Health, Medicine, and Power in the Salt Lake Valley, Utah
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HEALTH, MEDICINE, AND POWER IN THE SALT LAKE VALLEY, UTAH, 1869-1945 by Benjamin Michael Cater A dissertation submitted to the faculty of The University of Utah in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of History The University of Utah December 2012 Copyright © Benjamin Michael Cater 2012 All Rights Reserved The University of Utah Graduate School STATEMENT OF DISSERTATION APPROVAL The dissertation of Benjamin Michael Cater has been approved by the following supervisory committee members: W. Paul Reeve , Chair 8/13/2012 Date Approved Eric Hinderaker , Member 8/13/2012 Date Approved Matthew Basso , Member 8/13/2012 Date Approved Rebecca Horn , Member 8/13/2012 Date Approved Stephen Tatum , Member 8/13/2012 Date Approved and by Isabel Moreira , Chair of the Department of History and by Charles A. Wight, Dean of The Graduate School. ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the social history of medicine in the Salt Lake Valley, Utah, from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. It contends that race and class played disproportionate roles in the creation and evolution of Progressive Era health reforms. White middle-class residents embraced new scientific theories about physical health to bring about much needed programs in public sanitation and vaccination, hospital care, welfare services for the poor, and workplace safety legislation—all of which became necessary as Utah experienced increased immigration, industrialization, and urbanization at the turn of the century. Although these programs sometimes became embroiled in religious disputes between Mormons (members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) and non-Mormon “gentiles,” after Utah statehood in 1896 and efforts by Mormons to Americanize, religious tension diminished to allow powerful whites to implement and unequally benefit from these programs. As a result, affluent Mormons and gentiles enjoyed increased opportunities to improve the cleanliness and health of their bodies, living and working spaces, and to claim membership in the upstanding white American middle-class. By virtue of their racial, ethnic, and socio-economic status, however, poor non-white immigrants from southern and eastern Europe, Asia, Latin America, and beyond suffered decreased opportunities to do the same. They experienced higher rates of contagious and infectious disease, accidents and injuries, poor living and working conditions, and accusations of their inability or unwillingness to assimilate into the healthy national mainstream. Yet they resisted inequality through a variety of means, including building hospitals, establishing mutual aid programs, practicing Western medicine, and embracing folk cures. Progressive middle-class whites observed, overlooked, or diminished the significance of these activities to grade and differentiate the laboring poor. White British miners seemed to be more committed to health and progress than did Greek, Italian, Chinese, and Mexican migrants, while Japanese residents appeared to be the cleanest, most American, and acceptable non-whites, until the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. After World War II, health inequality continued to drive many poor non-whites from Utah and allow middle-class whites to retain control over medicine, health, and power in the Salt Lake Valley. iv To Dr. Michael and Rose Cater, and Samuel and Sheila Ward, who helped make my years in graduate school both possible and wonderful. TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT………….....................................................................................iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS................................................................................vii Chapters INTRODUCTION: AN UNHEALTHY PRECENT: LEPROSY IN TOOELE COUNTY…………………………………………………………...1 1: “THE TAIL END AND CESSPOOL OF OUR CITY”………………………..26 2: “AT THE BIDDING OF GENTILE DOCTORS AND THEIR FOLLOWERS”……………………………………………………………86 3: INSTITUTIONALIZING INEQUALITY IN THE “HOUSE OF GOD”……………………………………………………………….134 4: “YOU CAN BE POOR, BUT YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE DIRTY”…………………………………………………………………………….196 5: THE IMAGE, STATUS, AND HEALTH OF THE JAPANESE DURING WARTIME……………………………………………….277 CONCLUSION: CHANGING TIMES: SWINE FLU IN THE SALT LAKE VALLEY, 1976……………………………………………….342 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY...........................................................................................356 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Many institutions and individuals supported this project from beginning to end. I would like to thank the History Department at Point Loma Nazarene University for originally inspiring my historical interests, and Bill Wood and Rick Kennedy in particular