1. The Chester County Oral History Project is
available on tape and on transcript in the Chester County Library
in Exton in the Reference section under Chester County History.
Interviews with Riggtown residents by Dr. James Jones available
at http://courses.wcupa.edu/jones/his480/
2. Chester County Health Department Rules and
Regulations available at the Chester County Library reference
section.
3. Daily Local News, January 21, 1885;
March 14, 1885, in Chester County Historical Society's
Newspaper Clippings Collection: West Chester Public Offices,
Board of Health For future reference: Unless otherwise
specified, any newspaper articles in these notes can be located
in the Chester County Historical Society (henceforth CCHS) in the
news paper clippings files under West Chester Public Offices:
Board of Health
4. Donald A. Kruckeberg, ed., Introduction
to Planning History in the United States, (New Brunswick:
Center for Urban Policy Research at Rutgers University, 1983),
15.
5. History and Progress of Chester
County, (The Commissioners of Chester County, 1967) available
in the Chester County Library reference section. I have been in
contact with Borough and County Authorities, which have not been
able to assist me in finding out what exactly, happened with the
Board of Health. However, I found it possible that the Chester
County board of Health, which had five members more than likely
is the very same Board that was asked to prepare for a Department
of Health.
6. Kruckeberg, 14. "Filth Theory" meant that
filth was seen as either the direct cause of what we now know as
contagious diseases or something that made contagion spread
faster. Stagnant water, sodden ground, lack or air and sunlight
were considered causes of disease as well. The diseases that were
considered being related to filth were typhoid, typhus, scarlet
fever, and diphtheria. These theories on filth called for a
systematic large scale reshaping of the cities, which became the
beginnings of city planning.
7. Raymond A. Mohl, The New City: Urban
America in the Industrial Age 1860-1920 (Illinois; Harlan
Davidson, Inc, 1985), 174. Advances in science and medicine,
particularly the discovery of the germ theory in the 1880's,
authoritatively linked contagious disease to environmental
conditions. At the same time new technology provided the
mechanism for reform. ; Ellis L. Armstrong, ed., History of
Public Works in the United States 1776-1976, (American Public
Works Association, Chicago, 1976), 237. The Germ Theory of
disease which was first announced by Louis Pasteur in 1857 and
more firmly established by Robert Koch in the 1870's
8. Jeffersonian, July 29, 1821. A board
of Health was created in Philadelphia in 1795; Howard Kistler
Petry, M.D. ed., A Century of Medicine 1848-1948: The History
of the Medical Society of Pennsylvania (Harrisburg: Medical
Society of the State of Pennsylvania, 1952), prefatory note.
9. Armstrong, 433-434 Most colonial tourist
sites does not tell the tourists about the Heaps of garbage
lying about the streets and odors of decaying refuse close to
even the most elegant homes were not uncommon. Nor were the
dozens of pigs squealing through unpaved streets in competition
with dogs. Rats. And vermin-all busily rooting through the wastes
for a meal. Charles Dickens wrote, after a visit to New York
City, about he amounts of pigs and scavenging animals in the
street of the city. Sometimes laws were made to protect some of
those animals, like carrion-eating vultures.
