The Healthiest City: Milwaukee and the Politics of Health Reform

Essay on the Sources

Essay on the Sources The research material upon which this book most heavily relies includes official city documents, numerous Milwaukee newspapers , and the manuscripts and papers of various voluntary and professional associations. The Annual Reports of the health department , issued regularly after 1868 with the exception of the decade of the 1880s, were most useful. They tended to be chatty accounts of the activities of health officials, mostly laudatory, but admitting of problems. They do not hold back on the limitations of common council appropriations, nor do health commissioners balk at criticizing their predecessors. The Reports contain the basic information about the growth of health services. Their vital statistics , growing in sophistication as the years progress, describe Milwaukee's health and disease patterns. The statistics are maddeningly inconsistent from year to year, making comparisons difficult and sometimes impossible. In some years agents used ward figures, in others they divided the city by age cohort, sex, or ethnicity. The health department issued Monthly Reports (statistical ) during some years and after 1911 a monthly bulletin aimed at public education, the Healthologist, which includes much useful information about health department activities. The state Board of Health, formed in 1876, also issued Annual Reports and Bulletins which contained much useful city data. The Milwaukee common council Proceedings provided the municipal framework for health legislation, proposed, passed, and rejected. School Board Proceedings, Department of Public Works Reports, and other city documents rounded out the official word. Municipal reports are available in Milwaukee Health Department Library, the Wisconsin State Historical Society (Madison), and the Milwaukee Municipal 275 Copyrighted Material SOURCES Reference Bureau. The health department has unpublished reports , vital statistics, and miscellaneous papers. The city newspapers offered the best antidote to officialese. For following the daily and weekly developments of health problems, solutions, and dilemmas, and for a healthy skepticism about department rhetoric and claims, the newspapers cannot be matched as a source for understanding reform processes. Milwaukee offered presses of every political persuasion and ethnic dimension and, by using more than one at a time, the historian benefits from an expanded and ever-evolving source of information about public opinion, emerging theories, and everyday practices of yesterday 's cities. The Sentinel, a Republican and Progressive daily, was most useful for complete city coverage and for middle-class reformist editorial ideology. It is WPA indexed through 1879 and recently expanded, due to the hard work and endurance of Herbert Rice at the Milwaukee Public Library Local History Room, through 1890. For contrast, the Daily News offered the working people's perspective and illustrated how it changed from criticism of reformer activity to support of it during the desperate 1890s. Other newspapers added local color and varying perspectives: the Journal, Democratic; the Leader (after 1912), Socialist; and, very important for Milwaukee, the ethnic presses (Abendpost, Kuryer Polski, Vorwarts, Germania, Der Seebote, Herold), which revealed immigrant perceptions of their rapidly changing lives in America. Newspapers, of course, have their own problems. Just as historians read official documents with care, sifting and winnowing about the self-glorifications, so too must they approach newsprint critically. Editorial changes and economic exigencies can affect the news pages as well as the editorial pages. By comparing the same health-related events in multiple newspapers, 1 tried to get beyond the biases of this source. Another problem is superficiality of reporting, due either to limited space or to editors' perceptions of how much the public wants or needs to know. I found the reporting of the Kempster impeachment trial incomplete in all newspapers. The technical aspects of the medical discussion, alluded to, are not discussed anywhere to a degree necessary to understand the scientific debate. Since the actual transcripts have disappeared, this newspaper shortcoming became significant. In other cases superficiality resulted from political choice. Newspapers found it wise not to dwell on certain aspects of political 276 Copyrighted Material SOURCES debates deemed harmful to their editorial position. This limitation was avoided in large part by using multiple newspapers. Despite the problems with this source, this book relies heavily on information and perspectives learned from Milwaukee's daily reporters . When the limitations are realized, there is no better place to turn for the unfolding of city life in the nineteenth century. The Wisconsin State Historical Society and the Milwaukee Area Research Centers house rich collections of archival material on Milwaukee's voluntary associations and their public health activities . Of most benefit were the...