness, convenience, and sanitary packaging of Quaker Oats with testimonials, contests, displays, calendars, and give-aways. The British Institute of Preventive Medicine (later the Lister Institute) opens in London. In New Orleans, Louisiana, a mob kills, by shooting or lynching, eleven Italian immigrants accused of murdering the chief of police but acquitted at their trial. 1892 Grover Cleveland is again elected president. The Sierra club is founded; John Muir is its first president. The U.S. Immigration Service opens the Ellis Island immigration station in New York Harbor. The Geary Chinese Exclusion Act extends the 1882 act for another ten years. Silver miners strike in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho; federal troops restore order after strikers clash with nonunion workers. The Indian Country Intoxicants Act prohibits the introduction of alcoholic beverages into the Indian country. Dr. Lawrence Flick founds the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Tuberculosis. Although they had met in Cincinnati in 1891 to discuss problems and possibilities, dissatisfaction with the Republic and Democratic parties' position on the currency problem spurs farm and labor organizations to form the Populist Party; the party selects James B. Weaver of Iowa as its presidential candidate. Anti-tobacco reformers petition Congress to enact federal legislation to prohibit cigarettes; the Senate Committee on Epidemic Diseases agrees that cigarettes are a public health hazard but refer the petitioners to the states for action. Russian botanist Dmitrii losifovich Ivanovoski demonstrates the existence of viruses.
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The Supreme Court of Ohio rules Standard Oil of Ohio a trust; John D. Rockefeller and his associates dissolve the trust and trust certificates are exchanged for shares in twenty separate companies. A new entity, Standard Oil (New Jersey), buys up all or most of the shares in the Standard companies and reconstitutes its hold on the petroleum industry. During a four-month strike in Homestead, Pennsylvania, Pinkerton guards are hired to protect strikebreakers from striking steelworkers; in the conflict that follows, ten men are killed and the Pennsylvania militia is called in to restore order; the strike is broken. At its National Convention in Cincinnati the Prohibition Party nominates John Birdwell of California for president. Scientific Temperance Monthly Advices begins publication; in 1894 it becomes the School Physiology Journal and in 1909 the Scientific Temperan ce Jo urn al. 1893 The Columbian Exposition opens in Chicago. A serious economic depression begins with the financial panic of 1893. Howard Russell founds the Ohio Anti-Saloon League. Lillian Wald and Mary Brewster establish a visiting nurses service on the Lower East Side of New York city; in 1895 the Nurse's Settlement moves to Henry Street, and in 1903 it is reorganized and renamed the Henry Street Settlement. The state of Washington bans the sale, purchase, gift, and manufacture of cigarettes; the United States Circuit court finds the law unconstitutional on the grounds of restraint of interstate trade. The Quarantine Act increases the authority of the government to prevent the introduction of contagious or infectious diseases into the United States from foreign countries or from one state of territory to another; it charges the Supervising Surgeon General of the Marine Hospital Service, under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury, with performing "all the duties in respect to quarantine and quarantine regulations." A yellow fever epidemic breaks out in Brunswick, Georgia. The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine opens in Baltimore; a new era in medical education begins, with high entrance requirements for students, an improved medical curriculum emphasizing the scientific method, and the incorporation of hospital teaching and laboratory research. The Committee of Fifty for the Investigation of the Liquor Problem is organized "to investigate physiological, legislative, ethical and economic aspects of the drink question." The Supreme Court upholds the Chinese Exclusion Act. Samuel McClure establishes McClure's Magazine. Stephen Crane publishes Maggie, a Girl of the Streets.
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Frances E. Willard and Mary A. Livermore publish A Woman of the Century: Fourteen Hundred-Seventy Biographical Sketches Accompanied by Portraits of Leading American Women in All Walks of Life. 1894 Jacob S. Coxey leads an "army" of the jobless from Massillon, Ohio, to Washington, D.C, to demand a program of public works to help the unemployed; Coxey is arrested for trespassing; the "army" disbands. Rail workers strike against reduced wages at the Pullman Palace Car Company in Chicago, Illinois; the American Railway union, led by Eugene V. Debs, calls a general strike in their support; rail traffic stops, and the railroads appeal to the federal government which intervenes first with an injunction, then with troops to break the strike on the pretext of protecting the U.S. mail; a riot ensues and twelve people die. Swiss bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin and Japanese bacteriologist Kitasato Shibasaburo independently discover the plague bacillus. At the Pasteur Institute French biologist Emile Roux develops an antitoxin treatment for diphtheria. Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau, who founded the Trudeau Sanitarium in 1884, organizes the first laboratory for the study of tuberculosis at Saranac Lake, New York. A group of Boston professionals found the Immigration Restriction League in response to concern about increasing immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe; the league urges literacy tests on the theory that they would keep out many of the new immigrants. The New York Society of Mayflower Descendents is organized; in 1897 a national society, the General Society of Mayflower Descendents, is founded in Plymouth, Massachusetts. A treaty between the United States and China (ratified, exchanged, and proclaimed in 1894) prohibits immigration of Chinese laborers into the United States for ten years, with exceptions for certain registered Chinese and "officials, teachers, students, merchants or travelers for curiosity or pleasure." In the summer outbreaks of poliomyelitis occur in Brooklyn, New York, and Rutland County, Vermont. Amos Warner publishes American Charities: A Study in Philanthropy and Economics. 1895 German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen discovers x-rays. The Anti-Saloon League, founded in Ohio in 1893, becomes a national organization. Abolitionist Frederick Douglass dies in Washington, D.C. In United States v. E. C. Knight Co., the Supreme Court rules that the Sherman Antitrust Act applies to monopolies involved in interstate trade (commerce) and not to manufacturing enterprises.
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In his search for a tasty, nutritious breakfast food to serve his sanitarium clients, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg develops what he calls Granose, cereal flakes made of wheat. The National Medical Association, an organization of African American physicians and health professionals, is founded. In Boston, tension between Catholics and anti-Catholics, fanned by the nativist American Protective Association, results in a violent riot during an Independence Day parade. The American Purity Alliance is founded. The first National Purity Congress is held in Baltimore under the auspices of the American Purity Alliance. Horace Fletcher publishes Menticulture; Or, the A-B-C of True Living. Frances Willard publishes A Wheel within a Wheel: How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle, with Some Reflections by the Way. 1896 William McKinley is elected president. William Jennings Bryan delivers his "Cross of Gold" speech at the Democratic convention in Chicago; the Democrats nominate him for president, as does the Populist Party. Utah becomes the forty-fifth state; its constitution prohibits polygamy and gives women the right to vote. John Dewey's laboratory school (founded in 1894) for the testing and practice of new educational methods starts operation at the University of Chicago. Connecticut adopts a marriage law that states, "No man or woman either of whom is epileptic, imbecile or feeble-minded [may] inter-marry, or live together as man and wife, when the woman is under forty-five years of age"; other states, particularly in the north and west, soon enact similar, strictly eugenic marriage laws. The National Association of Colored Women, uniting several black women's organizations, is founded in Washington, with Mary Church Terrell as its first president. At its national convention in Pittsburgh the Prohibition party nominates Joshua Levering of Maryland for president. As part of an effort to curb tuberculosis, New York city passes an ordinance prohibiting spitting in public places. The Supreme Court decides in Plessy v. Ferguson that segregation is legal if equal facilities are available to both races; it affirms the doctrine of "separate but equal." The American Physical Education .Review begins publication. The American Issue, the voice of the Anti-Saloon League, begins publication; the title succeeds The Anti-Saloon, which began in 1893. W.E.B. Du Bois publishes The Health and Physique of the Negro American. W. O. Atwater and Charles D. Woods publish The Chemical Composition of American Food Materials (U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of Experiment Stations Bulletin no. 28); beginning in 1899 enlarged and revised editions of the title appear regularly.
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1897 British bacteriologist Ronald Ross discovers the malaria parasite in the Anopheles mosquito. Japanese bacteriologist Kiyoshi Shiga discovers the bacillus {Shigella dysenteriae) that causes dysentery. The Public Law of January 30, 1897, prohibits the sale or distribution of any intoxicating drink to Indians who have any kind of trust or guardian relationship with the federal government. The Nurses Associated Alumnae of the United States and Canada (after 1911 the American Nurses Association) organize at the group's meeting in Baltimore, Maryland. Tennessee bans the sale and distribution of cigarettes (Acts of 1897, Chapter 30). The Obscene Literature Act of February 8, 1897, expands the Comstock Law of 1873 by making it unlawful to deposit with an express company or other common carrier for transportation any "lewd or lascivious book" or anything "designed or intended for the prevention of conception or procuring of abortion." President Cleveland vetoes legislation requiring a literacy test for immigrants; Henry Cabot Lodge, a leading advocate of immigration restriction, introduced the bill, which would bar immigrants unable to read or write twenty-five words of the Constitution in some language; Lodge will continue to support similar measures in future congresses. The Board of Health of the City of New York publishes The Action of the Health Department in Relation to Pulmonary Tuberculosis and the Scope and Purpose of the Measures Recently Adopted for Its Prevention. William D. P. Bliss publishes The Encyclopedia of Social Reform. Frederick H. Wines and John Koran publish The Liquor Problem in Its Legislative Aspects under the auspices of the Committee of Fifty to Investigate the Liquor Problem. Horace Fletcher publishes Happiness as Found in Forethought Minus Fearthought. 1898 The battleship Maine explodes and sinks in Havana harbor. The Spanish-American War begins when Spain declares war on the United States on April 24; on the following day, Congress passes a declaration of war, retroactive to April 21; the war ends with the defeat of Spain, which agrees to quit Cuba and cedes to the United States Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. The New York Charity Organization Society establishes a Summer School of Philanthropy; the program expands and eventually becomes the Columbia University School of Social Work. Dr. John H. Kellogg purchases the Battle Creek Sanitarium from the Seventh Day Adventist Church and operates it as a nonprofit institution. W. K. Kellogg develops the first corn-flaked cereal.
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Pierre and Marie Curie discover radium; for their research they share the 1903 Nobel Prize in physics with Henri Becquerel. In United States v. Wong Kim Ark the Supreme Court rules that under the Fourteenth Amendment children born in the United States, even if their parents are aliens, are citizens of the United States. Anna A. Gordon publishes The Beautiful Life of Frances E. Willard. 1899 The National Consumers League is founded; oriented toward working women and led by Florence Kelley, it campaigns against child labor and sweatshop conditions and favors minimum-wage legislation, shorter hours, improved working environments, and safety laws; it also promotes the production and distribution of goods at reasonable prices. American delegates attend first Hague Peace Conference, held in The Netherlands. Standard Oil of New Jersey becomes a holding company, thanks to changes in the New Jersey incorporation laws, and parent to nineteen large companies and twenty-two smaller enterprises. The Illinois Juvenile Court Act of 1899 creates a special court for children under sixteen charged with criminal acts; the act emphasizes rehabilitation rather than punishment for juvenile offenders and provides for confidentiality of records and the separation of youth and adults if both are placed in the same institution. Secretary of State John Hay initiates the "Open Door Policy," a policy aimed at securing from the major powers with concessions in China free trade for U.S. merchants and assurance of Chinese national integrity. In Chicago Lucy Page Gaston, who claims that men who smoke develop a "cigarette face," founds the Anti-Cigarette League (which becomes the National Anti-Cigarette League in 1901 and the Anti-Cigarette League of America in 1911). The German firm Bayer markets Aspirin. An Act for the Investigation of Leprosy directs a commission of medical officers of the Marine Hospital Service "to investigate the origin and prevalence of leprosy in the United States." Bernarr McFadden begins publication of his magazine, Physical Culture; its motto is "Weakness is a crime; don't be a criminal." Thorstein Veblen publishes The Theory of the Leisure Class. John Koren and Henry W. Farnham publish Economic Aspects of the Liquor Problem under the auspices of the Committee of Fifty for the Investigation of the Liquor Problem. W.E.B. Du Bois publishes The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Survey. 1900 William McKinley is reelected president. Hawaii becomes a U.S. territory.
