Rochester Studies in Medical History

Jim Harris

Senior Editor: Christopher Crenner

Professor and Chair, History and Philosophy of Medicine

University of Kansas Medical Center

ISSN 1526-2715

A complete list of titles in the Rochester Studies in Medical History Series may be found on our website, www.urpress.com

China and the Globalization of Biomedicine

Edited by David Luesink, William H. Schneider, and Zhang Daqing

The Hidden Affliction: Sexually Transmitted Infections and Infertility in History

Edited by Simon Szreter

Of Life and Limb: Surgical Repair of the Arteries in War and Peace, 1880–1960

Justin Barr

Sickness in the Workhouse: Poor Law Medical Care in Provincial England, 1834–1914

Alistair Ritch

The Filth Disease: Typhoid Fever and the Practices of Epidemiology in Victorian England

Jacob Steere-Williams

Cancer, Research, and Educational Film at Midcentury: The Making of the Movie Challenge: Science Against Cancer

David Cantor

Reimagining Psychiatric Epidemiology in a Global Frame: Toward a Social and Conceptual History

Edited by Anne M. Lovell and Gerald M. Oppenheimer

Benjamin Rush, Civic Health, and Human Illness in the Early American Republic

Sarah E. Naramore

Rethinking the Public Fetus: Historical Perspectives on the Visual Culture of Pregnancy

Edited by Elisabet Björklund and Solveig Jülich

Details

Children’s Health and Urban Ecology in England, 1885–1919

Stable URL:https://openaccess.boydellandbrewercms.com/?id=-297396

Open Access license

Analyzes public health efforts to reduce infant mortality and improve children's health in three large English cities: Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester.

WINNER: 2026 Ohio Academy of History Junior Publication Award

While English public health efforts had reduced the threat of infectious diseases and improved sanitation by the end of the Victorian era, soaring infant mortality rates brought children's health to the forefront of public health concerns. Efforts to understand the causes of infant mortality and improve children's survival required attention to the environments where infant mortality was often highest, i.e., in the cities.

Children's Health and Urban Ecology in England, 1885-1919 examines the history of urban public health campaigns in three of the largest English cities, Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester. It considers how local environments impacted children's health by creating ecological conditions ripe for the spread of disease, as well as opportunities for improvements and interventions. Between 1885 and 1919, English public health leaders began to establish increasingly localized approaches to public health that included interventions in households and at schools. This work was conducted by new types of public health professionals, including health visitors to new mothers and school medical officers. While these programs emerged from local environmental conditions, two imperial military conflicts (the Second Anglo-Boer War and the First World War) drew national attention to the importance of children's health. In examining the effects of these conflicts as well as the urgent response to local environmental conditions, Children's Health and Urban Ecology highlights how the epicenter of public health shifted from cities to the state by the end of the First World War.

Author

Jim Harris

PublisherUniversity of Rochester Press

Print publication date Jun, 2025

Print ISBN 9781648251016

EISBN 9781805437307

Base text size -

Rochester Studies in Medical History

Children’s Health and Urban Ecology in England, 1885–1919

Chapter illustrations ()