10. Daily Local News 1860-1870
During this time issues like getting the pigs out of the city and
cleaning out the pig pens are frequent in the Board of
Health's reports
11. Daily Local News, July 11, 1879;
September 7, 1878; May 26, 1884
12. Village Record, April 10, 1866;
May 11, 1866
13. Kruckeberg, 23; Petry, 30.
14. Daily Local News, January 21,
1885; September 7, 1878; Village Record, May 11, 1866
15. Daily Local News, 21 January, 1885
16. Daily Local News, June 6, 1900
Woman is a natural born sanitarian a Dr. Lee was quoted saying
on a Board of Health meeting about school hygiene; Armstrong, 437
17. Petry, 4-5
18. Ibid., 65; 70; 73
19. Daily Local News, June 14, 1893
20. Ibid.
21. Daily Local News, August 3, 1893
22. Daily Local News, December 7,
1893,
23. Daily Local News, October 18,
1893; October 7, 1893,
24. Daily Local News, November 22,
1893,
25. Daily Local News, March 14, 1885;
April 24, 1885; September 25, 1891
26. Daily Local News, May 8, 1918;
June 6, 1923; March 6, 1909; June 29, 1909; September 5, 1923;
June 29, 1909
27. Daily Local News, June 28, 1894
28. Armstrong, 447. A survey conducted by
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the turn of the
century shows that at this time 45 cities deposited refuse on
land, nine burned it in dumps, 18 plowed it into the ground, 14
dumped it in the water, 41 fed it to stock, 27 incinerated, 19
employed reduction processes, 11 used irregular methods. 20 years
later American Society of Municipal Improvements collected
information on some 200 cities and found that things had barely
changed. See Page 449 for a description of the garbage disposal
methods of municipalities the size of West Chester.
29. Daily Local News, July 16, 1888;
September 7, 1878; Kruckeberg, 15.
30. Daily Local News, March 14, 1885
31. Daily Local News, June 29, 1886
32. Armstrong, 438. Horse drawn wagons with
brushes would clean streets in American cities in the late 19th
Century. Horse drawn carts would collect waste.
33. Daily Local News, October 7, 1893
I couldn't find the result of this venture.
34. Daily Local News, June 29, 1909
35. Daily Local News, December 12,
1906 in Chester County Historical Society's Newspaper
Clippings Collection: West Chester Public Offices, Ordinances
36. Daily Local News, September 1,
1907 in Chester County Historical Society's Newspaper
Clippings Collection: West Chester Public Offices, Ordinances
37. Armstrong, 435. A detailed description of
machines like this can be found here.
. Daily Local News, May 3, 1900 The
article describes the procedure of incinerating garbage in
detail.) Apparently the initial cost was very high even if it was
recommended as the best method of garbage disposal available. It
was mostly an
38alternative that was viable to larger cities.
39. Armstrong, 448. Feeding hogs garbage
brought income to Municipalities. Up until the 1940's a large
percent of municipalities fed their organic wastes to hogs. There
were health risks involved such as Cholera and trichinae
infection. In the 1950's new laws that required wastes to be
thoroughly cooked before fed to hogs and killing of large amounts
of stock due to health risk brought the percentage of
municipalities that used this as part of the waste disposal down.
In the 1970's only 4 percent of smaller municipalities used
this method.
40. Daily Local News, July 16, 1902;
July 27, 1902
41. Armstrong, 434.
42. West Chester Star, November 5,
1913; December 3, 1913
43. Daily Local News, October 30,
1945,
44. Daily Local News, January 10,
1947; February 2, 1949 In 1947 the Board of Health is still
fighting to get an incineration plant for garbage erected. In
October 1947 they sent suggestions to the Borough Council about
forbidding the burning of garbage within the borough limits
except for on the dumps and the for the erecting of an
incinerator for burning garbage. Two years later still the
incinerating plant was one of the primary concerns of the Board
of Health.
45. Armstrong, 448.
46. Ibid., 449. For insight into the
decisions of smaller municipalities not to get incinerating
plants
47. Daily Local News, April 21, 1885
in Chester County Historical Society's Newspaper Clippings
Collection: West Chester Public Offices, Ordinances
48. West Chester Star, November 5,
1913
49. Petry, 66.
50. Daily Local News, May 1, 1885
51. Kruckeberg, 17. In 1842-1844 Edwin
Chadwick, prominent English sanitary reformer, envisioned a city
with smaller sewer pipes and constant flowing water in place of
the large sewer systems designed for a man to be able to go in
and clean out animal carcasses or large debris. A small sewer
system would clean itself he thought. The sewers would be
designed that same all over the city and would work with gravity
in transporting the water and debris. Streets should also be
paved and waste and dirt washed down into the sewers before it
could decompose and cause disease. Chadwick's water carriage
sewer system was taken up by American sanitary reformers. Even
though before 1890 a total conversion of a city's sewer
system to a water carrier sewer system was only done once, the
water carrier sewer system took root in America after the civil
war.; Armstrong, 400-403 For a description of various sewers
used in the 18th and 19th century.
