'Naturally clean and wholesome': Women, sex education, and the United States Public Health Service, 1918-1928

Social History of Medicine

Volumn 17, Issue 3, 2004, Pages 423-441

  Lord, Alexandra M ^a  

^a U S PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE   (United States)

Author keywords

Adolescence; Female sexuality; Gender; Progressivism; Prostitution; Public health; Sex education; The General Federation of Women's Clubs; The United States Public Health Service; Venereal disease

Indexed keywords

EID: 10244260494     PISSN: 0951631X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/shm/17.3.423     Document Type: Article

References (91)

1. U. Sinclair, Damaged Goods (Philadelphia, 1913), p. 53.
2. PHS, To Girls in Industry about the Enemy at Home (Washington, DC, 1918), pp. 2-3.
3. PHS, A People's War (Washington, DC, 1918), pp. 14-15.
4. M. Odem, Delinquent Daughters: Protecting and Policing Adolescent Female Sexuality in the United States 1885-1920 (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1995), p. 97.
5. Ibid., p. 96.
6. 'Sex O'clock in America', Current Opinion (August 1913), pp. 114-15.
7. Odem, Delinquent Daughters, p. 34.
8. K. Peiss, Cheap Amusements: Working Women and Leisure in Tum-of-the-Century New York (Philadelphia, 1986), pp. 34, 38.
9. Ibid., p. 49.
10. B. Bailey, From Front Porch to Back Seat: Courtship in Twentieth-Century America (Baltimore, 1988), p. 18.
11. E. Bell, Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls of War with the White Slave Trade (Chicago, 1910), p. 70.
12. PHS, The Venereal Disease Handbook for Community Leaders: A Program of Venereal Disease Control (Washington, DC, 1924), p. 31. Florence Kelly called dancehalls 'a constant menace to the moral security of those who frequent them'. F. Kelly, 'Some Causes of Prostitution', The Women's Medical Journal, 20 (1910), 37-8, p. 38.
13. PHS, The Venereal Disease Handbook for Community Leaders: A Program of Venereal Disease Control (Washington, DC, 1924), p. 31. Florence Kelly called dancehalls 'a constant menace to the moral security of those who frequent them'. F. Kelly, 'Some Causes of Prostitution', The Women's Medical Journal, 20 (1910), 37-8, p. 38.
14. Bailey, From Front Porch, pp. 18, 21.
15. PHS, The Problem of Sex Education in Schools (Washington, DC, 1918), p. 3.
16. A. Brandt, No Magic Bullet: A Social History of Venereal Disease in the United States since 1880 (Oxford, 1987), pp. 98, 107. Women were also protected by the CTCA.
17. The Wassermann Test was developed in 1906.
18. PHS, Annual Report of the Public Health Service, 1918-19 (Washington, DC, 1919), p. 234.
19. Ibid., p. 236.
20. Discussions of treatment are often given short shrift in the PHS's Annual Reports; the educational programmes, however, are described in great detail.
21. Ibid., p. 236.
22. Ibid, pp. 268-9.
23. Ibid., p. 271.
24. The PHS believed that local communities should handle most of the campaign and this included keeping tallies on the lectures given.
25. N. Tomes, The Gospel of Germs: Men, Women and the Microbe in American Life (Cambridge, MA, 1998), p. 242.
26. K. Lashley and J. Watson, 'A Psychological Study of Motion Pictures in Relation to Venereal Disease Campaigns', Social Hygiene, 3 (1921), 181-219, p. 184.
27. Ibid., p. 216.
28. Men believed that films should be shown in sexually-segregated settings. Ibid., p. 216.
29. Youth and Life (1922) was for girls, Keeping Fit (1918) for boys. For a full discussion of Keeping Fit, see A. Lord, 'Models of Masculinity: Sex Education, the United States Public Health Service and the YMCA, 1919-24', The Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 58 (2003), 134-72.
