Foreign Threats in the City

2. Foreign Threats in the City Industrial Revolution Sanitation Issues and Reform Progressive Era Health Reform Movements Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement Tuberculosis and the Sanatorium – Fresh Air Movement Social Control Anti-Immigration Sentiment – links to Social Darwinism Eugenics Typhoid Mary and Increasing Power of Public Health Departments

3. What is the Industrial Revolution? • A shift away from agriculture as the main way of accumulating human wealth towards the production of manufactured goods in factories. • Human labour aided or replaced by the labour of machines. • The harnessing of energy locked in fossil fuels - first coal, then oil and gas.

4. Rapid Growth of Cities • Canadian boom years – 1901-1911 • population of Montreal increased 49%, Toronto increased 58%, settling the west: Winnipeg 224%, Edmonton 216%, Calgary 570%, and Vancouver 324% • 1800 - 6% of US Pop lived in cities and 85-90% of the population was engaged in agriculture • 1899 - 40% Pop lived in city and 50% engaged in agriculture   • In Canada: 1871 – 18.3% of people lived in cities or towns, 1921 – 47.4%

5. Chicago 1840 - Chicago was the 92nd most populous city in the United States. 1860 – 9th most populous city in the country. 1870 -1900 - Chicago grew from a city of 299,000 to nearly 1.7 million, the fastest-growing city ever at the time.

6. Immigration Statistics • By 1867 over 80% of Canadian immigrants arrived via steam ship. • In the 1880s, there were 5 million immigrants to the U.S. • 1900-1910 – there were 9 million new Americans • 1913 – 400, 000 new immigrants to Canada – many more in the years directly before and after.

7. Drawing Class and Race Lines North End of Winnipeg – working class poor Africville, Halifax – African Canadian community 1921 - Montreal – 20% infant mortality in poor working class neighbourhoods; 6% in wealthy areas, i.e. Westmount Tenement Houses

8. Poor sanitation as a sign of Laissez-Faire Capitalism’s FAILINGS Newark, New Jersey

9. Newark Sewer System • Drainage of sewage clearly a problem in 1850s • Effective sewage system not in place until 1890s • 40 years of stink! • By 1858, the city had built only 4 ½ miles of sewers; by 1870, only 12 miles. • People did not want to pay with taxes • Miasma theory was a stumbling block

10. Progressive Era Social Reform Movement People are disgusted with the excesses of capitalism Canadians and Americans Led by the middle classes Lots of middle class women Public health and sanitation reform efforts are central

11. C.J. Fagan, BC Physician “In an age of infidelity, [tuberculosis is] man’s betrayal of his fellow men, of those who in submerged masses lie prone and helpless beneath the chariot wheels of power, luxury, and greed.”

12. What is Social Control?

13. Social Control Social control means control of individual behaviour by society, and that control of social institutions should be in the interest and welfare of the whole society. Some warnings and directions of prohibited activities are an example of social control. Examples of groups that exercise this kind of influence: family, trade unions, churches, the state, schools, neighbourhoods, clubs, religious groups.

14. The New Scientific Racism Social Darwinism

15. "An enduring commonwealth must of necessity guard rigidly the health of its citizens and protect itself against undesirable additions from without .... It can be truthfully said that the dregs and off-scouring of foreign lands, the undesirables of whom their own nations are only too eager to purge themselves, come in hosts to our shores. The policy of those advocating free immigration would make this country in effect the dumping ground of the world.“  — William Williams, two-term Commissioner of Immigration at Ellis Island who helped persuade Congress to expand the list of 17 medical exclusions to include varicose veins and a catch-all condition called "poor physique." 

16. "We cannot have too much immigration of the right kind, and we should have none at all of the wrong kind. The need is to devise some system by which undesirable immigrants shall be kept out entirely, while desirable immigrants are properly distributed throughout the country." President Theodore Roosevelt's response to the spike in immigration in 1907 when a record number of one million immigrants landed at Ellis Island.

17. Power of the Public Health Dept. Typhoid Mark, aka. Mary Mallon (1869-1938) First known healthy carrier of Typhoid As a cook, known to have infected 53 people (6 different households in 7 years) 1907-New York City Health Department put her in forced quarantine for 3 years Freed 1910 on the condition that she not get work as a cook – worked instead as a laundress. Due to low wages, decided to become a cook again (under pseudonym) and infected 25 people in 1915 Tracked down again by NY Public Health officials and sent back to North Brother Island quarantine. Remained in quarantine until she died in 1938 – 18 years.

18. Continued Relevance of Typhoid Mary • Do we practice quarantine? • Do we make vaccination mandatory? • Is this a violation of someone’s rights? • How do we balance the desire to protect civil liberties with protecting the public’s health? • Is it possible to protect public health without threatening the economic security of people who pose a threat to public health? (Rats in Chinatown, Infectious disease sufferer [SARS, H1N1] in quarantine?)