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Booker T. Washington founds the National Negro Business League to promote the economic advancement of African Americans. At its national convention in Chicago the Prohibition Party nominates John G. Woolley of Illinois for president. Carrie Nation breaks up saloons in Kiowa, Kansas, by throwing rocks, brickbats, and other handy items; her saloon smashing in Kiowa, and later in Wichita and Topeka, gathers national publicity; continuing her crusade, she begins a lecture tour in 1901 to promote the fight against alcohol. An outbreak of bubonic plague occurs in San Francisco; Caucasians, who have long considered Chinatown a breeding ground for disease, blame the Chinese. The Gold Standard Act makes gold the sole standard for American currency. In William B. Austin v. State of Tennessee, the Supreme Court upholds the 1898 ruling of Tennessee's supreme court and declares constitutional the state's 1897 law banning the sale and distribution of cigarettes. In New York city a group of citizens concerned about crime and vice, particularly prostitution, meet and form the Committee of Fifteen. American troops participate in the relief of Peking during the Boxer Rebellion, an uprising against foreigners in China. Army physician Walter Reed, chairman of a committee to investigate an outbreak of yellow fever at an American garrison in Cuba, proves that yellow fever is transmitted by the mosquito Aedes aegypti. David Starr Jordan publishes The Strength of Being Clean. 1901
President William McKinley is assassinated; Theodore Roosevelt becomes president. The first Nobel prizes are awarded. Victor L. Berger, Eugene V. Debs, and other social democrats form the Socialist Party of America. J. P. Morgan combines Andrew Carnegie's holdings with other steel producers to create the United States Steel Corporation. With the second Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, Britain acknowledges the right of the United States to build and maintain an isthmian canal. John D. Rockefeller founds the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (later Rockefeller University), an institution devoted to biomedical research "for the benefit of humankind." Section 38 of the Army Reorganization Act of February 2, 1901, prohibits "the sale or dealing in beer, wine or any intoxicating liquors by any person in any post exchange or canteen." The American Association of Pathologists and Bacteriologists is formed. Under the leadership of William Gorgas, chief sanitary officer for Havana, the army's campaign against the mosquito, begun in 1900, succeeds in ridding the city of yellow fever; beginning in 1904, Gorgas will repeat his efforts to eradicate yellow fever and malaria in Panama.
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Gregor Mendel's 1866 study on inheritance in garden peas ("Versuche liber Pflanzen-Hybriden") is republished as "Experiments in plant hybridization," in the Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society. Booker T. Washington publishes his autobiography, Up from Slavery. Raymond Calkins publishes Substitutes for the Saloon under the auspices of the Committee of Fifty for the Investigation of the Liquor Problem. Edward Ross publishes Social Control: A Survey of the Foundations of Order. Frank Norris publishes The Octopus. 1902 The Newlands Act provides that monies from the sale of public land in the west and southwest be set aside in a "reclamation fund" to be used for irrigation projects to reclaim arid and semiarid land. Anthracite coal miners strike in Pennsylvania; President Roosevelt appoints a special commission to settle the bitter dispute. As a result of the commission's recommendations, miners win shorter hours and a 10percent wage increase, but not union recognition. The Public Health and Marine Hospital Service Act changes the name of the Marine Hospital Service to the Public Health and Marine Hospital Service and expands the Hygienic Laboratory by adding divisions in chemistry, pharmacology, and zoology. Public Law 57-244 vests with a board composed of the Surgeon General of the Army, the Surgeon General of the Navy, and the supervising Surgeon General of the Marine Hospital Service authority to regulate "the propagation and preparation of viruses, serums, toxins, antitoxins and analogous products." Maryland passes the nation's first workers' compensation law. Harvey W. Wiley, chief chemist in the Agriculture Department, begins testing food preservatives and coloring agents with the help of the "Poison Squad," a group of young men, mostly from the Bureau of Chemistry, who volunteer for the experiments. The Carnegie Institution of Washington is founded (incorporated by an act of Congress in 1904) "to encourage, in the broadest and most liberal manner, investigation, research, and discovery, and the application of knowledge to the improvement of mankind." The International Sanitary Bureau (later Pan American Sanitary Bureau, then the Pan American Sanitary Organization) is established in Washington, D.C. The Committee on the Prevention of Tuberculosis of the Charity Organization Society of the City of New York is formed to advance public education about tuberculosis and to promote the establishment of hospitals and sanatariums for tuberculosis patients. A report in the New York Sun brings national attention to Dr. Charles W. Stiles, who maintains that hookworm infection is responsible for the poor physical condition, slow mental ability, and general "laziness" of many poor whites in the southern states.
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The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1902 declares that all laws in force prohibiting or regulating Chinese immigration are re-enacted and extended indefinitely; it also prohibits Chinese laborers from immigrating from island territories to the mainland of the United States. Ida Tarbell publishes the first installment of "The History of the Standard Oil Company" in McClure's Magazine; the series runs from November 1902 until October 1904. The Committee of Fifteen publishes The Social Evil with Special Reference to Conditions Existing in the City of New York. W. O. Atwater and Francis Benedict publish An Experimental Inquiry Regarding the Nutritive Value of Alcohol. David Starr Jordan publishes The Blood of the Nation: A Study of the Decay of Races Through Survival of the Unfit. Washington Gladden publishes Social Salvation. 1903 At Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Orville and Wilbur Wright make the first successful flight in a manned, motorized airplane. Labor leaders Mary O'Sullivan and Leonora O'Reilly and settlement workers Lillian Wald and Jane Addams help found the Women's Trade Union League; the league strives to educate women about the trade union movement and to unite them to work for better pay and working conditions. A committee of the American Association of Agricultural Colleges meets in St. Louis and founds the American Breeders Association (later the American Genetic Association). Howard Hyde Russell founds the Lincoln Legion (later the Lincoln-Lee Legion) for those who sign a pledge of abstinence from alcohol. Henry Phipps establishes the Henry Phipps Institute for the Study, Treatment and Prevention of Tuberculosis in Philadelphia. Oregon enacts a law prohibiting employment of women more than ten hours a day in certain jobs, particularly in laundries and factories; the Supreme Court upholds the legislation in 1908 in Muller v. Oregon. Although a victory for improved working conditions, the decision refers to "the proper discharge of her maternal functions" and places women in a class by themselves, requiring special protection not necessary for men. The Immigration Act adds epileptics to the list of those excluded from immigration into the United States. The Elkins Act strengthens the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 and imposes regulations on the railroads that concern published rates and liability for rebating. Wisconsin law provides for the first direct primary in the United States. Congress charters the General Education Board, established with a gift from John D. Rockefeller, Sr., to aid education "without distinction of race, sex or creed." Horace Fletcher publishes The A. B.-Z. of Our Own Nutrition.
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385
W. O. Atwater and John S. Billings publish Physiological Aspects of the Liquor Problem under the auspices of the Committee of Fifty for the Investigation of the Liquor Problem. W.E.B. Du Bois publishes The Souls of Black Folk. The Charity Organization Society of the City of New York publishes A Handbook on the Prevention of Tuberculosis. Dr. Lawrence Flick publishes Consumption, a Curable and Preventable Disease: What a Layman Should Know about It. 1904 Theodore Roosevelt is elected president. The National Child Labor Committee is founded (incorporated by an act of Congress in 1907); its mission is to promote "the rights, awareness, dignity, well-being and education of children and youth as they relate to work and working." Amadeo Peter Giannini founds the Bank of Italy, predecessor of the Bank of America, in San Francisco. A federal court orders the dissolution of the railroad holding company Northern Securities; in Northern Securities Co. v. U.S. the Supreme Court sustains the decision and finds that the company does violate the Sherman Antitrust Act. President Roosevelt began the attack on the trust in 1902 when he ordered the attorney general to bring suit. With funding from the Carnegie Institution of Washington, Charles B. Davenport establishes a Station for Experimental Evolution at Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island, New York. A group of noted physicians form the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis to unfy and expand antituberculosis programs. Ivan Pavlov receives the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology "in recognition of his work on the physiology of digestion." At their national convention in Indianapolis the Prohibition Party nominates Silas C. Swallow of Pennsylvania for president. The American Medical Association creates a new Council on Medical Education. The United States signs the International Agreement for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic (ratified by the Senate in 1905; proclaimed by the president in 1908). Dudley Sargent publishes Health, Strength and Power. Lincoln Steffens publishes The Shame of the Cities. Dr. Prince A. Morrow publishes Social Diseases and Marriage: Social Prophylaxis. 1905 President Roosevelt works to mediate an end to the Russo-Japanese War; both sides agree to a peace conference in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where the conflict is settled. For his efforts Roosevelt earns the Nobel Peace prize in 1906.
386
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German bacteriologist Robert Koch receives the Nobel prize for his "investigations and discoveries in relation to tuberculosis." German Zoologist Fritz Schaudinn discovers the organism that causes syphilis. Labor leaders, dissatisfied with the policies of the American Federation of Labor, found the Industrial Workers of the World in Chicago; in 1908 a faction led by William Haywood prevails over a more moderate group and orients the union toward direct, revolutionary action: strikes, boycotts, and sabotage. Dr. Prince A. Morrow helps form the American Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis (which becomes the National Federation of Sex Hygiene in 1910 and later the American Social Hygiene Association); its aim is to combat venereal disease through education. New York city reformers organize the Committee of Fourteen, a successor to the Committee of Fifteen, to fight saloons and prostitution, in particular "Raines law hotels." The Forest Service is created in the Department of Agriculture. A group of Audubon Societies allied loosely since 1901 form the National Association of Audubon Societies for the Protection of Wild Birds and Animals; it later becomes the National Audubon Society. Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon develop an intelligence test that the French government uses to help with the education of the mentally retarded; in 1908 they revise the test and shift its emphasis from identifying mental retardation to measuring intelligence in children; they revise the test again in 1911. The American Medical Association creates the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry to set standards for the manufacture and advertisement of drugs and to examine their therapeutic claims. In Lochner v. New York the Supreme Court invalidates an 1895 New York law that limited to ten hours a day and sixty hours a week the number of hours a baker could work; the Court found the law interfered with the right of free contract and that bakers as a class needed no special protection by the state. African American leaders, including Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Monroe Trotter, and W.E.B. Du Bois, meet at Niagara Falls, Canada, to discuss ways to fight racial discrimination in the United States; the "Niagara Movement," which opposes the policies of Booker T. Washington, leads to the foundation in 1909 of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The Supreme Court rules in Jacobsen v. Massachusetts that states have the legal authority to require vaccinations. A yellow fever epidemic breaks out in New Orleans; an antimosquito campaign brings it under control; it is the last yellow fever epidemic in the United States. Samuel Hopkins Adams publishes "The Great American Fraud," a series of eleven articles in Collier's magazine that expose the false claims of popular patent medicines; he argues that some are actually harmful to the health of those using them. The impact of the series helps spur passage of the Pure Food and Drugs Act.
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387
The Journal of the Outdoor Life (previously Outdoor Life), official organ of the National Tuberculosis Association and various other antituberculosis associations, begins publication. Thomas Dixon publishes The Clansman. John S. Billings publishes The Liquor Problem: A Summary of Investigations under the Auspices of the Committee of Fifty for the Investigation of the Liquor Problem. 1906 The Pure Food and Drug Act bans the sale of impure foods and drugs and requires labels that identify product content. In response to muckraking articles and the Neill-Reynolds report on conditions in the meat-packing industry, Congress passes the Meat Inspection Act requiring the inspection of livestock and their carcasses after slaughter and establishes sanitary standards for slaughter and processing. W. K. Kellogg, brother of John H. Kellogg, founds the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company; he promotes his corn flake product, Corn Flakes, relentlessly, not merely as a specialized health food but as a nutritious, tasty, and convenient breakfast food for every family. The American School Hygiene Association is founded. The Scientific Temperance Federation, an outgrowth of the WCTU's Department of Scientific Temperance, is founded as an independent organization. Belgian immunologist Jules Bordet and his colleague Octave Genou isolate Bordetella pertussi, the whooping cough bacillus; Bordet wins the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1919 "for his discoveries relating to immunity." The National Vigilance Committee, a moral purity organization, is founded. Several Boys Clubs affiliate to form the Federated Boys Clubs; in 1931 the organization becomes the Boys Club Federation of America; later the name changes to the Boys Clubs of America and eventually the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. In October the San Francisco School Board orders all Japanese and Korean children to attend, with the Chinese, the segregated Oriental School (established in 1884); the Japanese government vigorously protests the board's action. The American Breeders Association establishes a committee on eugenics to support eugenics research. The Naturalization of Aliens law of June 29, 1906, creates the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization. Luther Gulick helps found the Playground Association of America (later the National Recreation Association); he is the first president of the organization. The American Medical Association approves the use of heroin "in place of morphine in various painful injections." O. Edward Janney, Grace Dodge, and others organize the National Vigilance Committee to fight organized vice and the white slave trade and to support purity and social hygiene.
