Sanitation, Medicine, and the Child Study Movement

Since the mid-1800s, children’s bodies have increasingly become spaces for medical intervention

and scientific study.

SANITATION

Why was this an issue now?

Group Work: American Public Health Association

• What causes for child mortality are put forward?

• What solutions are suggested?• Did anything in this document surprise you?

City Sanitation

• In 1864 New York City conducted its first sanitation study and found “dark, contracted, ill-constructed, badly ventilated and disgusting filthy housing.”

• In 1881 New York City created its first Department of Sanitation to clean the streets and improve public health.

Ann Jarvis

• Founded “Mothers’ Day Work Clubs” in 1858 to help mothers improve sanitation

• Gave lectures such as “The Great Value of Hygiene for Women and Children”

Hull House

How might declining child mortality change society’s conception of childhood?

Uneven Declines

The Child Study Movement

• “It sometimes seemed as if parents regarded the nascent stages of childhood as a necessary evil which must be accepted with what grace they could. Therefore the gradual realization of what infancy and childhood really were, and the new appreciation of the fact that children’s nature and needs should be normative and determine their treatment in both the home and school, came almost like a new gospel. ~ G. Stanley Hall

• Child Study Association of America, established 1888

What was new about this?

The Content’s of Children’s Minds When Entering School

• What was Hall studying?• What were his findings? • Did you notice anything that

surprised you?

APPLYING SCIENCE TO CHILDREN

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NerS17sC0Bg

MEDICINE & DISEASE

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bws4KI2u6tk

Eliminating Childhood Diseases

• Measles• Mumps• Chicken Pox

Lead Paint

What about today?

What medical threats do children face? What scientific questions about

children do people grapple with?

Autism

Allergies & Asthma

ADD/ADHD

Increased Opposition to Vaccinations

Increased Opposition to Organics & Genetically Modified Food

Pushing back against the declension narrative