for their generous and stimulating friendship. Harry Fritz and Dan Flores helped shape my intellectual pursuits at the University of Montana, while W. Paul Reeve, Eric Hinderaker, Matthew Basso, Rebecca Horn, and Stephen Tatum formed an attentive and patient dissertation committee at the University of Utah. Paul Reeve remained an invaluable dissertation advisor whose questions and insights helped clarify and improve my arguments. Thank you, Paul. The Department of History provided several research grants as well as the Simmons Media Fellowship that allowed me to work on my dissertation without having to teach during my two years of research and writing. The American West Center, under the direction of Matthew Basso, granted me the Floyd O'Neil Scholarship in Western American Studies. Kent Powell, the former editor of the Utah Historical Quarterly, took an early interest in my work and published my initial findings on Utah’s hospitals, which formed the backbone of Chapter 3. First Presbyterian Church, Salt Lake City, provided me with several grants, while Dr. Frederick Quinn, an Episcopal priest and a Ph.D. in history, turned my attention to Episcopal missionary bishop Daniel Sylvester Tuttle. Tom Ward, the deputy director of public works for Salt Lake City (and my brother-in- law), allowed me to access valuable technical information on municipal sewers and water mains, and Silvia Benassi worked to translate a turn-of-the-century Italian ledger book. I would also like to thank the staffs at the following institutions who helped me locate and sometimes discover vital research materials: the University of Utah’s J. Willard Marriott Library Special Collections (especially, Paul Mogren, Karen Carver, Betsey Welland, and Elizabeth Rogers), and the Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library; Utah State University’s Merill-Cazier Library, and Brigham Young University’s Harold B. Lee Library; the Utah State Historical Society (especially Kent Powell, Heidi Orchard, and Greg Walz), the Salt Lake County Archives (Jenel Cope), the Salt Lake City Recorder’s Office, the Salt Lake City Main Public Library, the Park City Museum, the Rockefeller Archive Center, the Archives of the Catholic Church in Utah (Gary Topping), and the Union Pacific Railroad Museum in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Finally, my graduate school experience would have been much less enjoyable without the friendships of Rob Bauer, Beth and Cody Lillstrom, Travis and the Koch family, the Marsh family, Ron and Carolyn Mackenzie (and the congregation of Garden City Orthodox Presbyterian Church), Jerry and Lusie Weber, Loretta Martinez, Rob Bonas, Bryan and Graham Vincent, Jenice Jensen, the Hunt family, Dave and Jen Koop, and the members of First Presbyterian Church, Salt Lake City. The Cater and Ward families, as well as the Hasegawas, Burges, DeDios, Beauchaines, Grays, and Myers provided incalculable social and financial support that humbled me, and which I cannot viii repay. Most importantly, Anne, Vera, Eden, and Boone afforded me the love, companionship, and time needed to complete this journey. Returning home from the archives, or walking upstairs after long hours of reading and writing in the basement, often proved to be the highlight of my day. ix INTRODUCTION: AN UHEALTHY PRECEDENT: LEPROSY IN TOOELE COUNTY On Thursday, June 4, 1896, news that would arouse fear and suspicion among the residents of the Salt Lake Valley, Utah, appeared on the second-to-last page of the Salt Lake Tribune. A column titled, “LEPROSY IN TOOELE COUNTY,” identified the site of the outbreak as Tooele’s Polynesian settlement, Iosepa. Three Hawaiians, or kanakas, contracted the disease, and threatened to infect more islanders, as well as surrounding farmers and ranchers, if preventative measures were not taken. The Tribune, a Catholic-owned newspaper, reported that residents near the settlement petitioned the county court to quarantine Iosepa, and to erect isolation buildings for the “lepers.” At least one businessman from Salt Lake City traveled to support the petition. In response, the court appointed a three-man committee comprised of doctor F. M. Davis, settlement manager Harvey Cluff, and nearby resident Samuel Woolley to investigate the matter.1 Two weeks later, the Salt Lake Herald, a newspaper whose publishers served as elders in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (L.D.S. Church, or the Mormons), printed a full-page article supporting and elaborating on the Tribune’s coverage. Pitying the “poor creatures” at Iosepa, the article 1 Salt Lake Tribune, June 4, 1896. asserted that, unlike “white people,” “the race to which the Kanakas belong [to] is predisposed” to leprosy. These non-whites possessed a “taint in their blood,” and spread leprotic bacteria through engaging in unsanitary practices, such as bathing in culinary water and “living together” in squalid homes. They lacked modern