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388
J. H. Kellogg creates the Race Betterment Foundation in Battle Creek, Michigan. The National Education Association, founded in 1857 as the National Teachers Association, is chartered by Congress. German bacteriologist August von Wassermann develops a blood test for syphilis. Robert Reid Rentoul publishes Race Culture or Race Suicide? A Plea for the Unborn. Prescott Hall publishes Immigration and Its Effects on the United States. Upton Sinclair publishes The Jungle. 1907 A serious financial crisis, "The Panic of 1907," disrupts the American economy; J. P. Morgan is instrumental in ending the crisis. Government reliance on private bankers suggests the need for a central bank, which the Federal Reserve System will become in 1913. Alabama and Georgia enact prohibition laws. The American Association for the Advancement of Science creates a Committee of One Hundred; it lobbies Congress for improved health care and the creation of a national department of health. Emily Bissell designs the first American Christmas Seal to help raise funds for her cousin's (Dr. Joseph Wales) tuberculosis sanitarium in Delaware. Margaret Olivia Sage establishes the Russell Sage Foundation "for the improvement of social and living conditions in the United States." Harriet Stanton Blatch forms the Equality League of Self-Supporting Women to promote, sometimes with theatrical methods, women's right to vote. Oklahoma becomes the forty-sixth state; its constitution prohibits alcohol. Indiana passes the nation's first eugenic sterilization law, permitting sterilization for "all confirmed criminals, idiots, rapists and imbeciles" confined in state institutions if their condition is pronounced incurable by three physicians; other states will enact similar legislation. Authorities locate Mary Mallon ("Typhoid Mary"), healthy herself but a carrier of the disease, and isolate her in a cottage on the grounds of Riverside Hospital on North Brother Island in New York; after her release, she begins work as a cook again, spreads typhus, and is returned to isolation on the island for the rest of her life. Bubonic plague again breaks out in San Francisco; rather than blame the Chinese as in 1900, authorities in cooperation with the Public Health and Marine Hospital Service join with the community in a program to eradicate rats and end the epidemic. The Immigration Act of 1907 authorizes the president to deny entry into the United States of citizens of any county if they are coming "to the detriment of labor conditions therein"; the provision clearly means to apply especially to Japanese laborers. The act also bars from entry idiots, imbeciles, feebleminded persons, epileptics, insane persons, paupers, professional beggars, polygamists, anarchists, and prostitutes.
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389
Japan and the United States reach a "Gentlemen's Agreement" on immigration; President Roosevelt agrees to persuade the San Francisco School Board to abandon its order for the segregation of Japanese school children and Japan agrees to cease issuing passports to laborers emigrating to the United States. Austrian physician Clemens von Pirquet develops a new test, the skin test for tuberculosis. Harvey W. Wiley publishes Foods and Their Adulteration: Origin, Manufacture, and Composition of Food Products; Description of Common Adulterations, Food Standards, and National Food Laws and Regulations. Edward Ross publishes Sin and Society: An Analysis of Latter-Day Iniquity. Luther Gulick publishes The Efficient Life. Luther Burbank publishes The Training of the Human Plant. Russell Chittenden publishes The Nutrition of Man. Mark Twain publishes Christian Science: With Notes Containing Corrections to Date. 1908 William Howard Taft is elected president. Henry Ford introduces the Model-T automobile. W. C. Durant forms the General Motors Corporation. The Supreme Court applies the Sherman Antitrust Act to labor as well as capital and rules in Loewe v. Lawler that union-sponsored boycotts are illegal. Henry Goddard introduces the Binet-Simon intelligence tests to the United States. Ilya Mechnikov of the Pasteur Institute and Paul Ehrlich of Goettingen University receive the Nobel prize in physiology or medicine "in recognition of their work on immunity." At its national convention in Columbus, Ohio, the Prohibition Party nominates Eugene W. Chafin of Wisconsin for president. French bacteriologists Albert Calmette and Camille Guerin discover an attenuated strain of bovine tuberculosis bacilli that, when injected, causes immunity against infection in animals; the strain is used to make the BCG vaccine, introduced some fifteen years later for human vaccination. President Roosevelt creates the Country Life Commission to study rural conditions and to recommend policies for improving the lot of farm families; the Commission submits its report to the president in 1909. The International Congress on Tuberculosis meets for the first time in the United States and holds its Sixth Congress in Washington, D.C. Mississippi and North Carolina enact prohibition laws. The Christian Science Monitor begins publication. Philip Peter Jacobs publishes The Campaign against Tuberculosis in the United States: Including a Directory of Institutions Dealing with Tuberculosis in the United States and Canada.
Selected Chronology
390
Clifford Beers publishes A Mind That Found Itself. Luther Gulick publishes Mind and Work. Luther Gulick publishes Medical Inspection of Schools. 1909 A group of black and white Americans concerned with civil rights and social justice, including William English Walling, Mary White Ovington, Ida Wells-Barnett, Oswald Garrison Villard, and W.E.B. Du Bois, found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Milton and Catherine Hershey establish the Hershey Industrial School (later the Milton Hershey School), a home for "poor, healthy, white male orphans between the ages of 8 through 18 years of age." The racial restriction ended in 1970; girls were admitted in 1977. Tennessee enacts prohibition legislation, effective in 1910; Wyoming enacts prohibition legislation outside incorporated towns. German bacteriologist Paul Ehrlich, who began his research in 1908, finds a treatment for syphilis; in 1910 he announces the discovery and introduces the drug, an arsenic compound he names "Salvarsan." A gift from John D. Rockefeller, Sr., establishes the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission for the Eradication of Hookworm Disease. President Roosevelt calls the first White House Conference on Children. The Narcotic Drugs Import and Export Act prohibits importation of opium in any form other than for "medicinal purposes." The Connecticut Society for Mental Hygiene, founded by former psychiatric patient Clifford Beers in 1908, expands to become the National Committee for Mental Hygiene (later the National Association for Mental Health, then the National Mental Health Association). The American Association for the Study and Prevention of Infant Mortality is organized in New Haven, Connecticut. California's sterilization act of April 26,1909, provides for the sterilization of the mentally retarded in state hospitals and institutions; it also authorizes sterilization of certain state prison inmates who show evidence of moral or sexual perversion. Additional sterilization laws are enacted in 1913 and 1917. Dr. Charles Sprague Smith and the People's Institute of New York establish the National Board of Censorship of Motion Pictures. At the initiative of President Roosevelt, the International Opium Commission (the Shanghai Opium Commission), a gathering of delegates from thirteen nations, meets in Shanghai to discuss the international control of narcotics. French bacteriologist Charles Nicolle discovers that typhus fever is transmitted by the body louse. The Scientific Temperance Journal begins publication. Dr. Henry C. Sharp's article, "Vasectomy as a Means of Preventing Procreation in Defectives," appears in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Selected Chronology
391
J. M. Murdoch, superintendent of the State Institution for Feeble-Minded of Western Pennsylvania, publishes "Quarantine Mental Defectives," a committee report, in Proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and Correction. Upton Sinclair and Michael Williams publish Good Health and How We Won It. Harry S. Warner publishes Social Welfare and the Liquor Problem. Israel Zangwill publishes his play, The Melting Pot: A Drama in Four Acts. The American Academy of Political and Social Science publishes Race Improvement in the United States. Irving Fisher publishes A Report on National Vitality: Its Wastes and Conservation. 1910 The Mann-Elkins Act increases the power of the Interstate Commerce Commission and extends the commission's jurisdiction to include telegraph and telephone companies. The Boy Scouts of America is incorporated. The Committee on Urban Conditions among Negroes (later the Urban League) is formed to help black Americans adapt to city life, particularly in the north, and to reduce discrimination against them. The White-Slave Traffic Act of March 26,1910, prohibits importation into the United States or harboring, employing, supporting, or maintaining any alien "for the purpose of prostitution or for any other immoral purpose." The Act of May 16,1910, establishes in the Department of the Interior the Bureau of Mines, which is charged with securing the safety of miners, preventing accidents, and investigating the causes of explosions. Dr. James Herrick, a Chicago physician and cardiologist, describes sicklecell anemia. The Mann Act prohibits the transportation of "any woman or girl for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose," in interstate or foreign commerce. With David Starr Jordan, Harvey W. Wiley, and others, Dr. Charles G. Pease establishes the Non-Smokers Protection League of America, which works for the elimination of smoking in public and semipublic places; Pease is president of the league until his death in 1941. B. O. Flower founds the National League of Medical Freedom, an organization devoted to the defense of alternative therapies opposed by the American Medical Association. With financial help from Mary A. Harriman, Charles B. Davenport establishes the Eugenics Record Office, an expansion of the Station for Experimental Evolution, in Cold Spring Harbor, New York, again with himself as director. Luther and Charlotte Gulick found the Campfire Girls. The United States signs an international treaty for the Repression of the Circulation of Obscene Publications (ratified and proclaimed in 1911).
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392
The American Federation for Sex Hygiene is founded. Andrew Carnegie establishes the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; he charges the trustees to use the fund "to hasten the abolition of international war." The Dillingham Commission (the Immigration Commission, formed in 1907 and chaired by Senator William P. Dillingham of Vermont) issues its forty-two-volume report; comprised of various studies, the volumes contain masses of statistical and sociological data on immigrants. The final report of the commission worries that the "new immigration," comprised of people who cannot be assimilated, is diluting the Anglo-Saxon stock and lowering the standard of living. Among other things, it recommends limiting immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe and excluding Asians. German physiologist Albrecht Kossel receives the Nobel prize in medicine or physiology "in recognition of the contributions to our knowledge of cell chemistry made through his work on proteins, including the nucleic substances." Crisis, the monthly periodical of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, begins publication. American Breeders Magazine begins publication. Vigilance, a monthly journal of the American Purity Alliance and the National Vigilance Committee, begins publication; it continues The Philan thropist. Abraham Flexner publishes Medical Education in the United States and Canada: A Report to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Irving Fisher publishes a report, National Vitality: Its Wastes and Conservation. The Testimony Publishing Company publishes The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth. George Kneeland publishes The Social Evil in New York City: A Study of Law Enforcement under the auspices of the Committee of Fourteen for the Suppression of the "Raines Law Hotels" in New York city. 1911 A fire in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York kills 146 people, mostly young women; public outrage at the tragedy leads to demands for changes in the city's building code and the state labor laws. A proposal to repeal Maine's 1851 prohibition law fails in a close vote. Ishi, a California Yahi Indian, the last of his tribe and the last Indian living in the wild, wanders out of a forest near Oroville, California. The First International Opium Conference is held in The Hague, December 1,1911-January 23,1912. The American Vigilance Association is formed by the merger of the American Purity Alliance and the American Vigilance Committee. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., establishes the Bureau of Social Hygiene following his service in 1910 on a special grand jury to investigate white sla-
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393
very in New York city; the bureau supports research on prostitution, vice, narcotics, and police corruption; it is incorporated in 1913. In United States v. Johnson the Supreme Court rules that the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 applies to the misbranding of an article as to its identity and possibly to its strength, quality, and purity, but does not apply to statements of its curative effect, even if such statements are misleading. The Supreme Court upholds the 1909 circuit court ruling that the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey violates the Sherman Antitrust Act and orders the dissolution of the holding company. The New Jersey law of April 21,1911 (1911 Acts, Chapter 190) authorizes the sterilization of insane, epileptic, and retarded persons, as well as certain criminals; in 1913 the New Jersey Supreme Court rules the legislation unconstitutional. Andrew Carnegie creates the Carnegie Corporation of New York to promote "the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding." Medical Freedom, a monthly periodical of the National League for Medical Freedom, begins publication. The American Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis publishes Health and the Hygiene of Sex: For College Students. The American Medical Association publishes Nostrums and Quackery: Articles on the Nostrum Evil and Quackery Reprinted from the Journal of the American Medical Association. David Starr Jordan publishes The Heredity of Richard Roe. Clifford Roe publishes The Great War on White Slavery. Charles Davenport publishes Heredity in Relation to Eugenics. 1912 Woodrow Wilson is elected president. The White Star liner Titanic sinks on its maiden voyage to New York; some 1,513 people perish. The Progressive Party nominates Theodore Roosevelt for president. The Department of Agriculture's Food Inspection Decision 147 of July 25, 1912 bans absinthe in the United States. The first International Eugenics Congress is held in London. Casimir Funk, a Polish-American biochemist, suggests that dietary deficiencies in what he called "vitamines" (later named vitamins) might cause diseases such as beriberi, rickets, and pellagra. The Sherley Amendment amends Section 8 of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act to prohibit any false or fraudulent "statement, design or device regarding the curative or therapeutic effect" on the packages and labels of drugs; the legislation overcomes the 1911 Supreme Court ruling in United States v. Johnson. Massachusetts adopts a minimum wage law, aimed primarily at improving the wages of women and children; in its 1923 Adkins v. Children's Hospital decision, the Supreme Court invalidates minimum wage legislation.
