The Tumultuous Nature of American Public Health at the Grassroots Level During a Transitional Decade: Wheeling, West Virginia, 1880-1890
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Date
2011
Authors
Ebeling, Elan
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
The standard narrative on public health posits a transition in most American cities during the final third of the nineteenth century from politicized, ad hoc, and sanitation-based responses to professionalized, institutionalized, and bacteriological-based public health. While that transition certainly did take place, it did not take place smoothly or instantaneously, and many American cities went through periods of adjustment that few scholars have addressed. This essay examines the realities of how public health functioned on the ground during this formative and transitional era by looking at the town of Wheeling, West Virginia during the decade of the 1880s.
Description
Submitted to the Undergraduate Library Research Award scholarship competition: 2011-2012. 158 p.