52. Daily Local News, June 3, 1901,
July 10, 1909
53. Daily Local News, September 20,
1902
54. Daily Local News, September 20,
1901 in Chester County Historical Society's Newspaper
Clippings Collection: West Chester Public Offices, Ordinances
55. Daily Local News, May 23, 1908
56. Daily Local News, July 10, 1908,
57. Daily Local News, July 10, 1909,
58. Daily Local News, September 10,
1912, in Chester County Historical Society's Newspaper
Clippings Collection: West Chester Public Offices, Ordinances
59. Kruckeberg, 15. In the 1880's sewer
installations became more planned and not only a piece by piece
addition. See also Mohl, 174-176. In the early 20th Century
sewage and water treatment plants were established. "By 1907
virtually every American city had installed sewers. By the
progressive era, most big cities were using filtration and
chlorination to assure pure water supplies;" see Armstrong, 402-
403.
60. Interviews with Riggtown residents
Dorothea Parker; Charles Carey; Pat Morley, interviewd by Dr.
James Jones, transcript, 16 September 1996, available at
http://courses.wcupa.edu/jones/his480/
61. Daily Local News, January 16, 1940
This was inspired by a National building Code created by the
National Board of Fire Underwriters.
62. Daily Local News, May 8, 1918
63. Daily Local News, April 8, 1918
An owner less lot between Sharpless, Nields and Darlington
Streets had sewage running in to it and the problem of correcting
it was that of whose authority if came under. In the end the
State Board of Health was called upon to make a decision in the
matter.
64. Daily Local News, January 29, 1957
65. Daily Local News, February 15,
1951
66. Kruckeberg, 23-25. The yellow fever
epidemic spread in the lower Mississippi valley and in Memphis
alone 5,150 people out of 45, 000 died. In 1879, Congress created
a National Board of Health and when yellow fever returned to
Memphis in the following year, the Board of Health was urged to
come up with a thoroughly and systematized and comprehensive
plan with which to attack this problem. Sanitary surveys mapped
out the cities' sanitary needs and the health risks involved,
and this became in itself a kind of city planning.
67. Village Record, April 10, 1866 and
May 11, 1866; Daily Local News, January 21, 1885
68. Daily Local News, March 14, 1885
69. Daily Local News, April 24, 1885
70. Daily Local News, May 1, 1885
71. Daily Local News, May 4, 1894
72. Daily Local News, June 5, 1907.
73. Daily Local News, May 27, 1909
74. Daily Local News, July 23, 1909
75. Daily Local News, June 3, 1909
76. Daily Local News, May 28, 1909
77. Daily Local News, June 6, 1923;
April 11, 1923
78. Daily Local News, May 27, 1909
79. Daily Local News, June 6, 1923; 11
April, 1923; 20 April, 1922; 27 May, 1909; 10 July, 1909
80. Armstrong, 434. For further information
on just how much of a polluter the horse was.
81. Daily Local News, January 10, 1901
82. Jeffersonian, July 29, 1821
83. Daily Local News, May 26, 1884 in
Chester County Historical Society's Newspaper Clippings
Collection: West Chester Public Offices, Ordinances; Daily
Local News, 1860-1870; Daily Local News, May 1, 1885
84. Daily Local News, in Chester
County Historical Society's Newspaper Clippings Collection:
West Chester Public Offices, Ordinances
85. Daily Local News, March 15, 1918
86. I came to this conclusion by looking at
the reports of the Board of Health printed in the Daily Local
News from 1885 - 1957. A more detailed analysis should be
made, but it is obvious that the numbers of contagious diseases
in general, with the exception of an occasional small outbreak,
went down during the existence of the Board of Health.