Selected Chronology
394
Juliette Low forms the first Girl Scout troop in Savannah, Georgia. The Marine Hospital Service becomes the U.S. Public Health Service, headed by a surgeon general; its program expands to include, among other things, the "full range of diseases and conditions influencing the propagation and spread thereof." Public Law 62-199 mandates an eight-hour workday for workers employed by companies receiving federal contracts. The International Congress on Hygiene and Demography holds its Fifteenth Congress in Washington, D.C. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., underwrites the establishment of the Laboratory of Social Hygiene on property adjacent to the State Reformatory for Women in Bedford Hills, New York. Lillian Wald founds the National Organization for Public Health Nursing. The United States signs the Hague Convention on opium and in 1913 Congress ratifies the agreement. At its national convention in Atlantic City the Prohibition Party nominates Eugene Chafin of Wisconsin for president. The Children's Bureau Act creates the Children's Bureau in the Department of Labor. Florence H. Danielson and Charles Davenport publish The Hill Folk: Report on a Rural Community of Mental Defectives. Henry H. Goddard publishes The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of Feeble- Mindedness. Arthur Estabrook and Charles Davenport publish The Nam Family: A Study in Cacogenics. Prince Morrow publishes Eugenics and Racial Poisons. Harry Laughlin publishes Eugenics (Eugenics Record Office Report no. 1). 1913 The Federal Reserve Act establishes federal reserve banks "to furnish an elastic currency, to afford means of rediscounting commercial paper, [and] to establish a more effective supervision of banking in the United States "; the system becomes America's central bank, which eliminates the need to rely solely on private bankers during financial crises. The Sixteenth Amendment is ratified; it provides for a federal income tax. In New York state the Factory Investigating Commission reports widespread violations of child labor laws. The Armory Show (the International Exhibition of Modern Art) opens in New York; it features the work of progressive artists and includes "White Slave," a statuette by Abastenia St. Leger. The Seventeenth Amendment is ratified; it provides for the direct election of senators. Henry Ford introduces the moving assembly line at his plant in Highland Park, Michigan. The Rockefeller Foundation receives a charter from the state of New York; its purpose is to "to promote the well-being of mankind throughout the world."
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395
American Society for the Control of Cancer (later the American Cancer Society) is formed "to disseminate knowledge concerning the symptoms, treatment, and prevention of cancer." The Life Extension Institute (later Executive Health Exams International, part of the Executive Health Group), a private, commercial enterprise, is formed to promote physical examinations, prevention of disease, and improvement of health. In the midst of a copper miners' strike in Calumet, Michigan, someone unknown yells "Fire!" during the miners' Christmas Eve party; seventyfive people, mostly children, die in the panic. The American Social Hygiene Association is founded with help from the Rockefeller Foundation. The Department of Labor becomes a separate, cabinet-level department. The American College of Surgeons is founded to improve the quality of care for surgical patients. The Eugenics Research Association is formed by workers of the Eugenics Record Office; Charles Davenport is its first president. The work of Hungarian pediatrician Bela Schick culminates with his paper describing a skin test for diphtheria, known afterward as the "Schick Test." The Wisconsin legislature adopts an act providing for the sterilization of criminals and the insane. The Supreme Court upholds the constitutionality of the Mann (White Slave) Act. The Webb-Kenyon Interstate Liquor Act, passed over a presidential veto, prohibits the shipment of alcoholic beverages into states where their sale is illegal. In spite of protests from President Wilson, Secretary of State Bryan, and the Japanese government, California adopts the Alien Land Law (WebbHaney Act), which denies to "aliens ineligible to citizenship," meaning Asians, the right to own property or to lease land for more than three years. President Taft vetoes the Immigration Bill, which contains provisions for a literacy test. Biochemist E. V. McCollum and his colleague Marguerite Davis isolate the first vitamin; McCollum calls it "Factor A," later known as vitamin A. The second International Opium Conference is held in The Hague. Representatives of the Women's Christian Temperance Union and the AntiSaloon League present a petition to Congress for a constitutional amendment for national prohibition; Senator Morris Sheppard introduces the amendment. The Underwood Tariff Act substantially reduces import duties and places many items on the free list. Upton Sinclair publishes Damaged Goods. Edith Spaulding and William Healy publish "Inheritance as a Factor in Criminality" in the Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology; their study finds no "evidence of direct inheritance of criminalistic traits."
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396
George Kneeland publishes Commercialized Prostitution in New York City. Ernest H. Cherrington publishes History of the Anti-Saloon League. The Syracuse Moral Survey Committee publishes The Social Evil in Syracuse. 1914 The assassination in Sarajevo of Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, sets off World War I. The Panama Canal opens to traffic. The Act to Increase Internal Revenue of October 22, 1914, increases taxes on alcoholic beverages and tobacco, among other items. The Federal Trade Commission Act creates the Federal Trade Commission and charges the agency with preventing persons, partnerships, or corporations "from using unfair methods of competition in commerce." Arizona, Colorado, Oregon, Virginia, and Washington enact prohibition laws. The Clayton Antitrust Act, designed as an amendment to the Sherman Act, addresses new monopolistic practices; it forbids interlocking directorates and price-cutting intended to lessen competition; it also limits the use of federal injunctions in labor disputes. Henry Ford raises the daily wage for his workforce to $5, double the prevailing industry standard. The American Social Hygiene Association is established; it later becomes the American Social Health Association. Josephus Daniels, Secretary of the Navy, issues General Order 99, effective July 1, 1914, which prohibits "the use or introduction for drinking purposes of alcoholic liquors on board any naval vessel, or within any navy yard or station." Miners in the Colorado coal fields begin a strike against the Rockefellercontrolled Colorado Fuel and Iron in 1913; the bitterness and violence comes to a climax in April 1914 when, after someone fires a shot, state militiamen open fire on the miners' tent city outside Ludlow. Several miners are killed, and when the tents are set ablaze, two women and eleven children sheltered in a dirt bunker beneath a tent perish in the fire; the incident becomes known as the "Ludlow Massacre." Arizona, Idaho, Colorado, Iowa, Washington, and Oregon enact prohibition laws. The first National Conference on Race Betterment is held in Battle Creek, Michigan. The Harrison Act requires registration of anyone who deals in any way with opium or coca leaf products, payment of a special tax of $1, and maintenance of detailed records on approved forms; it also provides penalties for violation of the act. The surgeon general of the Public Health Service appoints Dr. Joseph Goldberger to investigate pellagra, for years a problem in southern states; from observation he concludes that pellagra is the result of poor diet, not an infectious disease. Dietary experiments with volun-
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397
teer inmates of the Rankin State Prison Farm in Mississippi in 1915 and experiments on himself and colleagues in 1916 confirm his conclusion, but it fails to find acceptance until 1937, when Conrad Elvehjem discovers that niacin cures pellagra in dogs. The Woman Rebelbegins publication; one of its aims, it states in Margaret Sanger's opening editorial, is "to advocate the prevention of conception and to impart such knowledge;" the Post Office bans its distribution. Following more provocative articles, a federal indictment is returned against Margaret Sanger for lewd and indecent articles and for incitement to murder and riot. Social Hygiene, the journal of the American Social Hygiene Association, begins publication. Upton Sinclair publishes Sylvia's Marriage. Margaret Sanger publishes the birth-control pamphlet Family Limitation. Harry H. Laughlin publishes Report of the Committee to Study and to Report on the Best Practical Means of Cutting Off the Defective GermPlasm in the American Population, under the auspices of the Eugenics Record Office. The Luther Burbank Society begins publishing Monographs on the Improvement of the Human Plant. The Commission for Investigation of the White Slave Trade publishes Report of the Commission for the Investigation of the White Slave Trade, So Called. Edward Ross publishes The Old World in the New: The Significance of Past and Present Immigration to the American People. Harry Laughlin publishes Legal, Legislative, and Administrative Aspects of Sterilization. Henry Goddard publishes Feeble-mindedness: Its Causes and Consequences. Abraham Flexner publishes Prostitution in Europe, sponsored by the Bureau of Social Hygiene. 1915 Off the coast of southern Ireland a German submarine torpedos without warning the Cunard liner Lusitania, sailing from New York to Liverpool; the vessel sinks quickly and among those drowned are 128 American citizens. The House of Representatives rejects a proposed constitutional amendment for woman suffrage. The Eugenics Registry is formed under the auspices of the Race Betterment Foundation; its mission is to collect data on natural inheritance and to "combat race decay." William Henry Welch and Wickliffe Rose submit the Welch-Rose Report on schools of public health to the Rockefeller Foundation. President Wilson vetoes legislation requiring a literary test for immigrants; President Taft had vetoed similar legislation in 1913. Arkansas and South Carolina enact prohibition laws.
Selected Chronology
398
The second National Conference on Race Betterment is held in San Francisco in connection with the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. William J. Simmons revives the Ku Klux Klan in Georgia; the "fraternal organization" receives a charter from the state. Concern about war, the European war in particular, leads Jane Addams, Carrie Chapman Catt, Florence Kelley, and other women to establish the Woman's Peace Party. William Sanger, husband of Margaret Sanger, is arrested by Anthony Comstock, father of the Comstock Law, for distributing Margaret Sanger's birth-control pamphlet, Family Limitation. Mary Ware Dennett and other activist women organize the National Birth Control League. The American College of Physicians is founded to uphold standards in medical education. The American Medical Women's Association is founded. The National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis begins the Modern Health Crusade, a program that brings health education into the schools and uses chivalric pageantry to encourage better hygienic habits in children. D .W. Griffith releases his film, Birth of a Nation; it is based on Thomas Dixon's The Clansman, which was its original title. Mary Alden Hopkins publishes a series of articles on birth control in Harper's Magazine. Lillian Wald publishes The House on Henry Street. Henry Osborn publishes Men of the Old Stone Age: Their Environment, Life and Art. Henry Goddard publishes The Criminal Imbecile: An Analysis of Three Remarkable Murder Cases. Irving Fisher and Eugene Lyman Fisk publish How to Live: Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science, authorized by and prepared in collaboration with the Hygiene Reference Board of the Life Extension Institute. Benjamin Parke DeWitt publishes The Progressive Movement. Thomas Hunt Morgan, Alfred Henry Sturtevant, Calvin Blackman Bridges, and Hermann Joseph Muller publish The Mechanism of Mendelian Heredity. 1916 Woodrow Wilson is reelected president. President Wilson issues an ultimatum to Germany; the United States will sever relations if submarines continue to attack unarmed vessels. The Adamson Act establishes an eight-hour workday for employees of railroads. Jeannette Rankin of Montana is elected to the U.S. House of Representatives; she is the first woman member of the House and the first woman elected to Congress.
