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April 2004, Vol 94, No. 4 | American Journal of Public Health 540
© 2004 American Public Health Association

IMAGES OF HEALTH

Factory Injuries and Progressive Reform

Elizabeth Fee and Theodore M. Brown

Elizabeth Fee is with the History of Medicine Division, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Md. Theodore M. Brown is with the Departments of History and of Community and Preventive Medicine at the University of Rochester, Rochester, NY.

Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Elizabeth Fee, PhD, Bldg 38, Room 1E21, 8600 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20894 (e-mail: elizabeth_fee{at}nlm.nih.gov).


Source. Prints and Photographs Collection, History of Medicine Division, National Library of Medicine.

THIS COLORED WOOD engraving, circa 1886, captures an all-too-common scene in late-19th-century America: a woman injured during the course of factory work. Scenes like this—and others far more horrific—inspired muckraking journalists and the national labor reform movement of the Progressive Era.1 In 1907, the popular author Arthur B. Reeve wrote, "To unprecedented prosperity . . . there is a seamy side of which little is said. Thousands of wage earners, men, women, and children, [are] caught in the machinery of our record breaking production and turned out cripples. . . . Other thousands [are] killed outright. . . . How many there [are] none can say exactly for we [are] too busy making our record breaking production to count the dead."2

The famous socialist agitator Crystal Eastman declared, "We must pause and consider what are the essential weapons in our campaign. . . . The first thing we need is information, complete and accurate information about the accidents that are happening. It seems a tame thing to drop so suddenly from talk of revolution to talk of statistics, but I believe in statistics just as firmly as I believe in revolutions. . . . And what is more, I believe statistics are good stuff to start a revolution with."3

The broad labor reform movement, bringing together muckrakers, Socialists, middle-class Progressives, labor union leaders, and enlightened capitalists in an unlikely but at least temporarily powerful alliance, would lead to the creation of state bureaus of labor statistics, the passage of protective labor legislation, and the appointment of factory commissioners empowered to inspect actual working conditions and on-site adherence to the new labor laws.


   References
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 References
 
1. Rosner D, Markowitz G. The early movement for occupational health, 1900–1917. In: Leavitt JW, Numbers RL, eds. Sickness and Health in America: Readings in the History of Medicine and Public Health. 2nd ed. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press; 1985:507–521.

2. Reeve AB. The death roll of industry. Charities and the Commons.1907; 17:791.

3. Eastman C. The three essentials for accident prevention. Annals.1911;38:98–99.




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Related Collections
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Right arrow Occupational Health
Right arrow Prevention
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