Acknowledgments
This book is the result of a long, meandering academic journey. I first became fascinated with European history as a freshman at Albion College in the fall of 2004, in my very first class in college, “1500 Europe 2000,” taught by Geoffrey Cocks, who remains my friend to this day. At the time, I had no idea my trajectory would culminate in writing a book about Victorian public health. When Chris Hagerman joined the faculty the following year, I found my more specific interest in the history of the First World War era, where this book concludes. While I left their tutelage a German historian, as an M.A. student at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, Peter Thorsheim and John David Smith planted the seeds of my interests in environmental history and the history of science and helped me shift my national focus to Great Britain. Peter also introduced me to the seemingly bizarre ideas about “physical deterioration” conceived by James Cantlie, with which this book opens. The fear of “national degeneration” as a curious phenomenon in fin-de-siècle British history has continued to fascinate me since.
My continued fascination with this history brought me to The Ohio State University, where, somehow, I still am today. At Ohio State, Chris Otter rightly guided me away from my initial intent to write an intellectual history of physical anthropology into a far more interesting project on the history of public health. Chris has been the model of a good advisor. He has pushed me throughout the project to delve deeper into my sources, to sophisticate my arguments, to engage more thoroughly with the historiography, and to ultimately make bolder and more interesting arguments about the history of British public health and its relationship to the state. Chris was always positive and optimistic about the project even when I was frequently (and unduly) stressed about it. His mentorship continues to be invaluable to this day. He not only helped guide me as a graduate student through a Ph.D. program, but he also continued to offer his wisdom while I was in the early stages of writing my book manuscript. Nick Breyfogle, who has now served as my secondary mentor for over a decade, has similarly helped shape this project in countless ways and continues to serve as a tireless friend and leader in our department’s Environment, Health, Technology, and Science (EHTS) subfield. Bruno Cabanes offered me the powerful reminder that soldiers are just “citizens in uniform,” and I would like to believe this advice shaped the way I think about children’s health on the path to soldiering in the latter chapters of the book.
So many other friends and colleagues at Ohio State have offered helpful feedback and support for the project, especially those in the EHTS subfield, including John Brooke, Kip Curtis, John Davis, Jennifer Eaglin, Bart Elmore, and Marian Moser Jones. My officemates, Ellen Arnold and Eric H. Limbach, have patiently ignored my frustrated thinking out loud more than a few times and have offered calming words in others. As an assistant professor at a similar stage in the process, Elizabeth Dillenburg helped me think about how to craft a book proposal. Christopher McKnight Nichols helped me navigate responding to readers’ reports. As they have become friends as well as colleagues, David Brewer, Dodie McDow, Daniel Rivers, and David Staley have continued to serve as sources of sage professional advice over many years. To my team-teaching partners in other departments across the university, Mike Bevis, Jim Hood, Matt Saltzman, and Katie Summers – thanks for putting up with me while I bring this thing over the finish line. Last, but certainly not least, my chair, Scott Levi, has become my strongest supporter of all – not only for giving me continued stable employment, but also by encouraging and supporting my research as part of the job. Without Scott’s leadership and support, I would not have been able to finish this book.
I also owe a debt of gratitude to a small army of graduate students. Dylan Cahn, Daniel Curzon, Jessica Ennis, Kara Fink, Nikki Freeman, Aaron George, Derek Green, David Hadley, Katie Lang, Julie Powell, Lisa Susner, J.T. Tucker, and Scott Ward navigated graduate school with me. Since then, Marc Arenberg, Shawn Conroy, James Esposito, Mansi Goyal, Ives Hartman, Neil Humphrey, Amy Hsu, Michael Kraemer, Edward Kunz, Kiki Mackaman-Lofland, Henry Misa, McKenna Molnar, John Perry, Justin Salgado, Madeline Schumacher, Nicholas Seay, Leyla Tiglay, Julia Vrtilek, Austin Weber, and Sherry Zhu have helped me manage a substantial teaching load as amazing teaching assistants, who helped me carve out some time from grading to finish writing this book.
At the annual meetings of the American Association for the History of Medicine (AAHM) many colleagues have offered helpful advice and a sounding board for ideas including Ciara Breathnach, Mariola Espinosa, Martha N. Gardner, Chris Hamlin, Susan Lawrence, and Johanna Schoen. Since he could not make it to the AAHM meeting in 2022, Graham Mooney, whose writing has been inspirational for me, met with me via Zoom to brainstorm how to frame my book proposal. I owe an especially large debt of gratitude to Jacob Steere-Williams for infusing me with some much-needed enthusiasm for a writing a book amid the dual anxieties of a not-so-great academic job market and the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as offering important historiographical suggestions, helping me polish my book proposal, and finally introducing me to my two incredible editors at the University of Rochester Press. Editorial director Sonia Kane has been beyond patient with me as a first-time author, answering my endless confused questions about the publication process. Along with the helpful, extremely detailed feedback from my two peer reviewers, series editor Chris Crenner’s repeated reading of multiple drafts of the manuscript has helped me hone my authorial voice to make it the best it can be. All the remaining mistakes, like my penchant for run-on sentences, are solely my own.
I also appreciate the tireless archivists at the John Rylands Research Institute and Library at the University of Manchester, the Liverpool Records Office, The National Archives (UK), and the Wellcome Collection in London for allowing me permission to cite materials from their collections. Thanks are also due to three hired research assistants: Roger Hull at the Liverpool City Records Office and Matthew “Archive Mole” Kidd for scanning materials for me in Liverpool Records Office and The National Archives and the John Rylands Research Institute and Library, respectively, as we were emerging from the first wave of COVID-19, when international travel was not yet viable. Aidan Morris, a passionate Ohio State University student who wanted the opportunity to do undergraduate research, helped me gather raw data from the Birmingham Medical Officer of Health Reports, digitized by the Wellcome Collection.
A shorter version of Chapter 5 previously appeared as “Raising a Healthy Nation: Provisioning Public Health in English Schools, c. 1875–1914,” in The Curriculum of the Body and the School as Clinic: Histories of Public Health and Schooling, edited by Kellie Burns and Helen Proctor, copyright ©2004 by Routledge. Reproduced by permission of Taylor & Francis Group and published under a CC BY-NC-ND Creative Commons License (http:/creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0); permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. I appreciate the editors and copyright owners for allowing me to reproduce this important part of my story in this book.
I owe indescribable thanks to my family. I am the oddball academic in a family of accountants and bankers who really have no idea why I do what I do day to day. My late uncle, Mark Driscoll, was the only other academic in the extended family. He passed away just days after I submitted my book proposal, but he was always so supportive and interested in my career. It was an honor to tell him my book was underway in the last conversation we had before his passing. My father, also Jim Harris, passed away just five days after I finished my response to my readers. I know he would have been proud to see this book completed at long last, because he was always proud of his kids’ accomplishments. My sister, Julie Hanley, often wonders why I do what I do. I do it for a love of the work: this book is my baby, just as Maddie, Mikey, and Connor are your pride and joy. Mom: I know a lot was changing in your world while I was finishing this book – but I appreciate your love and support throughout my life. You have always been my biggest supporter.
Finally, to my best friend and my companion in life for the past nine years, Michelle Armitage: you are my anchor. I could not have finished this book without you.