Selected Chronology
399
In the summer an epidemic of polio breaks out in New York city; the disease spreads to other states. Although estimates vary, there are some 27,000 cases and more than 6,000 deaths. In December Margaret Sanger founds the Birth Control League of New York. Margaret Sanger, Fania Mandell, and Ethel Burne open the first birth-control clinic in Brooklyn, New York; police shut it down after ten days and the women are arrested. Sanger and Burne are charged with violation of the penal code by giving out information on birth control; Fania is charged with selling an indecent book [What Every Girl Should Know). The National Park Service Organic Act establishes the National Park Service. The National Academy of Sciences organizes the National Research Council. The Child Labor Act (the Keating-Owen Act) bans from interstate commerce products of establishments that employ children under fourteen and under sixteen in the case of mines; it also applies to any enterprise employing those under sixteen at night work or more than forty hours a week; the Supreme Court rules the act unconstitutional in 1918. Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Utah pass prohibition laws. At its national convention in St. Paul the Prohibition Party nominates J. Frank Hanly of Indiana for president. Members of the Industrial Workers of the World sail from Seattle to a rally in Everett, Washington; while deputized citizens attempt to stop their landing, shots are fired. The "Everett Massacre" leaves seven dead and forty-seven wounded. Eugenical News (official organ of the Eugenics Research Association, later the American Eugenics Society) begins publication. Jean Weidensall publishes The Mentality of the Criminal Woman. Lewis M. Terman publishes The Measurement of Intelligence: An Explanation of and a Complete Guide for the Use of the Stanford Revision and Extension of the Binet-Simon Intelligence Scale; scoring on the test determines "intelligence quotient" or "IQ." Madison Grant publishes The Passing of a Great Race. Michael Guyer publishes Being Well Born: An Introduction to Eugenics. Arthur H. Estabrook publishes The Jukes in 1915. 1917 President Wilson addresses a special joint session of Congress on April 2, 1917, to request a declaration of war against Germany; on April 4, 1917, the Senate votes a war resolution; on April 6,1917, the House votes a war resolution. The American Dietetic Association is founded in Cleveland, Ohio; its immediate aim is to help the government conserve food during World War I and to improve health and nutrition in the nation. The Lever Act, providing for "the national security and defense," states among its provisions that "no foods, fruits, food materials, or feeds
Selected Chronology
400
shall be used in the production of distilled spirits for beverage purposes." The Alaska Territory enacts a prohibition law. The Immigration Act, requiring among other things a literacy test for immigrants, becomes law over President Wilson's veto. Birth Control -Reviewbegins publication. Mental Hygiene, a quarterly periodical of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene, begins publication. Upton Sinclair publishes King Coal. Luther Gulick publishes Dynamics of Man. 1918 On November 11, 1918, Germany agrees to an armistice; it will surrender its weapons and withdraw its troops beyond the eastern bank of the Rhine. An influenza epidemic, beginning in 1918 and lasting until 1919, kills an estimated half million people in the United States and 20 to 30 million worldwide. The Army Appropriation Act of July 9,1918, establishes in the Public Health Service a Division of Venereal Disease to study and investigate the causes and treatment of venereal diseases and to control and prevent their spread. Charles Davenport, Madison Grant, Henry F. Osborn, and others organize the Galton Society. The Anti-Saloon League holds a special conference "for the purpose of launching a movement for world-wide prohibition." Mary Ware Dennett founds the Voluntary Parenthood League. Provisions of the Food Production Stimulation Act, also known as the War Prohibition Act, prohibit from June 30,1919, until the termination of demobilization the sale of "distilled spirits" except for export and the manufacture or sale of "beer, wine, or other intoxicating malt or vinous liquor for beverage purposes" except for export. The No-Tobacco Journal, a monthly publication of the No-Tobacco League of America, begins publication in Butler, Indiana. E. V. McCollum publishes The Newer Knowledge of Nutrition: The Use of Food for the Preservation of Vitality and Health. Frederick J. Pack publishes Tobacco and Human Efficiency. Paul Popenoe and Roswell Johnson publish Applied Eugenics. Luther Gulick publishes The Efficient Life. Eugene Lyman Fish and Irving Fisher publish Health for the Soldier and Sailor. 1919 A sufficient number of states ratify the Eighteenth Amendment; under the terms of the amendment, prohibition becomes effective a year from ratification.
Selected Chronology
401
Congress passes the National Prohibition Act (the Volstead Act) over President Wilson's veto; the law provides for the enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment. The Twentieth Century Fund is founded. In Chicago, violence between blacks and whites breaks out when a black youth drowns after being stoned for drifting into a swimming area unofficially reserved for whites; racial tensions, labor competition, and urban overcrowding contribute to the "Chicago Race Riot" during a summer marked by race riots in various cities throughout the country. Ernest Cherrington helps found the World League Against Alcoholism. President Wilson submits the Treaty of Versailles, which ends the war, and the Covenant of the League of Nations to the Senate for ratification. Wilson tours the nation to build public support for the treaty and the league; he falls ill during the tour and returns to Washington where he suffers a stroke. The Senate amends the treaty, but Wilson refuses to accept the amendments, and the United States does not join the League of Nations. Calvin Coolidge, the governor of Massachusetts, calls in the National Guard to end the Boston Police Strike. Following a bomb attack on his residence during a year of strikes, riots, and the "Red Scare," Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer authorizes raids on radical groups; agents of the "Palmer Raids" arbitrarily detain and arrest suspected radicals, who face prosecution and deportation. Thomas Hunt Morgan publishes The Physical Basis of Heredity. Luther Gulick publishes Morals and Morale. 1920 Warren G. Harding is elected president. Under the terms of the Eighteenth Amendment, ratified in January 1919, prohibition of the "manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors" becomes effective on January 16,1920. Fitter Families contests start at the Kansas Free Fair in Topeka, Kansas. The League of Nations, created by the Covenant embodied in the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, is established, with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. The Senate rejects the Treaty of Versailles; the United States does not become a member of the League of Nations. In 1919 Congress approves the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which grants the vote to women, and submits it to the states for ratification; sufficient states ratify the amendment, and the amendment is proclaimed in August 1920. The Deportation of Undesirable Aliens Act amends the Immigration Act of 1917 and provides for the deportation of and denial of readmission of aliens who have violated a number of laws, in particular various wartime measures. An act of Congress establishes the Women's Bureau within the Department of Labor. The Child Welfare League of America is founded; it begins operation on January 2,1921.
Selected Chronology
402
The National Health Council is founded as a clearinghouse and cooperative for voluntary health organizations. California law closes a loophole in the state's Alien Land Law of 1913 by preventing Japanese farmers (and other Asians; i.e., all aliens ineligible for citizenship) from holding land in guardianship for their children (their American-born children) or placing land in their name. In Rhode Island v. Palmer the Supreme Court upholds the constitutionality of the Volstead Act. The League of Women Voters is founded. At its national convention in Lincoln, Nebraska, the Prohibition Party nominates Aaron W. Watkins of Ohio for president. Immigrant anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are arrested for the murder of two men during a payroll robbery in South Braintree, Massachusetts. Ernest Cherrington publishes The Evolution of Prohibition in the United States of America. Lothrop Stoddard publishes The Rising Tide of Color against White WorldSupremacy. Marion Florence Lansing and Luther Gulick publish Food and Life. 1921 President Harding proclaims November 11, Armistice Day, a national holiday. Margaret Sanger organizes the American Birth Control League, which evolves into the Federation of Planned Parenthood in 1942. The Sheppard-Towner Act, "an Act for the promotion of the welfare and hygiene of maternity and infancy," authorizes grants to the states for programs to promote maternal and child health care. The second International Congress of Eugenics is held at the American Museum of Natural History in New York city. The first American Birth Control Conference is held in New York city. A joint resolution of Congress declares World War I ended; the Senate ratifies peace treaties with Germany, Austria, and Hungary. Canadian physician Frederick Banting and physiologist Charles Best isolate insulin. The Emergency Immigration Act (the Johnson Act) limits immigration from any European country to 3 percent of the number of persons of that nationality in the United States at the time of the 1910 census; the act also limits annual immigration to 350,000. Sacco and Vanzetti are convicted of robbery and murder and sentenced to death; their conviction becomes a public cause for supporters who believe the immigrants' radical views and the anti-communist panic prevented a fair trial. President Harding pardons Eugene V. Debs and twenty-three others convicted under the Espionage Act. The House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization publishes Biological Aspects of Immigration. The hearing consists of the statement of Harry H. Laughlin.
Selected Chronology
403
Upton Sinclair publishes The Book of Life: Mind and Body. 1922 Amelia Maggia, a watch-dial painter at the U.S. Radium Company in Orange, New Jersey, dies of radium poisoning; other "Radium Girls" die of radium narcosis, which eats away their jawbones. The State Workman's Compensation Board recognizes radium narcosis as an occupational disease in 1926. At the University of California, Berkeley, Herbert Evans and Katherine Bishop identify vitamin E. Prominent eugenicists found the Eugenics Committee of the United States of America, with Irving Fisher as its first president; in 1925 it becomes the American Eugenics Society. The Narcotic Drugs Import and Export Act of May 26, 1922, strictly limits the importation of opiates and prescribes penalties for breaking the law; it also establishes the Federal Narcotics Control Board. Experimenting with rats and cod liver oil, E. V. McCollum discovers vitamin D; a generation grows up taking cod liver oil to prevent rickets. The Izaak Walton League is founded to help preserve outdoor America. Lothrop Stoddard publishes The Revolt against Civilization: The Menace of the Underman. Ernest Cherrington publishes America and the World Liquor Problem. Albert Edward Wiggam publishes The New Decalogue of Science. S. Adolphus Knopf publishes A History of the National Tuberculosis Association. Harry H. Laughlin publishes Eugenical Sterilization in the United States. Margaret Sanger publishes The Pivot of Civilization. 1923 Warren G. Harding dies; Calvin Coolidge becomes president. A Senate committee chaired by Thomas J. Walsh begins to investigate the leasing of naval oil reserves at Teapot Dome; a special commission completes the investigation in 1924. The eventual conviction of the Secretary of Interior in 1929 makes him the first cabinet officer to go to prison. The Committee on Maternal Health is founded; its aim is to conduct research and to disseminate information on medical aspects of contraception, reproduction, and human fertility. Medical researchers George Dick and Gladys Dick isolate the scarlet fever toxin; they develop an antitoxin and in 1924 the Dick Test to test for susceptibility to the disease. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. establishes the International Education Board to promote and advance education throughout the world. Margaret Sanger establishes the Clinical Research Bureau, a contraceptive clinic, in New York city, operating under the auspices of the American Birth Control League.
Selected Chronology
404
The Second International Congress of Eugenics publishes its scientific papers in two volumes: Eugenics, Genetics and the Family and Eugenics in Race and State. Carl Brigham publishes A Study of American Intelligence. M. V. O'Shea publishes Tobacco and Mental Efficiency. Hiram Evans, Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, publishes The Menace of Modern Immigration. The House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization publishes its hearing, Analysis of America's Modern Melting Pot, a review of the physical and mental health of immigrants; the document is the statement of the sole witness, Harry H. Laughlin. Gaius Glenn Atkins publishes Modern Religious Cults and Movements. Edith R. Spaulding publishes An Experimental Study of Psychopathic Delinquent Women (in the series Publications of the Bureau of Social Hygiene). 1924 Calvin Coolidge is elected president. The United States signs the Pan American Sanitary Convention (ratified and proclaimed in 1925). James B. Duke creates the Duke Endowment to serve the Carolinas by supporting programs in higher education, health care, children's welfare, and spiritual life. The Anti-Heroin Act amends the Act of February 9,1909, and prohibits the importation of opium "for the purpose of manufacturing heroin"; its enforcement would end the use of heroin, including medical use of the drug. The Progressive Party nominates Senator Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin for president. At its national convention in Columbus, Ohio, the Prohibition Party nominates Herman P. Faris of Ohio for president. The Second Opium Conference opens in Geneva, Switzerland, in November and continues into February 1925. The Immigration Act of 1924 (the Johnson Act or the Johnson-Reed Act) sets the annual immigration quota of any nationality at 2 percent of the foreign born of that nationality as recorded in the 1890 census; it limits immigration, starting with the fiscal year beginning July 1,1927, to 150,000 at a ratio based on the number of those having that nationality as recorded in the census of 1920; it also prohibits from immigration "aliens ineligible for citizenship," which means the Chinese and the Japanese, who are under existing law ineligible for citizenship. Biochemist Harry Steenbock discovers that ultraviolet light converts material in food to vitamin D; the discovery virtually eliminates the bone disease rickets. William Snow publishes The Venereal Diseases: Their Medical, Nursing, and Community Aspects.
