Health, morality, and housing: the "tenement problem" in Chicago.
In this article, I trace the history of Chicago's Health Department, exploring when and how housing conditions came to be considered a serious social problem requiring municipal regulation. Although journalists and labor leaders were among the first Chicagoans to link tenement housing to the spread of contagious disease, Health Department officials quickly began regulating the city's housing stock under their own authority. I argue that in attempting to eliminate the dangers of contagious disease, a long-standing public health threat, health officials drew new attention to the dangers of multifamily dwellings and set a precedent for government regulation of living conditions in tenement dwellings.
Garb
Margaret
M
Department of History, Campus Box 1062, University of Washington, 1 Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130-4899, USA. mgarb@artsci.wustl.edu
D002641:Chicago; D004641:Emigration and Immigration; D033161:Government Regulation / Q000266:history; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006798:Housing / Q000266:history* / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000592:standards; D006801:Humans; D009111:Local Government; D009014:Morals; D016272:Occupational Health / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D011057:Politics; D011204:Poverty Areas; D011635:Public Health Administration / Q000266:history* / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D012499:Sanitation / Q000266:history* / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D014504:Urban Health / Q000266:history*