Exhibiting Health: Public Health Displays in the Progressive Era

Jennifer Lisa Koslow

Published by Rutgers University Press 2020

Exhibiting Health

Public Health Displays in the Progressive Era

Jennifer Lisa Koslow

In the series Critical Issues in Health and Medicine

https://doi.org/10.36019/9781978803305

Overview
Contents

About this book

In the early twentieth century, public health reformers approached the task of ameliorating unsanitary conditions and preventing epidemic diseases with optimism. Using exhibits, they believed they could make systemic issues visual to masses of people. Embedded within these visual displays were messages about individual action. In some cases, this meant changing hygienic practices. In other situations, this meant taking up action to inform public policy. Reformers and officials hoped that exhibits would energize America's populace to invest in protecting the public's health. Exhibiting Health is an analysis of the logic of the production and the consumption of this technique for popular public health education between 1900 and 1930. It examines the power and limits of using visual displays to support public health initiatives.

Author / Editor information

JENNIFER LISA KOSLOW is an associate professor of history and director of the Historical Administration and Public History program at Florida State University in Tallahassee. She is the author of Cultivating Health: Los Angeles Women and Public Health Reform (Rutgers University Press).

Reviews

"Today, at a time when the visual seems to dominate in education and entertainment, Koslow demonstrates that the visual has a long, powerful history in the realm of public health. Koslow skillfully draws the reader into a very compelling story, indeed a page-turner, while weaving in significant analysis."

— Susan L. Smith, author of Toxic Exposures

"Jennifer Koslow draws attention to the overlooked history of public health exhibitions, demonstrating the fascinating role of railways, models, dioramas, and performances in delivering health advice to hundreds of thousands of Americans. As Exhibiting Health shows, in the first half of the twentieth century, even without proof of their impact on the health of individuals, such activities played a key role in promoting the value of public health programs and expertise."

— Manon Parry, author of Broadcasting Birth Control: Mass Media and Family Planning

New Books Network - New Books in Medicine interview with Jennifer Lisa Koslow
https://newbooksnetwork.com/jennifer-lisa-koslow-exhibiting-health-public-health-displays-in-the-progressive-era-rutgers-up-2020/

— New Books Network - New Books in Medicine

"The strength of Koslow’s book remains on the close focus on individual exhibitions in the ways they were reviewed, physically constructed, dispersed and received. Her careful research using primary resources in state libraries, archives and institutional collections enables a much richer and detailed narrative of these specific exhibition events in fleshing out important details missing in more generalised accounts. It is a book well worth the attention of historians, social scientists and the health community."

— Social History of Medicine

"Introduces readers to a short-lived but vibrant aspect of progressive reform: the public health exhibit [and] reveals that reformers truly believed in the power of the public health exhibit: the passion with which they constructed exhibitions, the personal and philanthropic investments they made, and their ongoing 'faith in the value of the visual' all bear witness to their general conviction that such displays improved American lives."

— Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era

New Books Network - New Books in Medicine interview with Jennifer Lisa Koslow
https://newbooksnetwork.com/jennifer-lisa-koslow-exhibiting-health-public-health-displays-in-the-progressive-era-rutgers-up-2020/

— New Books Network - New Books in Medicine

"Jennifer Koslow draws attention to the overlooked history of public health exhibitions, demonstrating the fascinating role of railways, models, dioramas, and performances in delivering health advice to hundreds of thousands of Americans. As Exhibiting Health shows, in the first half of the twentieth century, even without proof of their impact on the health of individuals, such activities played a key role in promoting the value of public health programs and expertise."

— Manon Parry, author of Broadcasting Birth Control: Mass Media and Family Planning

“The strength of Koslow’s book remains on the close focus on individual exhibitions in the ways they were reviewed, physically constructed, dispersed and received. Her careful research using primary resources in state libraries, archives and institutional collections enables a much richer and detailed narrative of these specific exhibition events in fleshing out important details missing in more generalized accounts. It is a book well worth the attention of historians, social scientists and the health community.”

— Julie K. Brown, Social History of Medicine

"Today, at a time when the visual seems to dominate in education and entertainment, Koslow demonstrates that the visual has a long, powerful history in the realm of public health. Koslow skillfully draws the reader into a very compelling story, indeed a page-turner, while weaving in significant analysis."

— Susan L. Smith, author of Toxic Exposures

"The strength of Koslow’s book remains on the close focus on individual exhibitions in the ways they were reviewed, physically constructed, dispersed and received. Her careful research using primary resources in state libraries, archives and institutional collections enables a much richer and detailed narrative of these specific exhibition events in fleshing out important details missing in more generalised accounts. It is a book well worth the attention of historians, social scientists and the health community."

— Social History of Medicine

"Introduces readers to a short-lived but vibrant aspect of progressive reform: the public health exhibit [and] reveals that reformers truly believed in the power of the public health exhibit: the passion with which they constructed exhibitions, the personal and philanthropic investments they made, and their ongoing 'faith in the value of the visual' all bear witness to their general conviction that such displays improved American lives."

— Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Introduction: Valuing the Visual in Public Health Education Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Chapter 1 Developing Exhibition as a Common Tool for Popular Education Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	9
Chapter 2 The Art of Exhibit Making Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	31
Chapter 3 Health Trains: An Experiment in Traveling Exhibits Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	52
Chapter 4 Controversial Exhibits Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	75
Conclusion: A Gradual Decline Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	99
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	101
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	103
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	137

Language: English
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Audience: College/higher education;
Pages
- Main content: 160
Illustrations
- Other: 16 b-w images
Keywords: Jennifer Lisa Koslow; Associate Professor; Director; history; Historical Administration; Public History program; Florida State University; Tallahassee; author; Cultivating Health; Los Angeles Women; Public Health Reform; Women; early 20th Century; public health; public policy; Health Exhibits; education; 1930; 1900; unsanitary

eBook

Published: September 18, 2020
ISBN: 9781978803305