Selected Chronology
405
Albert Edward Wiggam publishes The Fruit of the Family Tree. 1925 The "Monkey Trial" takes place in Dayton, Tennessee. Tennessee law forbids teaching evolution in any school or college supported by public funds, but John T. Scopes teaches the theory in his high school classroom; he is tried and eventually fined $100. Margaret Sanger and Robert L. Dickinson form the Maternity Research Council to oversee operations of the Clinical Research Bureau; they also hope to secure a dispensary license for the bureau. The influence of the Ku Klux Klan wanes after Indiana Grand Dragon David Stephenson kidnaps and rapes an Indianapolis woman, who takes poison out of shame and dies; Stephenson goes to prison. Ernest Cherrington, as editor-in-chief, publishes the first volume of the Standard Encyclopedia of the Alcohol Problem; the final volume, volume 6, appears in 1930. 1926 Gertrude Ederle is the first woman to swim the English Channel. E. S. Gosney establishes the Human Betterment Foundation (incorporated in 1928) "to foster and aid constructive and educational forces for the protection and betterment of the human family in body, mind, character, and citizenship"; Gosney is president of the organization until his death in 1942. Mary Ware Dennett publishes Birth Control Laws. Paul Popenoe publishes The Conservation of the Family. Arthur H. Estabrook and Ivan E. McDougle publish Mongrel Virginians: The Win Tribe. Irving Fisher publishes Prohibition at Its Worst. 1927 Charles Lindbergh flies nonstop from New York to Paris in Spirit of St. Louis. The Charles F. Kettering Foundation is created "to sponsor and carry out scientific research for the benefit of humanity." German biochemist Heinrich Wieland wins the Nobel prize in chemistry "for his investigations of the constitution of bile acids and related substances." In Buck v. Bell the Supreme Court upholds a Virginia law that permits the sterilization of the feebleminded; writing for the Court, Oliver Wendell Holmes writes, "It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind." He adds, commenting on the family history of Carrie Buck, "Three generations of imbeciles is enough."
Selected Chronology
406
The American Association of School Physicians is founded in October at the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association in Cincinnati; it later becomes the American School Health Association. In spite of protests and criticism of their trial, Nicolo Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are nevertheless executed at the Charlestown, Massachusetts, State Penitentiary. The World Population Conference is held in Geneva, Switzerland. Heywood Broun and Margaret Leech publish Anthony Comstock: Roundsman of the Lord. 1928 Herbert Hoover is elected president. The Democrats nominate Alfred E. Smith for president; he calls for the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment. The Kellogg-Briand Pact, a multilateral agreement, attempts to outlaw war as an instrument of national policy; the treaty fails to be effective as it lacks any means of enforcement and signatory nations qualify its provisions and interpret them as they wish. British bacteriologist Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin. The Third National Conference on Race Betterment is held in Battle Creek, Michigan. Greek-American physician George Nicolas Papanicolaou develops the Pap test, a smear procedure for the early detection of cervical and uterine cancer. The American Institute of Nutrition is founded. At its national convention in Chicago the Prohibition Party nominates William F. Varney of New York for president. Clifford Beers organizes the American Foundation for Mental Hygiene. The American Institute of Nutrition begins publishing The Journal of Nutrition. Eugenics (the official journal of the American Eugenics Society) begins publication. Charles P. Bruehl publishes Birth Control and Eugenics in the Light of Ethical Principles. 1929 The stock market collapses. The Narcotic Farms Act authorizes the establishment of two "narcotic farms" for the confinement and treatment of persons addicted to narcotics and convicted of "offenses against the United States"; it also establishes a Narcotics Division in the Public Health Service. Police raid the Birth Control Research Clinic and arrest two doctors and three nurses; at trial the police admit seizing clinic records, a violation of the confidentiality between doctor and patient. The Police Commission apologizes to the Academy of Medicine and the clinic receives valuable publicity in the press.
Selected Chronology
407
Margaret Sanger forms the National Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control. Harvey W. Wiley publishes The History of a Crime against the Food Law. E. S. Gosney and Paul Popenoe publish Sterilization for Human Betterment. Katharine Bement Davis publishes Factors in the Sex Life of Twenty-Two Hundred Women.
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Index Adams, Samuel Hopkins, 220, 244 Addams, Jane, 23-24, 233 Addicting (addiction, addictive, addicts), 101-102,155, 156 Additives, food and beverages, 2 Adirondack (Cottage Sanitarium, etc.), 332 Aldrich, Abby Greene, 282 Allen, Martha Bird, 282 Allen, Mary Wood, 229 Allies, 366 Alternative medicine (practices, medical philosophies, etc.), 14, 15-16, 131,226,241 American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, and Dance, 16 American Association for the Advancement of Osteopathy (American Osteopathic Association [AOA]), 242 American Bulletin [Philantropist], 19 American Cancer Society, 109, 207 The American College: A Criticism, 129 American Congress of Tuberculosis, 230-231 American Congress on Tuberculosis for the Prevention of Con-
sumption (American AntiTuberculosis League), 230-231 The Americanization of Edward Bok, 52 American Lung Association (ALA), 231 American Museum of Natural History, 240 American School Health Association, 20, 22, 303 American School of Osteopathy, 241 American Social Health Association, 22, 23 American Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis, 12 Analysis of America's Modern Melting Pot, 202 Anderson, William Gilbert, 16, 257 Anderson, William H., 29 Andrew, Katharine, 207 Angel Island Inspection Station, 64 Anthony, Susan B., 224, 273, 361 Anti-Canteen Law, 28 Anti-Catholicism (anti-Catholic feelings), 59,135,144, 267 Anti-Cigarette League(s), 31, 33, 140, 141 Anti-German feelings (sentiment), 142-143
410
Antislavery, 261 Antitoxin, 167 Antituberculosis campaign (associations, organizations), 336-337 Atkins, Gaius, 235 Atlanta University, 103,104 The Awakening College, 206 Babies, 42-43,125 Backlash phase of the (healthreform) cycle, 329 Bacteria, 167,168 Baldwin, Gertrude Louise, 68 Bates, Elizabeth Guildford, 323 Bateson, William, 211 Bathing, 251, 252 Battle Creek, Michigan, 37, 38, 53, 54 Beard, Maude, 137 Beare, Charlotte, 333 Bedford Hills reformatory for women, 200 Beecher, Henry Ward, 51 Bell, Agrippa Nelson, 298 Bellamy, Edward, 316 Benedict, Francis, 58 Bible, 137, 138 Billings, John Sedgwick, 46 Binet, Alfred, 145 Biological Aspects of Immigration, 202 Biology (biological), 87, 187 Birney, Mrs. Theodore Weld, 219 Birth Atlas, 94 Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau, 75 Birth of a Nation, 198 Birth rate, 25 Bissell, Emily P., 68 Black, James, 228 Black, John, 68 Black(s), 2-3, 227, 351, 352; sociological study, 102-103 Black military personnel, 103 Blackwell, Elizabeth, 229 Blakey, Lois, 186 Blatch, Harriot Stanton, 362
Index Blended pattern, drinking, 100 Bocker, Dorothy, 74 Bok Syndicate Press, 51-52 The Book of Life, 310 Bool, Ella, 366 Boring, Blanche Malvina, 314 Boston Watch and Ward Society, 26 Bowen, Pansy, 202 Bowen, Susan, 188 Boyd, Robert F., 227 Brehmer, Hermann, 292 Brenk, Mary, 186 Brewster, Mary M., 348 Britain (England), 267 British reformers, 19, 20 Brown, Lawranson, 243 Brussels Congress on Syphilis (conference), 217, 218 Bryan, William Jennings, 138,155 California, 62-63, 313 The Campaign against Tuberculosis in the United States, 336 Campbell, Clarence, 120 Campbell, Helen, 265 Candy, Ella Belle, 354 Carnegie, Andrew, 58, 252, 253 Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 129, 130 Carnegie Institution, 118 Carow, Edith, 284 Castle, William E., 9 Catt, Carrie Chapman, 224 Cattell, James McKeen, 6 Caucasians and Chinese, 63, 64 Censorship, 26, 27 Central Powers, 366 Cereal(s), 52-54 Charities (charity), 136 Chastity, 274, 354 Chemistry (chemist, chemicals), 67,356-357 Chew (chewing), 126,128 Chewing tobacco, 331 Chicago meat-packing industry, 189
Index Child care, 42 Children (child, youth), 4,147, 151; contests, 125; health, 20-21; health/hygiene instruction, 301, 3-2, 303; hygiene, 215; Mormons, 216; pledge (clean-life, abstinence), 73, 205 Cholera, 164, 229-230 "Christian socialism," 316 Christian Science Monitor, 70 Church(es), 220-221, 315-316 Cigars, 331 Civil and political rights, 351 "Clean," 74 "Clean book" crusade (Clean Book League), 237 Cleanliness, 251, 252, 268 Clean-living (health-reform) cycle, phases of, 328-329 Cleveland, Grover, 165 Clinic, birth-control (first), 296, 296-297, 324, 325 Clinics: birth-control, 81; local (dispensaries), 293, 294, 337 Cloud, Hattie, 135 Cocaine, 222, 255, 256 Coercive phase of the (healthreform) cycle, 329 Coffee, 108 Cohoon, Jennie O., 144 Coleman, Helen A., 55 College students, 300 Collier, Peter, 271 Commission on Country Life, 287 Communicability (communicable), 334,335 Communist, 104 Community regulation of sanitation, 298 Complacency stage of the (healthreform) cycle, 329 Condiments and spices, 96 Conferences: eugenics, 172,173; problems of black America, 103; Race Betterment, 276-277 Contests, mental and physical perfection, 125
411