87. Kruckeberg, 25. See also Daily Local
News, April 10, 1886. Several articles mentioned that a
National Board of Health was created in Washington D.C. after the
yellow fever epidemic in 1878 and was approved by congress on
March 3, 1879, and that the Board of Health (West Chester) wants
more power to act.
88. These reports were printed in the
newspapers on a monthly basis, as well as when the individual
cases of disease would occur.
89. Daily Local News, August 5, 1854
90. Daily Local News, February 6, 1918
91. Daily Local News, August 3, 1909
92. Morning Republican, February 17,
1897 in Chester County Historical Society's Newspaper
Clippings Collection: West Chester Institutions, Chester County
Hospital
93. Daily Local News, November 29,
1901
94. Daily Local News, December 6,
1901
95. Daily Local News, December 6,
1901; December 16, 1901; December 20, 1901; December 17, 1901
96. Daily Local News, December 17,
1901
97. The little I could read about this is in
the Board of Health clippings collection in the 1901 section. I
found the article underneath the larger article from December 17,
1901, but unfortunately neither the date nor source was
indicated. It was most likely from late 1901 or early 1902 and
probably in the Daily Local News.
98. Daily Local News, November 22,
1902; July 6, 1902; June 30, 1902; November 6, 1902 in Chester
County Historical Society's Newspaper Clippings Collection:
West Chester Institutions, Chester County Hospital
99. Daily Local News, February 13,
1909
100. Daily Local News, November 2,
1902; November 4, 1902
101. Ibid.
102. Daily Local News, December 11,
1902, November 19, 1902
103. Daily Local News, December 17,
1902
104. Daily Local News, November 12,
1902
105. Daily Local News, July 8, 1902;
July 7, 1902; July 5, 1902 In another case--that of Horace
Temple, whose household was quarantined because of diphtheria--
the quarantine was done in the home and was shorter than that for
smallpox. After fumigation and a thorough check, the quarantine
was lifted fairly quickly.
106. Daily Local News, February 22,
1954
107. Daily Local News, October 14,
1918, October 7, 1918
108. Daily Local News, October 5,
1918
109. Daily Local News, November 5,
1918
110. Grace Hickman Weaver, interviewed by
Nicolette Myer, tape recording and transcript, April 6, 1978,
Chester County Library Oral History Project, West Chester, PA.;
Wayne Gable, interviewed by Nicolette Myer, tape recording and
transcript, November 4, 1978, Chester County Library Oral
History Project, West Chester, PA.
111. Daily Local News, October 8,
1918; October 5, 1918; October 9, 1918; October 12, 1918; October
7; 1918
112. Daily Local News, October 10,
1918
113. Daily Local News, October 28,
1918; October 30, 1918; November 1, 1918; November 3, 1918
114. Daily Local News, October 5,
1918
115. Daily Local News, February 2,
1949. In 1948, West Chester had an unusually high amount of
contagious diseases and there had been a small epidemic of
diphtheria in another part of the county. The Board felt that
there was cause to stress the immunization of babies and your
children.
116. Daily Local News, March 31, 1888
117. Petry, 30.
118. Ibid., 37.
119. Wayne Gable, interviewed by Nicolette
Myer, tape recording and transcript, November 4, 1978, Chester
County Library Oral History Project, West Chester, PA.
120. Daily Local News, November 12,
1902
121. Daily Local News, June 6, 1900;
Petry, 94
122. Daily Local News, April 7, 1906
123. Daily Local News, April 6, 1906.
This article criticized the way vaccinations were performed in
schools because parents had to pay the cost and police officers
came to the house to find out if a child that is not in school is
sick. The author was critical of the State Vaccination Fund and
the fact that people were expected to support it.
124. Daily Local News, April 30, 1923