‘Stop kissing and steaming!’: tuberculosis and the occupational health movement in Massachusetts and Lancashire, 1870–1918

Abstract

Historians have argued that American social welfare reformers looked to Europe for examples of successful programmes. This article provides a counter-case where a progressive American state, Massachusetts, developed public health reforms prior to their British counterparts. Social concerns about reducing cases of tuberculosis in Massachusetts' cotton manufacturing cities led to the transference of the public health discourse from the urban living environment to the workplace. This same relationship could have been applied within the Lancashire industry. Instead, the urban public health discourse focused on living conditions. In both countries, local and state political structures influenced health campaigners' actions.

Oil on the water: Government regulation of a carcinogen in the twentieth-century Lancashire cotton spinning industry

“…As such, this article supplements previous historical work on industrial diseases, which has highlighted cotton industry problems with byssinosis, steaming, and shuttle-kissing (Bowden & Tweedale, 2003;Fowler, 2003;Greenlees, 2005). We have found the same tripartite failure by industry, government, and trade unions to deal with an industrial hazard.…”

In a City of Mills and Canals: Mortality among Pre-teen and Teenage Irish Workers in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Industrial Lowell, Massachusetts

“…Janet Greenlees (2005) undertook an examination of occupational health and the cotton mills of Lancashire and Massachusetts in the period between 1870 and 1918 and described how the Massachusetts Board of Health targeted towns with the highest levels of tuberculosis, including Lowell, in their publication health campaigns.…”

Retórica de la cuantificación: tuberculosis, estadística y mundo laboral en Colombia, 1916-1946

“…La discusión sobre la asociación causal entre ambiente de trabajo y TBC se inscribe en el debate, más amplio, acerca de la enfermedad profesional, propio del periodo de entreguerras y de alcance global (Dale, Greenlees, Melling, 2007;Greenlees, 2005;McIvor, 2012;Rajchenberg, 1998;Thomann, 2009). En Colombia, la TBC comenzó a ser considerada como enfermedad profesional a partir del decreto n.841 de 1946 (13 de marzo) que reglamentó el artículo 12 de la ley 6ª de 1945, 13 por la cual se legisló por primera vez para proteger a los trabajadores en caso de enfermedades profesionales, pero solamente en ciertos oficios como personal hospitalario, mozos de anfiteatro, mineros, "sopleteros", caldereros y fogoneros (Colombia, 1946, p.199).…”