threats to the nation.
The new disciplines of domestic expertise buttressed their authority by propagating an emergency mentalityâpainting vivid pictures of looming dangers and imminent disasters that would befall the nation if their advice werenât heeded. Household cleanliness, or rather the lack thereof, topped social reformersâ lists of impending threats. By the turn of the twentieth century, the hypothesis that invisible microscopic organisms caused many illnesses had gained widespread scientific acceptance and was, thanks to the efforts of Progressive reformers, beginning to take hold in popular culture. In the 1900s, diverse groups, ranging from the Boy Scouts to the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, worked to preach this âgospel of germsâ to the masses. 22 School curricula impressed the âlaws of scientific hygieneâ on young minds, and public signage warned of the dangers of kissing and spitting. Public health had been entirely reconceived. It was no longer the solitary concern of government officials, but rather the duty of all. In this era obsessed with the dangers of contagion, âthe slightest deviation from perfect cleanliness was a cause for social anxiety since the invisible passage of germs could put the health of the family, companions, and even the entire nation at risk.â 23
The countryâs diet proved just as frightening as its cleaning habits, if not more so. Poor diet was a quiet killer and a silent drain on the countryâs stamina. By sapping the nationâs vitality, inefficient diet appeared to be the root cause of nearly all of the nationâs moral, physical, social, and mental problems. As health columnist W. R. C. Latson wrote in 1902, âThe question of what to eat is one of the most important practical considerations of life. To know what to eat, how much and how often would go far toward solving some of lifeâs gravest problemsâpoverty, weakness, disease, crime, and ultimately death.â 24
Itâs not hard to understand the fervor with which early twentieth-century social reformers approached the question âWhat to eat?â Cholera, botulism, typhoid, and other food-borne diseases killed in large numbers across class and race lines. And while historians disagree whether Americaâs food supply actually grew more dangerous as it industrialized after the Civil War, one thing is clear: starting in the 1870s, Americans strongly
believed
that their food system was getting less safe. This sentiment opened the doors to what food historian Harvey Levenstein called âthe Golden Age of Food Fads,â as individual consumers sought safety in charismatic visions of better eating. It also underpinned collective mobilization, bringing together womenâs groups, consumer advocates, temperance unions, and other reformers for one of the most organized and sustained attempts to change the food system that history has knownâthe campaign for pure food, waged from the 1880s to the 1910s. 25
Then, as now, the question of what to eat was always more than a culinary matter. As historian James Harvey Young noted, âThe crusade for food and drug control shared with overall Progressivism a deep worry about âpurityâ: business, government at all levels, social conduct, even the bloodlines of the nationâs populace seemed threatened with pollution and required cleaning up.â 26 In the face of looming danger, social reformersâ visions of food purity cross-pollinated easily with nativist politics and ideologies of racial purity. Indeed, as Howard Markel and Alexandra Minna Stern argue in their history of germ scares, it often became difficult to distinguish between descriptions of food-borne contagion and the terrifying prospects of racial contamination. 27
Food-borne diseases were widely associated with eastern and southern Europeans, Mexicans, and other âdirtyâ groups. Those
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