Public Good and Power: Sanitarian Conflicts, 1866-1920

• In Event: The Intrinsic Relationship between Local Politics and Public Health

Abstract

In US cities between 1866 and 1920, sanitarians relied on their training and professional networks to develop sanitary public works, but their prescriptions were enacted neither simply nor quickly. Sanitarians developed knowledge, networks, and some capacity, but they were continually engaged in power struggles with other actors. We consider the obstacles that sanitarians faced and the power they exercised in response. Sanitarians fostered both connections and conflicts with local business interests in regulations such as quarantining. Sanitarians relied on scavengers, and then derided them when sanitarians wanted to assume city sanitation. Sanitarians drew upon state power when they narrowed definitions of nuisance, to be sure that neighboring residents could not win nuisance suits against their public works projects. Relying on Trounstine’s concept of political monopolies of both machines and reformers, we look to the ways that sanitarians pushed aside competition and assumed their place as experts in health agencies, attending to the implications of their actions for public health and inequality.

Authors

• Patricia Strach, University at Albany, SUNY

• Kathleen S. Sullivan, Ohio University