Clean Living Movements: American Cycles of Health Reform

Over the past 200 years, a health reform movement has emerged about every 80 years. These clean living cycles surged with, or were tangential to, a religious awakening. Simultaneously with these awakenings, out groups such as immigrants and/or youth were seen to exhibit behaviors that undermined society. Middle class fear of these dangerous classes and a desire to eliminate disease, crime, and other perceived health or social problems led to crusades in each of the three reform eras against alcohol, tobacco, drugs, certain foods, and sexual behaviors. A backlash began to emerge from some segments of the population against reform efforts. After the dissipation of the activism phase, laws made during the reform era often became ignored or repealed. With a few exceptions, during the 30 to 40 year ebb of the cycle, the memory of the movement disappeared from public awareness.

The desire for improved health and social conditions also led to campaigns in favor of exercise, semi-vegetarian diets, women's rights, chastity, and eugenics. Engs describes the interweaving of temperance, women's rights, or religion with most health issues. Factions of established faiths emerged to fight perceived immorality, while alternative religions formed and adopted health reform as dogma. In the reform phase of each cycle, a new infectious disease threatened the population. Some alternative medical practices became popular that later were incorporated into orthodox medicine and public health. Ironically, over each succeeding movement, reformers became more likely to represent grass roots beliefs, or even to be state or federal officials, rather than independent activists.

Dr. Engs shows how Americans' fervor for self-improvement occurs in spurts....So far, Dr. Engs says, Americans have experienced three so-called clean-living movements. Each one involved campaigns against tobacco, alcohol, and premarital sex. Dr. Engs tracks the cultural forces that prompt each movement and those that set off each rebellion against health, and the story is told in an appealing way for mass audiences....Whether a reader goes along with her theory, the book is chock full of amusing anecdotes and brief biographies of those she calls health fanatics....Her prediction: the nation will lose interest in preventative health by 2005. And no matter what public health messages bombard today's children and despite an onslaught of new medical findings, health enthusiasm, like other trends, comes and goes. In other words, today's baby boomers may be training for triathalons but their children will grow to prefer martinis and cigarettes.New York Times

Ruth Engs' approach is a fascinating one and puts many of the current issues we are facing in perspective.AIM

Describes the interweaving of health movements with other social movements such as women's rights, temperance, eugenics, and religious awakenings in all three reform eras.

Over the past 200 years, a health reform movement has emerged about every 80 years. These "clean living" cycles surged with, or were tangential to, a religious awakening. Simultaneously with these awakenings, out groups such as immigrants and/or youth were seen to exhibit behaviors that undermined society. Middle class fear of these "dangerous" classes and a desire to eliminate disease, crime, and other perceived health or social problems led to crusades in each of the three reform eras against alcohol, tobacco, drugs, certain foods, and sexual behaviors. A backlash began to emerge from some segments of the population against reform efforts. After the dissipation of the activism phase, laws made during the reform era often became ignored or repealed. With a few exceptions, during the 30 to 40 year ebb of the cycle, the memory of the movement disappeared from public awareness.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [269]-303) and index.

Preface

Introduction

The First Clean Living Movement, 1830-1860

Millennialism, New Religions and Health Reform

Temperance, Tobacco and Women's Rights

Christian Physiology, Diet and Sexuality

"Inherited Realities," Phrenology, and Groups with Quasi Eugenic Undercurrents

Nativism, Cholera, Public Health, and Cures

The Second Clean Living Movement, 1880-1920

Religious Zeal, Physical Culture and Diet

Saloons, Suffrage and Smoking

Eugenics, Purity and Birth Control

Pure Food, Drugs, and the Elimination of "Dope"

Tuberculosis, Public Health and Influenza

The Third Clean Living Movement, mid 1970-2000?

Christian Awakening, "New-Age" Religions, and Wellness

Drunk Driving, Smoke Free Environments, and the "War Against Drugs"

Women's Lib, Neo Purity and AIDS

Fitness, Health, and the New Eugenics

Epilogue

Bibliography

Index