The Healthiest City: Milwaukee and the Politics of Health Reform

CHAPTER SIX- The Volunteers

CHAPTER SIX The Volunteers During the nineteenth century, while the health department attacked the major public health problems of infectious diseases, poor sanitation, and tainted food, individual Milwaukeeans continued to face health crises of smaller proportions . When they fell sick, many residents turned not to the health department but to private associations, which grew in number toward the end of the century. Private philanthropy, by responding to the immediate needs of individuals, filled an important gap in municipal health services. With most physicians busy in their own practices and the health department concerned mainly with improving the environment and preventing epidemic disaster , those Milwaukeeans who could not afford the former and could not wait for the beneficial results of the latter relied on a vast array of private endeavors. In addition to providing free services for the sick, many agencies, either in conjunction with the health department or alone, emphasized preventive measures to keep the well healthy. Some people from the educated upper half of the social strata tried to help the poor and uneducated, whose lives were burdened by physical hardships and bad health. Through an active club network, leisured women learned about the adverse social conditions in the city and initiated programs to eliminate some of the causes and effects of poverty. Settlement houses organized clubs, classes, and clinics to serve the growing needs of the urban poor. 190 Copyrighted Material THE VOLUNTEERS Churches provided health and social services for their needy members. Civic-betterment clubs helped to bring order to the city, which was increasingly overwhelmed by expanding population and rapid industrialization. Medical societies, too, participated in private efforts to improve the public health, volunteering their members to serve on medical boards of numerous benevolent institutions. Private organizations prospered in part because of the internal excitement they generated among their workers. The sight of scrawny, wan children filling out and growing rosy after a summer of good food and fresh air energized many volunteers to continue their labors. The voluntary associations also grew because their members, in addition to providing benefits for the poor, gained something themselves by their participation. German-Jewish residents in Milwaukee established the Hebrew ReliefSociety partly out of compassion for their central European brethren but also in the hope that the habits and appearance of the newcomers could be changed before they provoked an anti-semitic reaction. l Civic organizations supported urban cleanups and programs to improve citizen health, in part because an unhealthy city and unhealthy workers were bad for business , hampered city growth, and discouraged new enterprises . Many women found health reform an acceptable route to expanding their horizons beyond the home. Thus a combination of self-interest and altruism fueled most private participation in public health activities. The early private agencies such as the Daughters ofCharity , which opened Milwaukee's first hospital in 1848, worked largely alone. But as voluntary organizations proliferated toward the end of the nineteenth century, many health workers found that their efforts could be more effective if united with those of other agencies. Various Milwaukee I Ann Shirley Waligorski, "Social Action and Women: The Experience of Lizzie Black Kander," unpublished M.A. thesis, University of Wisconsin , 1970, pp. 19-23. 191 Copyrighted Material THE VOLUNTEERS charities and service organizations joined together under umbrella organizations such as Associated Charities and Central Council of Social Agencies to strengthen their ability to improve people's lives. But even these amalgamations proved unable to meet many of the threats to urban health. By the first decades ofthe twentieth century some voluntary agencies sought support from local government to bolster their programs and to provide central coordination for their efforts. Likewise, the city health department, realizing its inability to conquer Milwaukee's health problems without citizen support, sought out private organizations to contribute to public efforts. Thus a mutually advantageous relationship between the public and private sectors emerged in the early twentieth century, a relationship that adds an important dimension to our understanding of how American cities ultimately overcame some of the major obstacles to public health reform. The most traditional charity organizations had religious affiliations. The Daughters of Charity, Milwaukee's oldest group to organize institutions for the sick, disabled, and needy poor, established St. John's Infirmary (later renamed St. Mary's Hospital) in 1848, to care for the sick "without distinction of class or religion or nation." Two years later, Daughters of Charity opened St. Rose...