Contraception (contraceptive, contraceptives), 46, 49, 50, 80; Clinical Research Bureau, 74, 75; and Margaret Sanger, 295, 296; and Mary Dennett, 92, 93; and Mayer Stone, 324, 325 Coolidge, Calvin, 185 Coote, William, 233 Corn Flakes, 53, 54 Correns, Karl, 211 Cosney, Ezra, 111 Cramp ton, Henry, 10 Crane, Frederick, 49 Crane, Steven, 247 Crawford, Anne Laziere, 130 Crisis, 104 Crotty, Gertrude, 89 Cures, 256 Curtis, Cyrus H. K., 52 Curtis, Mary Louise, 52 Custodial care, 109,110 Cycling, 43 Damaged Goods, 310 Danielson, Florence H., 191 Darwin, Charles, 41, 113,172 Darwin, Leonard, 172 Darwinism, Social, 314-315 Davidson, Olivia A., 352 Davis, Lillian, 289 de Chamberay, Helen, Marquise, 127 De Costa, Benjamin F., 355 De Vilbiss, Lydia, 7, 42 De Vries, Hugo, 211 Deaf (children, mutes, people), 4 0 41 Dearborn, Sarah Hunt, 148 Death (mortality) rate: the Irish, 174; Spanish flu, 170-171; tuberculosis, 334 "Degenerate(s)," 109,110, 278 Dennett, William Hartley, 92 Denny, Betty Clifford, 62 Dentists (dentistry), 226-227, 249 Department of Scientific Temperance Instruction, 305
412
Detweiler, Peter, 292 Diaphragms, 74, 81 Dietary system, Horace Fletcher, 126-127 Dike, Florence Blanchard, 280 Dinwiddie, Edwin C , 28 Diseases (chronic, common, communicable, hereditary, infectious), 168-169,194, 268, 299,302,333, 334-335, 337, 338 Diseases, venereal (sexually transmitted), 319, 320, 345-346 Dispensaries (local clinics), 293, 294,337 "Dispensational" fundamentalism, 138 "Do-everything policy," 363 Doctors of Osteopathy (D.O.s), 241, 242 Dugdale, Richard, 190, 2780 Douglass, Frederick, 351 Dresser, Horatio, 70, 235 Drinking, 60,175, 290 Drugs, 244, 245, 246, 269-270 Drunken (drunkenness, drunkard), 100, 101, 171,291 Dyar, Perle Nora, 196 Eagan, Clara Estelle, 249 Eastern European (Eastern Europe), 100,101, 111-112, 163-164, 181-182; Americans, 258-259; and National Quarantine Act of 1893,229-230 Eaton, Ella Ervilla, 194-195 Eddy, Asa, 106 Edinburgh, Scotland, 81 Edmunds, Mary, 251 Education (educational), 129; Clarence Little's philosophy of, 206; hookworm, 158, 159; programs, 338; tuberculosis, 231, 232. See also Medical education Ehrlich, Paul, 292 Ellis, Havelock, 295 Epidemic, Spanish flu, 169,170 Eugenics, Genetics, and the Family, 172
Index
Eugenics in Race and State, 172 Eugenics Research Association Monograph Series, 120 Europe (European), 9 0 , 1 2 9 , 1 6 3 164; drinking, 100,101 "Evangelicalism," 137-138 Evans, Hiram, 185 Evans, Warren Felt, 212, 235 Examinations, medical (health, physical), periodic/routine/ regular, 124,125-126, 203, 204 Exercise, 221, 256, 257 Factors in the Sex Life of TwentyTwo Hundred Women, 90 Fairchild, Henry P., 10-11 Families (family), 125-126, 291; recording health problems of, 117 "Family Limitations," 295 Far East, opium, 311 Farrand, Livingston, 231 The Fasting Cure, 310 Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America, 315 Feebleminded (feeblemindedness), 109,110,112, 145, 190-191 Fiedler, Audrey, 249 Fischer, Eugene, 202 Flaked corn cereal, 53 Florence, Emma, 145 Fontaine, Tillie, 209 Food(s), 2, 68, 189, 203, 269-271, 349; preservatives, 357 Forbes, Helen, 286 Foreign born, 85 Fosdick, Raymond B., 57 Fournier, Jean-Alfred, 217 Framingham Demonstration, 232 France, 170 Francis Ferdinand, Archduke, 366 Fraternal lodges, 221 Frederick, Julia Marie, 196 Fresh air, 292, 293 Friends. See Quakers Frost, Mary L., 154 Fuller, MetaH., 311 The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth, 137
Index Galton, Francis, 113 Gardiner, Mabel, 41 Genetic(s), 8, 9 , 1 0 , 4 1 , 58, 8 8 , 1 1 8 "Germ p l a s m " ("germ cells"), 1 Germany (German), 1 9 5 , 1 9 7 , 248 Ghana, 104 Gibbons, Abby Hopper, 19 Gibbons, James, Cardinal, 24, 233 Girl(s), 3, 4, 180, 360; M a n n Act of 1910, 210; prostitution, 265, 266; "white slavery," 3 5 5 - 3 5 6 ; working, 98 Glover, George W., 105 Gloyd, Charles, 223 "Gold cure," 191-192 Goldman, Emma, 48 Gomer, Nina, 104 Gonorrhea, 345, 346 Good Health and How We Won It, 310 Graham, Shirley, 104 "Granola," 53 Great Awakenings, 330 Greene, LillieL, 37 G y m n a s i u m s , 256, 257, 258, 299, 300,369 Gymnastics, 257, 299, 300 Gymnastic societies, 142 Hall, Prescott F., 1 6 5 - 1 6 6 H a m p t o n Institute, 350 Happiness as Found in Foreth o ugh t Min us Fearth o ugh t, 12 6 Harding, Warren G., 1 4 1 , 1 8 5 Harriman, E d w a r d H., 117 Harriman, Mrs. E d w a r d H. (Mary), 58, 117, 118, 139 Harrison, Francis, 155 Harvard University, 1 0 7 - 1 0 8 Hawkey, Mae, 148 Hayes, Patrick, 47 Hazard, Margaret, 123 Healing, 1 0 5 , 1 0 6 , 212. See also Mental healing Health boards (departments), 342. See also National health department Health crusades, 336-337 Health-education campaigns, 338
413
Health-reform (clean-living) cycle, p h a s e s of, 3 2 8 - 3 2 9 Healthy school e n v i r o n m e n t , 302 Helicon Hall, 309, 310 H e n d e r s o n , Charles R., 9 Henry P h i p p s Institute for the Study, Prevention, a n d Treatment of Tuberculosis, 133, 253, 2 9 3 294 Henry Street Settlement House, 348,349 Hereditary Genius, 1 1 3 - 1 1 4 Heredity (hereditary), 1 4 5 , 1 9 4 ; A m e r i c a n Breeders Association, 8, 9; eugenics, 88, 1 1 3 , 1 1 4 , 1 1 8 119, 120; and poverty, 247 Heredity in Relation to Eugenics, 88 Hitler, Adolf, 116 Hoffmann, Erich, 292 Holbrook, Martin Luther, 229 Holcombe, William, 235 Holiness (denominations, groups, revivals), 1 3 7 - 1 3 8 Holmes, Samuel J., 160 H o p k i n s , Mary A., 49 H o p k i n s o n , Grace Mellen, 108 Hostility (antagonisms) t o w a r d immigrants, 1 6 4 - 1 6 5 , 234 How to Live, 204 How the Other Half Lives, 247 H o w e , Julia Ward, 224, 361 Howe, William, 21 H o w e l l - B e n n e t Act of 1910, 24 Hughes, T h o m a s , 220 " H u m a n Plant I m p r o v e m e n t Series," 55 Hunt, Leander B., 160 Hygiene, 17, 151, 204, 215; laboratory of social, 2 0 0 - 2 0 1 ; personal, 2 5 1 - 2 5 2 ; racial, 116; school, 2 0 22, 301; sex, 1 1 - 1 3 , 306; social, 2 2 - 2 3 , 5 6 - 5 7 , 90, 280, 2 8 1 , 313, 3 1 7 - 3 2 0 . See also Mental (health, hygiene, etc.) India, 168 Indiana, 110, 111, 307, 308
414
Indiana State Reformatory, 3 0 7 - 3 0 8 Infant mortality, 9 1 , 1 3 7 , 315 Infection (infected), 3 2 1 , 333 Inferior immigrants, 323 Inherited (inheritance), 1 , 1 9 0 , 1 9 1 , 2 1 1 - 2 1 2 ; tuberculosis, 333, 3 3 4 335 Insurance (assurance), 124, 204 International Congress, Tuberculosis, 3 3 5 - 3 3 6 Intoxicating liquors, 352 Jackson, John Collins, 13 James, William, 235 Jepson, Clara Louise, 40 Johns H o p k i n s University, 129, 131,253 Johnson, Beatrice, 207 Journal of the American Medical Association, 14 Journal of Social Biology, 113 Journalists (journalism), 220 Joyce, James, 237 Judson, Mary Lewis, 157 The Jukes, 190 Jukes family, 1 9 0 - 1 9 1 The Jukes in 1915, 109, 191 The Kallikak Family, 190 Keeley, Leslie E., 1 9 1 - 1 9 2 Keeley Institutes, 1 9 1 , 1 9 2 Kellogg, Ella, 364 Kellogg, Vernon, 9 Kellogg, Will Keith (W. K.), 53, 193 Kellon, A n n a Campbell, 358 Kelly, Marguerite, 209 Kimbrough, Mary Craig, 311 King, Delcevare, 12 Klementinovskaya, Zoya, 323 Kloman a n d P h i p p s , 253 Kloman Brothers, 252 Kneeland, George J., 56, 78, 266 Knight, Jessie, 188 Koch, Robert, 179, 332, 335 Kosmak, George, 80 Kress, Daniel Hartman, 141 Ku Klux Klan, 138, 165, 167, 175, 1 9 8 - 1 9 9 , 234, 327, 346
Index Labels, 245 Ladies' Home Journal, 5 1 , 52 Lamarck, Jean-Baptiste, 1 Lamarckian theory, 1, 211 Law enforcement, prohibition, 29 Laws: postal, 83; sterilization, marriage restriction, 111. See also Raines Laws LDS C h u r c h (Mormons), 2 1 5 - 2 1 6 , 216-217 League of W o m e n Voters, 225 Ledyard, Ella Fraser, 301 Lee, Alice Hathaway, 284 Lee, Jonnie, 209 Lee, Robert E., 205 Leeds, Deborah, 26 Leeds, Josiah, 2 6 - 2 7 Ley, Harold, 204 Life i n s u r a n c e . See Insurance Lincoln, A b r a h a m , 1 4 1 , 205 "Liquor p r o b l e m , " 77 Literacy test(s), 1 6 6 - 1 6 7 Livestock, 125 Looking Backwards, 316 Low-protein diet(s), 67, 9 6 - 9 7 , 1 2 2 M a c h i n e - m a d e cigarettes, 71-72 Magazine(s), 220 Maggie, a Girl of the Streets, 247 Mallon, Mary ("Typhoid Mary"), 339-340 M a n n , James R., 155, 210, 270 Margaret Sanger: an Autobiography, 297 Margaret Sanger Research Bureau, 74 Marine Hospital Service, 6 , 1 5 4 , 3 4 2 - 3 4 3 (Services on p . 6, Service elsewhere) Marriage(s), 260, 325; plural, 216 Marriage-restriction laws, 111 Marsh, Grace Adelaide, 126 Masticate (masticating), 1 2 6 , 1 2 8 Maternity Research Council, 75, 81 McClure, S. S., 220 McCubbin, Jessie, 110 McKinley, William, 283 Meat ("flesh"), 96, 122, 344
Index Meat-packing industry, 189 Medcalf, A n n e Ruth, 110 Medical Education in the United States and Canada, 129, 1 3 0 - 1 3 1 Medical education/schools, 15, 128,129,130-131 Medical (health) examinations, periodic/routine. See Examinations, medical Medicine (medical), 1 4 , 1 5 , 1 3 0 , 226 Medicine Lodge, 223 Medicines, 244, 245, 246, 262 Men of the Old Stone Age, 240 Men: c h u r c h , exercise, 221; vice, 236 The Menace of Modern Immigration, 199 Mendel, Gregor, 1, 211 Mental (health, hospitals, hygiene, illness, etc.), 3 9 - 4 0 , 214, 2 2 5 226,253 "Mental a n d physical perfection contests," 125 Mental healing, 6 9 - 7 0 , 212. See also Healing Mentality of the Criminal Women, 200 Mental retardation (mentally retarded, mentally deficient, mental defectives, mentally disabled), 145-146 Mesmer, Franz, 212 Microorganisms, 167 Military, 103, 170, 3 4 5 - 3 4 6 Milk, 198, 2 7 1 , 337 A Mind That Found Itself, 3 9 - 4 0 Moody, Dwight, 98, 359 Moral (education, reform, etc.), 272,273 Moral-education societies (groups), 19 "Morons," 146 Mortality (death) rate: the Irish, 174; Spanish flu, 1 7 0 - 1 7 1 ; tuberculosis, 334 Murphy, Starr, 56 Murray, Margaret James, 352
415
Naismith, James, 150 N a m family, 1 9 0 - 1 9 1 The Nam Family: A Study in Cacogenics, 191 Nation, David, 223 National Association for the A d v a n c e m e n t of Colored People (NAACP), 104 National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis (NASPT), 137, 231 National Association of Colored Physicians, Dentists, a n d Pharmacists, 2 2 6 - 2 2 7 National Birth Control League, 4 8 49,92 National d e p a r t m e n t (board) of health, 6, 18, 45, 79, 154, 226, 268 National health department, 3 4 2 343 "National origins p l a n , " 185 National Vitality: Its Wastes and Conservation, 252 Natural selection, 314 Nazi, 323; race-hygiene program, 202 Negative eugenics, 113 Negro Health and Physique, 103 N e w York City, 76, 7 8 - 7 9 , 80, 236 Niagra Movement, 104 Nonsmokers, 33 Non-white(s), 91 Northern-Eastern E u r o p e a n pattern, drinking, 100, 101 Northern Italians, 175 Norwegian tuberculosis Christmas stamps, 68 Nostrums (patent m e d i c i n e s , proprietary medicines), 244,245, 246 Noyes, Tyrene, 148 Nursing (nurse), 3 4 8 - 3 4 9 Nutrition, 67, 9 5 - 9 7 , 127 Obscenity (obscene), 26, 27, 46, 48, 50; a n d A n t h o n y Comstock, 83, 85; and Mary Dennett, 92, 93; N e w York Society for the Suppression of Vice, 236