30. Youth and Life (1922) was for girls, Keeping Fit (1918) for boys. For a full discussion of Keeping Fit, see A. Lord, 'Models of Masculinity: Sex Education, the United States Public Health Service and the YMCA, 1919-24', The Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 58 (2003), 134-72.
31. Youth and Life (1922) was for girls, Keeping Fit (1918) for boys. For a full discussion of Keeping Fit, see A. Lord, 'Models of Masculinity: Sex Education, the United States Public Health Service and the YMCA, 1919-24', The Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 58 (2003), 134-72.
32. This was the PHS's assessment of the differences between materials for women and men. Material aimed at men was more graphic, with illustrations of babies blinded by syphilis being common. Annual Report 1918-19, p. 274.
33. Ibid., p. 275.
34. The 'visibility [of women physicians] in progressive programmes for health reform was disproportional to their actual numbers in the profession". R. Morantz-Sanchez, Sympathy and Science: Women Physicians in American Medicine (Oxford, 1985), p. 282.
35. R. Yarros, 'Experiences of a Lecturer', Social Hygiene, 5 (1919), 204-22, p. 208.
36. Ibid., p. 220.
37. L. Stone, An Open Talk with Mothers and Fathers Presenting Some Present Day Problems in Social Hygiene (Kansas City, 1920), p. 53.
38. 'Society Reports: The Women's Medical Association of New York City [Meeting] Held at the Academy of Medicine, January 19 1910', The Women's Medical Journal, 20 (1910), 37-45, p. 44.
39. Rachelle Yarros, quoted in Morantz-Sanchez, Sympathy and Science, p. 285.
40. Tomes, Gospel of Germs, p. 242.
41. Sippel, 'Biennial Report', p. 92.
42. The PHS used the YMCA to publicize Keeping Fit because they had a similar structure. See Lord, 'Models of Masculinity', pp. 129-30.
43. N. Cott, 'Across the Great Divide: Women in Politics Before and After 1920', in M. Norton and R. Alexander (eds), Major Problems in American Women's History (New York, 1990), 333-40, p. 333.
44. V. Parker and K. Davis, 'Social Hygiene', Biennial Report of the Department of Public Welfare, 1928-30, GFWC, p. 107.
45. 'Report from Arkansas,' Biennial Report of the Department of Public Welfare, 1926-8, GFWC, p. 23.
46. Rachelle Yarros claimed that women's organizations knew little about social hygiene in 1919; this may have been the impetus behind their educational efforts.
47. Parker and Davis, 'Social Hygiene', p. 19.
48. 'This Year's Point of Attack', Health Program for the Club Year, 1926-28, GFWC, p. 19.
49. This is evidenced by the fact that the GFWC ran background articles on the mission of the PHS and re-printed speeches by Surgeon General Hugh S. Gumming and PHS consultants such as Rachelle Yarros. See 'United States Public Health Service', Health Program for the Club Year, 1926-8, GFWC, p. 20.
50. PHS, Manpower (Washington, DC, 1918), p. 16.
51. J. Moran, Teaching Sex: The Shaping of Adolescence in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge, MA, 2000), p. 93.
52. V. Bullough, 'American Physicians and Sex Research and Expertise, 1900-90', Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 52 (1997), 236-53, p. 240.
53. Brandt, No Magic Bullet, p. 28.
54. PHS, On Guard (Washington, DC, 1918), p. 12 (italics added).
55. Ibid., p. 10.
56. To Girls in Industry, p. 5.
57. Ibid., p. 9.
58. A. J. McLaughlin, 'Pioneering in Venereal Disease Control', The American Journal of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children, 80 (1919), 639. McLaughlin, a PHS officer, believed that 'one woman will infect ten men for every one woman that one man will infect.' Women physicians, however, claimed that 'the present generation of men is pretty thoroughly infected with the venereal disease'. E. Young, 'The Conservation of Manhood and Womanhood", The Women's Medical Journal, 20 (1910), 51-3, p. 53. Despite McLaughlin's assertion, popular literature and films indicate that most Americans viewed men, not women, as seducers who spread VD.
