By Catherine A. Paul, 2018. Housing has been an issue throughout American history, from urbanization to overcrowding. While this article does not provide an exhaustive list or analysis of all of America’s issues related to this topic, gentrification, affordable housing, eviction, and homelessness are all issues that have risen to prominence in recent years.
Continue Reading »Primary sources related to tenement house reforms in the State of New York and the passage of the New York State Tenement House Act of 1901.
Continue Reading »“Children Who Labor” was a collaboration between the Edison Company and the National Child Labor Committee, the nonprofit organization founded in 1904 and chartered by Congress to promote the rights of “children and youth as they relate to work and working.”
Continue Reading »Americanization; Principles of Americanism, Essentials of Americanization, Technic of Race-Assimilation. Winthrop Talbot, Julia E. Johnsen, eds. New York: H.W.Wilson, 1920. Immigration and Americanization: Selected Readings. Philip Davis, Bertha Schwartz, eds. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1920. Includes essays by Jane Addams, Lillian Wald, Henry Cabot Lodge, Prescott F. Hall, Kate Waller Barrett, Paul Kellogg, and…
Continue Reading »By Alice W. Campbell and Catherine A. Paul, 2017. Tuberculosis has been known by many names throughout history, among them “consumption,” “the white death,” and “the great white plague.” Tuberculosis remains one of the world’s most deadly diseases.
Continue Reading »By Catherine A. Paul, 2017. Polio is caused by a virus; it affects the body by attacking the central nervous system, specifically those neurons essential for muscle activity. The first U.S. polio epidemic swept across the country in 1916, and then again in the late 1940s and 1950s.
Continue Reading »Written by Catherine A. Paul. “Throughout the history of the United States, music has been used to bring people together. By singing together, people are able to form emotional bonds and even shape behavior…Therefore, it is unsurprising that social movements have similarly interwoven music and action to create and sustain commitment to causes and collective activities.”
Continue Reading »Until the start of the 20th century, Americans typically believed in the power of the “melting pot” to create a common culture out of the various groups coming to America. However, this surge in immigration led to the creation of Americanization programs.
Continue Reading »St. Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village was not just a place of employment for nurses, but it was also a place for education. In 1892, forty-three years after the hospital’s opening, the St. Vincent’s School of Nursing opened its doors to women. The school was first directed by Katherine A. Sanborn. Many graduates from this school continued their work at St. Vincent’s hospital. Other graduates went to work elsewhere in New York City, including the New York Foundling Hospital, another institution directed by the Sisters of Charity. Eventually, in the 1930s, St. Vincent’s School of Nursing began to accept men. This produced even more graduates and more St. Vincent’s educated nurses working in the field.
Continue Reading »Written by Joan Lowe. “In 1959 Shirley turned 6 years old. Her excitement grew as fall approached because she would be going to school for the first time. What she didn’t understand was that 1959 was to be different. The US Federal Court had ordered Prince Edward County, Virginia, where Shirley lived, to desegregate its schools. And the county school board, rather than integrate their system as ordered, closed all the public schools.”
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