416
Ohio, 288 Old-stock Americans, 25 Opiate(s), 1 0 1 , 153, 222, 239 O p i u m den(s), 63 Osborn, Frederick, 120 Osier, William, 2 3 1 , 2 5 3 Outlook, 68 O w e n , Robert L., 226 Paleontology, 240 Palmer, Bartlett Joshua, 66 Palmer, Daniel David, 6 5 - 6 6 Palmer School of Chiropractic, 66 P a m p h l e t s , Prince Morrow, 218 P a n d e m i c , S p a n i s h flu, 1 6 9 , 1 7 1 Parents, tubercular, 196 The Passing of the Great Race, 149 Pasteur, Louis, 167 Patterson, Daniel, 105 Peabody, Ellen, 108 P e n n s y l v a n i a Society for the Prevention of Tuberculosis, 338 Pentecostalism, 138 People, 113 Perry, Lucretia, 241 Phases of health-reform (cleanliving) cycle, 3 2 8 - 3 2 9 The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study, 1 0 2 - 1 0 3 Philanthropist (American Bulletin), 19 P h i l a n t h r o p y (philanthropic, philanthropist), 281 P h i p p s Institute. See Henry P h i p p s Institute Phthisis, 333, 335 Physical Culture Publishing Company, 255 Physicians: a n d birth control, 296, 297, 325; "irregular," 130; orthodox allopathic/regular/ traditional/M.D.s, 14, 15, 66, 130, 1 3 1 , 2 4 1 , 242; p u b l i c health, 17; schools, 2 1 - 2 2 ; Society for Sanitory a n d Moral Prophylaxis, 320-321 Physician-to-population ratio, 131 Pipes, 331
Index Plague, 64, 168, 169 Plain Facts for Old and Young, 194 P l a n n e d P a r e n t h o o d Federation of America, 7, 8, 75 Plant breeding, 5 4 - 5 5 Playgrounds, 151 Pledge, abstinence, 205 Plural marriages (polygamy), 216 P o i s o n o u s (poisons), 279, 357 "Poison s q u a d , " 271 Political a n d civil rights, 351 Political corruption a n d saloons, 291 Political pressure, first group, 288 Pollution, 197, 198 Polygamy (plural marriages), 216 T h e poor, 247, 265; a n d tuberculosis, 1 3 2 , 1 3 3 Poor s o u t h e r n w h i t e s (crackers), 157 Popular Science Monthly, 298 "Positive eugenics," 113 Post, Charles W., 53 Postal laws (legislation), 83 P o s t u m Cereal Company, 53 Potter, Mary, 214 Pressure politics, 353 Prevention, 1 5 8 , 1 5 9 Pritchett, Henry S., 129 Privies, 159 Prohibition at Its Worst, 122 Proprietary m e d i c i n e s (nostrums, patent medicines), 244, 245, 246 Prostitution in Europe, 129 Psychology (psychological), 145, 146 Public Health a n d Marine Hospital Service, 343 Public health commission, N e w York state, 1913, 136 Public health nursing, 348, 349 Quakers (Friends), 1 4 5 , 1 7 9 , 1 8 0 Q u a r a n t i n e (quarantining, quarantined), 164, 2 2 9 - 2 3 0 Quimby, P h i n e a s Parkhurst, 70, 105,212,235 Quota system, 185
Index Race (racial), 1 1 3 , 1 4 9 , 194 Race Improvement in the United States, 255 Racial-hygiene program, Hitler's Germany, 116 Raines Law hotels, 78 "Raines Laws," 76 A Rational Plan for the Treatment of Women Convicted in the Courts of New York City, 90 Recreation (recreational), 2 9 1 , 3 1 7 318 Red Cross, 6 8 - 6 9 Reed, David, 1 8 2 - 1 8 3 , 1 8 5 Reformatory for w o m e n at Bedford Hills, 200 Reform eras, 73 Reformers, 7 3 - 7 4 Reformers, t e m p e r a n c e , 2 3 9 - 3 3 0 Religions (religious), 223, 235, 266, 267, 330; German immigrants, 142; Jews, 181 Rentoul, Robert, 2 7 7 - 2 7 8 Research, 250 Research Committee, of the Committee of Fourteen, 78 Rest, 292, 293 "Revivalism" (revivals, revivalists), 137-138,330 Revivals: Billy S u n d a y and, 3 2 6 327 Revolt against Civilization: The Menace of the Underman, 323 Reynolds, Charles, 23, 24 Rice, Judith Anna, 262 Richardson, Frances M., 45 Riis, Jacob, 247 The Rising Tide of Color against White-World-Supremacy, 322323 Roe, Clifford G., 24, 233 Rogers, Frances Strong, 179 Russell, John, 227 Russian, 1 8 1 - 1 8 2 , 2 5 8 - 2 5 9 Saloon-smashing: Carry Nation and, 223 Sanger, William, 295, 297
417
Sanitarium, 3 7 - 3 8 ; 1 9 2 - 1 9 3 Sanitation conditions, rural, 287 "San," 1 9 2 - 1 9 3 Saranac Lake, 332, 333 S c h a u d i n n , Fritz, 292 School-based alcohol education, 303,304 Schools: h e a l t h / h y g i e n e program/ education, 2 0 - 2 2 , 215, 3 0 1 - 3 0 3 ; healthy e n v i r o n m e n t , 302; medical, 15; osteopathic, 2 4 1 , 242; physical education/athletics, 16, 257, 258, 300; temperance instruction in, 1 6 1 , 305 Science, 6; sanitary, 299 Science, 6 Scientific Temperance Association, 303-304 Scientific Temperance Journal, 304 Scientists (scientific), 11 Self-supporting w o m e n , 362 Seligman, E d w i n R. A., 76 Seventh-Day Adventist C h u r c h (Adventists), 37, 38, 192, 193 Sex education, y o u n g a d u l t s / children, 93 Sex hygiene, 306, 307 "The Sex Side of Life," 93 Sexuality (sex, sexual), 18, 57, 209, 274, 317, 318; single s t a n d a r d of, 354,355 Sexually transmitted (venereal) diseases, 319, 320, 3 4 5 - 3 4 6 Shaffer, A n n e C , 254 Sharp, Lillian, 308 Shaw, A n n a Howard, 224 Shaw, George Bernard, 84 Sherbon, Florence Brown, 125 S i m m o n s , Mary, 186 S i m m o n s , William Joseph, 1 9 8 , 1 9 9 Simon, Theodore, 145 Simons, R o s a m u n d , 286 Single standard of sexuality, 354, 355 Skene, Alexander J. C , 94 Slaughter, Lucy, 219 Slee, James Noah Henry, 7, 8, 74, 296
418
Slums, 334 Smallpox, 168 Smith, F a n n i e N . , 352 Smith, Jennie S., 183 Smith, Joseph, 215, 216 Smith, Stephen, 17 Smoking (smoke, smoking cure, smokers), 3 1 - 3 4 , 7 1 , 72, 1 4 1 , 188,249 Social creed of the c h u r c h e s , 3 1 5 316 Social Diseases and Marriage: Social Prophylaxis, 218 The Social Evil; with Special Reference to Conditions Existing in the City of New York, 76 Social Evil in New York City: A Study of Law Enfore em ent, 78 Socialism (socialist), 189, 2 1 1 , 295, 309,316 Social Salvation, 144 Society for Study of Social Biology, 10, 11 Society to Prevent Syphilis a n d Gonorrhea, 319 Sociology, 285 Somerset, Lady Henry, 360 Soper, George, 339 The Souls of Black Folk, 103 South, American, 157, 158 S o u t h e r n E u r o p e a n (Europe), 1 1 1 112, 163-164; pattern, drinking, 100 Southern health programs, 351 Southern Italians, 175 Spain, 170 " S p a n i s h flu" ("the S p a n i s h Lady"), 1 7 0 , 1 7 1 Spear, Mary Leonora, 249 Spencer, Herbert, 314 "Spinal adjustment," 65 Spirits, 97, 99 Stanford University, 187, 259 Stankovitch, Betty, 260 Stanley, Mary B., 184 Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 224, 361 State Charities Aid Association, 136
Index States: and Eighteenth A m e n d ment, 107; a n d marriage-restriction laws, and sterilization laws, 111; a n d prohibition, 28, 29, 30, 228 Statistical studies, dangers of alcohol, 304 Statistics, tuberculosis, 1850, 334 Stead, William, 4 Steadwell, B. Samuel, 20, 274 Sterilization (sterilize), 1 1 , 1 0 9 , 1 1 0 , 1 1 0 - 1 1 1 , 1 4 8 ; a n d Harry Laughlin, 2 0 1 - 2 0 2 ; a n d Harry Sharp, 3 0 7 - 3 0 8 ; H u m a n Betterm e n t F o u n d a t i o n , 160; Kallikak, Jukes, and N a m families, 191; and Paul Popenoe, 260; in Vermont, 250, 251 Stevens, Katherine Mary, 46 Stevens, Lillian M. N., 365 Stiles, Charles Wardel, 1 5 7 , 1 5 8 Still, A n d r e w Taylor, 241 Stoddard, Cora Frances, 3 0 3 - 3 0 4 Stone, Abraham, 325 Stone, Ella J., 134 Stone, Lucy, 224, 361 Students, college, 399 Sumner, J o h n S . , 237 Sweet, E m m a L., 125 Sylvia's Marriage, 310 S y m p o s i u m (symposia), The Arena, 3 4 - 3 5 Syphilis, 217, 218, 292, 312, 313, 3 1 9 , 3 3 5 , 3 4 5 , 346 Taft, William H o w a r d , 204, 308, 352 Taxes on cigarettes, 71 Tea, 108 Teachers, physical education, 16, 17 Temperance Education F o u n d a t i o n , 304 Tenement(s), 247, 348 T h o m p s o n , Helen A., 327 Toxicology, 67 Traits, hereditary, 1 1 8 - 1 1 9 Trail, Russell, 192
Index Trevitt, Lillian M., 184 Trudeau, Henry, 79 Truslow, Sarah, 95 Tschermak, Erich von, 211 "Tuskegee Movable School," 351 Tuskegee Normal a n d Industrial Institute, 350 Twain, Mark, 7 0 - 7 1 Typhoid (fever; t y p h u s ) , 1 6 4 , 1 6 8 , 1 6 9 , 2 1 3 , 229, 3 3 9 - 3 4 0 The "Unfit," 1 0 9 , 1 1 0 , 315 The Union, 3 6 3 , 3 6 4 , 365 U n i o n Iron Mills, 253 University of Michigan, 207 Upper-middle-class w o m e n , 365 Urban, 2 6 5 , 2 6 6 U.S. Army, 197, 313 U.S. Congress: prohibition, 29; Volstead Act, 346 U.S. Post Office, 236, 237 U.S. v. One Package, 325 Utah,216 Vaccines (vaccinations), 1 6 7 , 1 6 8 Vasectomy, 1 1 0 - 1 1 1 , 307 Vermont Eugenics Survey, 250 Vertebra(l), 65, 66 Vetter, Charlotte, 150 Vice, 83, 210, 2 3 6 - 2 3 7 , 261 Vigilance, 22, 23, 2 3 - 2 4 , 2 3 2 - 2 3 3 , 280 Virginity, 274 Volstead, A n d r e w N., 346 Voluntary agencies, 3 3 7 - 3 3 8 Voluntary P a r e n t h o o d League, 92 Wall Street crash, 1929, 123 Warburg, Paul, 56 Ward, Robert DeCourcy, 165 "Warfare Against C o n s u m p t i o n , " 82 Wassermann, August von, 292
419
Waters, Elizabeth, 55 Watts, Mary, 125 Webb, A n n e B., 181 Weidensall, Jean, 200 W e i s m a n n , August, 1 Welch, William H., 133, 225, 231 Weld, Cora, 248 Westerville, Ohio, 1 3 - 1 4 , 28, 29 "Wheelerism," 353 White, Ellen, 192 White(s), 2 - 3 , 85, 9 1 , 3 5 1 , 352; poor southern, 157 White Haven Sanatorium, 133 Whitney, Leon F , 11 Williams, Lizzie, 178 Williams, Michael, 310 Williamson, Mary, 209 Willis, Mary Elizabeth Hard, 311 Wilson, Woodrow, 147, 155, 166, 2 0 3 , 3 4 6 , 366 Wittenmyer, A n n i e , 363 W o m e n (woman), 34, 90, 94; a n d bicycle, 4 3 - 4 4 ; a n d c h u r c h , 220; enfranchising/enfranchisement, 224, 2 3 7 - 2 3 8 ; a n d Frances Willard, 360; M a n n Act of 1910, 210; a n d Margaret Sanger, 295, 296; a n d Paul P o p e n o e , 261; prostitution, 78, 265, 266; reformatory for, 200; selfsupporting, 362; a n d sex education, 3 0 6 - 3 0 7 ; a n d t e m p e r a n c e m o v e m e n t , 328; working, 98 W o m e n of the Ku Klux Klan, 199 Woman Rebel, 295 Woman's Temperance Publishing Association, 341 Yellow fever e p i d e m i c , 1878, 342 Young, Brigham, 216 Youth. See Children Zoology, 250
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Ruth Clifford Engs is Professor of Applied Health Science at Indiana University, Bloomington. She is the author of several books, including Controversies in the Addiction Field (1989) and Clean Living Movements: American Cycles of Health Reform (Praeger 2000).