59. A. J. McLaughlin, 'Pioneering in Venereal Disease Control', The American Journal of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children, 80 (1919), 639. McLaughlin, a PHS officer, believed that 'one woman will infect ten men for every one woman that one man will infect.' Women physicians, however, claimed that 'the present generation of men is pretty thoroughly infected with the venereal disease'. E. Young, 'The Conservation of Manhood and Womanhood", The Women's Medical Journal, 20 (1910), 51-3, p. 53. Despite McLaughlin's assertion, popular literature and films indicate that most Americans viewed men, not women, as seducers who spread VD.
60. Ibid., p. 641.
61. Problem of Sex Education, p. 6.
62. Stone, An Open Talk, p. 52. This was a common theme in literature. See, for example, Sinclair, Damaged Goods.
63. Stone, An Open Talk, p. 52. This was a common theme in literature. See, for example, Sinclair, Damaged Goods.
64. The Venereal Disease Handbook, p. 32.
65. To Girls in Industry, p. 6.
66. Even groups that admired the government's attempt to provide sex education viewed these attempts as 'radical' - a loaded term. 'Commission of Training Camp Activities', The Women's Medical Journal, 28 (1918), 163.
67. Fears regarding the power of women to corrupt other women were sometimes greater than the fears provoked by male seducers. K. Davis, 'Some of the Effects of Prostitution', The Women's Medical Journal, 20 (1910), 39.
68. PHS, Sex Education in the Home (Washington, DC, 1918), pp. 3-4.
69. This was the central theme in the PHS-approved film, The End of the Road.
70. It was assumed that boys would initiate sexual encounters.
71. Yarros, 'Experiences of a Lecturer', p. 222 (italics added).
72. Ibid., p. 222.
73. Sex Education in the Home, p. 4. Sacrifice was a constant theme in PHS literature. One PHS pamphlet recommended that fathers repeatedly tell their sons: 'We [the parents] have given up many things because of you.' PHS, A Father Talks with His Son (Washington, DC, 1924), p. 16.
74. Sex Education in the Home, p. 4. Sacrifice was a constant theme in PHS literature. One PHS pamphlet recommended that fathers repeatedly tell their sons: 'We [the parents] have given up many things because of you.' PHS, A Father Talks with His Son (Washington, DC, 1924), p. 16.
75. PHS, Personal Hygiene for Girls (Washington, DC, 1924).
76. Yarros, 'Experiences of a Lecturer', p. 217.
77. Because early twentieth-century eugenicists viewed heredity as malleable, the education of potential mothers was central to their campaign. See, for example, D. Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity (Cambridge, MA, 1995 Reprint), p. 66.
78. On Guard, p. 10 (italics added).
79. R. Apple, Mothers and Medicine: A Social History of Infant Feeding, 1890-1950 (Madison, 1987), p. 97.
80. Stone, An Open Talk, p. 52.
81. On Guard, p. 14.
82. People's War, p. 2.
83. PHS, The Ravages of Innocents Must Stop (Washington, DC, 1919), p. 1.
84. Stone, An Open Talk, p. 26.
85. Ibid., p. 37.
86. S. Poirier, Chicago's War on Syphilis, 1937-40: The Times, the Trib and the Ckao Doctor (Urbana, 1995), p. 110.
87. Ravages of Innocents, p. 2.
88. E. Hammonds, Childhood's Deadly Scourge: The Campaign to Control Diphtheria in New York City, 1880-1930 (Baltimore, 1999), p. 206.
89. Funding went from $2 million to less than a quarter of that in just six years.
90. Stone, An Open Talk, p. 22.
91. For a full discussion of the PHS's rapid push to provide lecturers, see Lord, 'Models of Masculinity', p. 149.