Recently I took my wife and daughter out antiquing on a sunny Saturday morning. Coming off the coldest, bitterest winter I can remember, we really were just itching for a reason to get out of the house. We piled in the car and drove over to Dayton, Ohio to a modest little antique flea market at Hara arena that we had never visited before. We found our usual assortment of stuff we really didn’t need but were thrilled to find. My daughter was delighted to show me a 50¢ find that she was particularly proud of, a small tannish hardcover book titled “Health and Sanitation Through the Public Schools of Kentucky.” I think I said something like “that’s nice, dear” and walked on to look for more treasures.
It wasn’t until I got home and started to unpack our bags that I realized that this little book was very cool indeed. As I leafed through the pages, even though the book was dated January of 1920 inside, I saw many things inside that were familiar to me. Many of the subjects covered within its pages have been featured in articles I’ve written in the past. Written by Dr. WL Heizer, executive secretary of the Kentucky board of tuberculosis commissioners, and Mrs. V. O. Gilbert, Kentucky state superintendent of public instruction, the book was printed and distributed to every elementary school kid in the state of Kentucky. The general theme of the book is eugenics, an antiquated term that makes most who know it’s meaning shudder.
Eugenics was one of the earliest forms of racial cleansing ever introduced in this country. Popularized at the Indiana State fair by events known as “Better Baby Contests,” a relic of those troubling times remains there to this very day. The Hook’s Drugstore Museum is housed in the old Better Babies building just off 38th Street in Indianapolis. Another theme running through the book is the anti-tuberculosis league that proliferated during the same period. These are the folks responsible for the popular “No Spitting on Floors and Sidewalks” signs that could be found all over the city back in the day.
Although issued in Kentucky, the book might as well have come out of Indiana because the instructions and edicts found within could easily be transferred to the Hoosier state. Within the first couple of pages the underlying motive of the book becomes quite clear with a picture of the lily white group of participants of the “Baby Health Contest” at the Kentucky State fair 1917. The object of the volume becomes perfectly clear in the very first line of the book’s foreword: “In presenting this bulletin to the teachers and children of the public schools, we hope to be the instrument in saving many valuable lives and much sickness, suffering and needless expense.”
The first half of the 200 page book devotes itself to whitewashing the subject of racial cleansing by explaining acceptable ways to raise a “perfect child” and by identifying unacceptable traits mistakenly identified as defects. “It is the privilege of every baby to be well born; that is, it is entitled by right to have strong, healthy parents, free from inheritances of insanity, degeneracy, feeble mindedness, or the heredity of social disease. It is very necessary, then, that marriageable girls should know that these defects can be transmitted to their children, and, in the selection of a husband, it should be the ambition of a girl to select the kind of husband that would insure to her descendants a freedom from these preventable and awful handicaps.”
Although the book was distributed to grade school kids, some of the content is obviously aimed at their parents. For example, “It becomes the duty of the father or mother of the marriageable girl, to make a fairly close survey of the intended husband, going into the family history to determine whether or not there is a line of degeneracy, insanity, feeble mindedness or epilepsy to be found among his immediate family… A careful history of the intended husband, relative to his moral life and that of his forefathers, should be taken, with a view of avoiding the strains of moral degeneracy commonly found in the children of moral defectives.” Some of those “defects” sound ridiculous to us today and include common childhood traits like night terrors, thumb-sucking, sleeplessness, chafing, stuttering, cross eyes, knock knees, pigeon toes, and bow legs. According to this volume, all of these need to be corrected and should not be tolerated.
The second half of the book is devoted to personal hygiene and disease prevention. However, the volume devotes considerable amount of time to subjects that today sound archaic and horribly out of touch. On the section titled “Bites of Animals,” the book directs “The Safest Rule is to prohibit the keeping of domestic animals about the place, such as dogs and cats. They are usually useless and a nuisance and add to the expense of the household.”
On the subject of snakebites, keeping in mind that this book was distributed to schoolchildren, the book directs, “It is a common error that has been responsible for much harm, that whiskey or alcohol in large quantities is the best thing to use for snakebites; and many times the patient has been found to be in a drunken condition.”
Today it seems that every man under the age of 40 is wearing a beard were heavy mustache, so I found it interesting that the subject of shaving in this volume was heavily frowned upon. Again, this book was issued to school children which makes the following all the more humorous, “From a health standpoint, very little excuse can be found for a person maintaining a heavy beard or mustache. The hairs collect dust and dirt. Very frequently when eating, milk or other food becomes entangled in the growth and it is troublesome to remove thoroughly such substances. The smooth shaven face is the easiest one kept clean and it is not nearly so apt to become infected with germs of consumption. lagrippe or pneumonia…The bearded face is becoming relatively rare, and unless it is worn for cosmetic purposes, the beard will tend to disappear as health laws are more thoroughly understood and applied.”
The book continues with more of the same and the last quarter of the book is devoted to the proper construction, care and use of sleeping porches, quarters and tents built outdoors for the use and isolation of sick children. The illustrations and real photo images of these precariously constructed additions, some 1 to 2 stories above the ground, look quite dangerous and in some instances appear to be worse than the cure. Woe to the child with claustrophobia or a fear of heights! Also in this section can be found diagrams, details and instructions on the proper dispensation of backyard outhouses for the health and well-being of the family and community instructing that outhouses should be “self-cleaning and fly proof.”
The book is subtle, but unmistakable, in its delivery of the eugenics message. No doubt the personal presentation of a brand-new hardcover book for students to take home to rural Kentucky households was a thrill to the child and a wonder to the family back in the day. There’s a good chance that this book might’ve been the only other book in the family home other than the Bible.
This particular book was presented to a little girl from South Fork Kentucky in Owsley County, once the home of Daniel Boone. In a childlike scrawl on the flyleaf page the original owner has written “Mae Griffith. Her book. South Fork Ky. Jan. 8, 1920.” twice. Pauline Mae Griffith was born on April 21, 1909, making her 10 years old when she received this book. According to my research, little Mae got very sick shortly after she took this book home to proudly show her family.
Her family moved to Granville Ohio in late 1920/early 1921 where Mae died “of disease” on August 2, 1921 at the age of 12. She was buried four days later on August 6, 1921 in Maple Grove Cemetery, where she rests to this day. Did her family moved due to a change in employment? Or to be closer to family? Or to get Mae the medical care she required? What disease took little Mae’s life? Was it tuberculosis, smallpox, whooping cough, typhoid fever, measles, diphtheria or some other infectious disease mentioned in her little book? We’ll never know. But one thing’s for sure — this little book somehow made the 100 mile journey from Granville to Dayton, Ohio to land in the hands of my own little girl. Don’t worry Mae, Jasmine will cherish it just as much as you did.
Al Hunter is the author of “Haunted Indianapolis” and co-author of the “Indiana National Road” and “Haunted Irvington” book series. Contact Al directly at Huntvault@aol.com or become a friend on Facebook.
