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. 2011:19:29-52.
doi: 10.1891/1062-8061.19.29.

Life and death in Philadelphia's black belt: a tale of an urban tuberculosis campaign, 1900-1930

J Margo Brooks Carthon  1
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Life and death in Philadelphia's black belt: a tale of an urban tuberculosis campaign, 1900-1930

J Margo Brooks Carthon. Nurs Hist Rev. 2011.

Abstract

The poor health status of black Americans was a widely recognized fact during the first third of the twentieth century. Excess mortality in black communities was frequently linked to the infectious disease tuberculosis, which was particularly menacing in densely populated urban settings. As health authorities in large cities struggled to keep pace with the needs of citizens, private charities worked to launch community-oriented attacks against the deadly disease. In 1914 a novel experiment to address excess mortality among blacks was launched in Philadelphia. The success of the health promotion campaign initiated by the Henry Phipps Institute and the Whittier Centre, two private charitable associations, has been attributed primarily to the presence of black clinicians, in particular public health nurse Elizabeth Tyler. This study suggests that community health efforts also rest on partnerships between like-minded organizations and coalition building.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Death rate from pulmonary TB in Philadelphia, 1900 –1921. Note. Graph adapted from figures provided in Henry R. M. Landis, A Report of the Tuberculosis Problem and the Negro (Philadelphia: Henry Phipps Institute, 1923).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Co-operative Coal Club.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Elizabeth Tyler. Note. Public health nurse Elizabeth Tyler with members of the “Little Mothers Club.” Whittier Centre Annual Report (Philadelphia, 1915). Reprinted with permission of Temple University Urban Archives.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Coal Club “Ready for the Lecture to Begin.” Note. From Starr Center Annual Report (Philadelphia: 1906). Reprinted with the permission of the Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing.
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References

    1. By the late nineteenth century, the infectious nature of TB had generated debate for years in the United States and Europe. Despite the discovery of the pathogen responsible for consumption, deeply rooted beliefs regarding “hereditary consumption” (transmittal of the disease from parent to child) prevailed. This belief gained traction as whole families succumbed to the disease. Lawrence Flick effectively argued, however, that consumption was indeed contagious and fully discussed the differences between heredity and predisposition in his journal article, Contagiousness of Phthisis (Tubercular Pulmonitis) Transactions of the Medical Society of the State of Pennsylvania. 1888 June;20:164–82.Anticontagionists denied that consumption was spread between individuals — rather, they claimed that the disease was acquired when persons of a certain genetic predisposition came into contact with “miasmas” emanating from decaying garbage. For more on anticontagionists see Lerner Barron H. New York City’s Tuberculosis Control Efforts: The Historical Limitations of the ‘War on Consumption,’. American Journal of Public Health. 1993 May;83(5):758–66.

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