Marquette University e-Publications@Marquette Dissertations (2009 -) Dissertations, Theses, and Professional Projects What Lies Beneath: Uncovering the Health of Milwaukee's People, 1880-1929 Brigitte Marina Charaus Marquette University Recommended Citation Charaus, Brigitte Marina, "What Lies Beneath: Uncovering the Health of Milwaukee's People, 1880-1929" (2010). Dissertations (2009 -). Paper 68. http://epublications.marquette.edu/dissertations_mu/68 WHAT LIES BENEATH; UNCOVERING THE HEALTH OF MILWAUKEE’S PEOPLE, 1880-1929 by Brigitte M. Charaus, B.A., M.A. A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School, Marquette University, in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Milwaukee, Wisconsin December 2010 ABSTRACT WHAT LIES BENEATH; UNCOVERING THE HEALTH OF MILWAUKEE’S PEOPLE, 1880-1929 Brigitte M. Charaus, B.A., M.A. Marquette University, 2010 The true measure of a city's health is the health of its people. To truly understand how Milwaukee came to be known as the “healthiest city” in 1930, one must examine the health needs of common Milwaukeeans from 1880 to 1929. This study seeks to complement Judith Leavitt's pioneering work on public health in Milwaukee by presenting a picture, not of the politics of health reform, but of the personal side of health in the city. Through an extensive examination of records including, but not limited to, coroner's reports, hospital records, personal correspondence, newspapers, cemetery data, and institutional records, a picture of the overall health of the city's population emerges. These records speak of the urban environment and its effects on everyday people. Communicable diseases, tragic accidents, suicides, physical examinations, venereal diseases, housing problems, and occupational hazards are only a portion of the health story that Milwaukee created at the turn of the last century. While political and institutional histories are essential, the story told here focuses on the people of Milwaukee and their experiences. While the city would dramatically grow and change during the twentieth century, its people remained its most valuable asset. As a city initially defined by German, Polish, and Italian immigrants, today Milwaukee has significant Hispanic and Hmong communities. The immigrant groups have changed but the challenges of living in the urban environment remain the same. The health of the city as a whole, as well as of its everyday citizens, is a strong indicator of its general economic, social, and physical health. Sick citizens create a sick city, both on a biologic level and an economic level. By bettering their individual health, the health of the overall city improves. The lessons and challenges that Milwaukeeans faced in the early twentieth century provide insight and models for Milwaukeeans of the twenty-first century. While breweries will make Milwaukee famous, it is her citizenry that makes the city prosper. i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Brigitte M. Charaus, B.A., M.A. I would first like to thank the readers and members of my doctoral committee: Dr. Patrick Carey, Fr. Steven Avella, Dr. James Marten and Dr. Thomas Jablonsky. Without your assistance today would not be possible. I would like to especially thank Dr. Marten and Fr. Avella with whom I have worked with on projects outside of the dissertation. Your mentoring, encouragement, senses of humor, and friendship have been invaluable to me as a graduate student and history scholar. My most sincere and heartfelt gratitude is also due to my dissertation advisor, Dr. Thomas Jablonsky. To a lone young woman amidst your male advisees you provided opportunities for me to prove myself as a student, scholar, writer, and researcher. Thank you for your countless hours of help, honest opinions, tough editorial advice, lengthy chats, and (hopefully) well-earned praise. Thank you for being everything your advisor was not. Thank you also to my fellow graduate students and dear friends: Jodi and John Eastberg, Julie Tatlock, Wayne Riggs, Daryl Webb, John McCarthy, Christopher Miller, Kathy and Scott Baker, Berend Ozceri, Shannon Segers, and many others too numerous to mention. You have made this long journey more bearable with your advice, comradeship, critiques, bowling leagues, and rants at baseball commissioners. It is wonderful to have so many with whom one can share the eccentrics of life and history. To my family: Mom, Oma, Dad, and Eugene. I know that without your love and support this dream would have never been realized. Thank you for believing in me when ii I did not believe in myself and for encouraging not only my love of history, but of this strange sort of history. Thank you for being wonderfully understanding as I talked long hours of death, bones, cemeteries, disease, and tragic stories from Milwaukee's past. I am fortunate to have so willing an audience for such dark topics. Lastly, thank you to those who were buried at the Milwaukee County Poor House Cemetery. It was your stories that started me on this journey. Thank you to Dr. Norman Sullivan in Anthropology for offering me a chance to work on this collection that sparked my interest in health, disease, and Milwaukee’s poor. The legacy of those individuals, and the stories the bones and records told, are a permanent part of this historian and the future stories I have yet to tell. TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS................................................................................................. i LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................................... vii CHAPTERS I. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................... 1 A. BACKGROUND.................................................................................... 3 B. HEALTH AND THE CITY ................................................................... 7 II. MILWAUKEE’S WOMEN ............................................................................. 22 A. INTRODUCTION................................................................................ 22 B. PREGNANCY AND CHILDBIRTH................................................... 23 Conflict Between Obstetricians and Midwives ........................... 29 Puerperal Fever & Problems with Delivery................................. 35 Mortality ...................................................................................... 40 C. CONTRACEPTION............................................................................. 44 D. ABORTION ......................................................................................... 50 E. MORALITY AND WOMEN’S HEALTH .......................................... 56 The Girl Astray – Illegitimacy & Infanticide .............................. 57 F. EUGENICS........................................................................................... 62 G. VENEREAL DISEASE........................................................................ 69 Gonorrhea .................................................................................... 77 Syphilis ........................................................................................ 79 H. PROSTITUTION ................................................................................. 86 iv I. CONCLUSION ..................................................................................... 93 III. CHILDREN OF MILWAUKEE..................................................................... 95 A. INTRODUCTION................................................................................ 95 B. THE DANGERS OF CHILDHOOD.................................................... 98 Infant Mortality............................................................................ 98 C. THE DANGERS OF BIRTH.............................................................. 103 Infanticide .................................................................................. 106 D. SAFETY............................................................................................. 108 E. COMMUNICABLE DISEASE.......................................................... 114 Smallpox .................................................................................... 115 Diphtheria .................................................................................. 118 Isolation and Examination ......................................................... 121 F. MAKING BETTER MILWAUKEEANS—REFORM, EUGENICS, AND IMPROVING THE LIVES OF THE SMALLEST MILWAUKEEANS................................................................................ 132 Institutions ................................................................................. 133 General Care .............................................................................. 135 Better Foods – Breast Milk, Artificial Feeding, and Safe Food 138 Local Agents of the Eugenics Movement.................................. 148 G. VENEREAL DISEASE...................................................................... 155 H. CONCLUSION .................................................................................. 160 IV. MILWAUKEE MEN .................................................................................... 162 A. INTRODUCTION.............................................................................. 162 v B. DANGERS OF THE WORKPLACE ................................................ 163 Industrial Health .......................................................................