Chasing Dirt The American Pursuit of Cleanliness

by Hoy, Suellen

• ISBN13: 9780195111286
• ISBN10: 0195111281
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1996-10-10
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Americans in the early 19th century were, as one foreign traveller bluntly put it, "filthy, bordering on the beastly"--perfectly at home in dirty, bug-infested, malodorous surroundings. Many a home swarmed with flies, barnyard animals, dust, and dirt; clothes were seldom washed; men hardly ever shaved or bathed. Yet gradually all this changed, and today, Americans are known worldwide for their obsession with cleanliness--for their sophisticated plumbing, daily bathing, shiny hair and teeth, and spotless clothes. In Chasing Dirt , Suellen Hoy provides a colorful history of this remarkable transformation from "dreadfully dirty" to "cleaner than clean," ranging from the pre-Civil War era to the 1950s, when American's obsession with cleanliness reached its peak. Hoy offers here a fascinating narrative, filled with vivid portraits of the men and especially the women who helped America come clean. She examines the work of early promoters of cleanliness, such as Catharine Beecher and Sylvester Graham; and describes how the Civil War marked a turning point in our attitudes toward cleanliness, discussing the work of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, headed by Frederick Law Olmsted, and revealing how the efforts of Florence Nightingale in the Crimean War inspired American women--such as Dorothea Dix, Clara Barton, and Louisa May Alcott--to volunteer as nurses during the war. We also read of the postwar efforts of George E. Waring, Jr., a sanitary engineer who constructed sewer systems around the nation and who, as head of New York City's street-cleaning department, transformed the city from the nation's dirtiest to the nation's cleanest in three years. Hoy details the efforts to convince African-Americans and immigrants of the importance of cleanliness, examining the efforts of Booker T. Washington (who preached the "gospel of the toothbrush"), Jane Addams at Hull House, and Lillian Wald at the Henry Street Settlement House. Indeed, we see how cleanliness gradually shifted from a way to prevent disease to a way to assimilate, to become American. And as the book enters the modern era, we learn how advertising for soaps, mouth washes, toothpastes, and deodorants in mass-circulation magazines showed working men and women how to cleanse themselves and become part of the increasingly sweatless, odorless, and successful middle class. Shower for success! By illuminating the historical roots of America's shift from "dreadfully dirty" to "squeaky clean," Chasing Dirt adds a new dimension to our understanding of our national culture. And along the way, it provides colorful and often amusing social history as well as insight into what makes Americans the way we are today.

Author Biography

Suellen Hoy teaches American History at the University of Notre Dame. She is the co-author of From Dublin to New Orleans: The Journey of Nora and Alice.

Table of Contents

Introduction Cleanliness First	xiii
Dreadfully Dirty	3	(26)
John Wesley, Benjamin Franklin, and Reality	3	(4)
The Filthy Farmstead	7	(5)
Towns and Cities, Dirty---and Dangerous	12	(3)
The Domestic Woman, Agent of Cleanliness	15	(4)
Preceptress of Reform: Catharine Beecher	19	(4)
Cleanliness, Health, and Virtue: Graham and Alcott	23	(2)
Cleanliness as Public Policy: Griscom and Shattuck	25	(2)
Sanitary Reform on the Eve of War	27	(2)
A Wider War	29	(30)
Florence Nightingale's Good Example	30	(2)
The First Women Volunteers	32	(4)
Creating the Sanitary Commission	36	(4)
Olmsted Starts Inspecting	40	(6)
``A Woman's War''	46	(7)
The South and the Freedpeople	53	(4)
Bringing Cleanliness Home from the War	57	(2)
City Cleansing	59	(28)
The Sanitary Lessons of the War	59	(3)
Epidemics and the Urgency of Water and Sewers	62	(4)
George Waring and the Sewering of America	66	(6)
Women as Municipal Housekeepers	72	(4)
Ada Sweet and a Cleaner Chicago	76	(2)
Waring Cleans Up New York City	78	(3)
Caroline Bartlett Crane Tests the Waring Model in Kalamazoo	81	(4)
Public and Private Cleanliness in the Progressive Era	85	(2)
The American Way	87	(36)
Becoming American	87	(2)
Booker T. Washington---Toothbrushes and More	89	(3)
To Ellis Island and America	92	(8)
Good Neighbors, Good Teachers: The Settlement Workers	100	(4)
From Miasmas to Microbes	104	(6)
Metropolitan's Health Messengers	110	(3)
Americanizing the Immigrant Home	113	(4)
African-Americans, Cleanliness, and the Great Migration	117	(6)
Persuading the Masses	123	(28)
Education and Business Team Up	123	(1)
From Settlement House to School	123	(6)
Philanthropy Changes the South	129	(4)
Soap and Water for Modern Health Crusaders	133	(4)
Americanizing the Workplace	137	(3)
The Business of Cleanliness	140	(11)
Whiter Than White---and a Glimmer of Green	151	(28)
Cleanliness Peaks	151	(2)
Housewives as Targets	153	(4)
Bathrooms in the Country	157	(6)
The War Changed Everything	163	(4)
Looking for a ``Cleaner Clean''	167	(6)
A Glimmer of Green	173	(6)
Postscript Are We as Clean as We Used to Be?	179	(4)
Notes	183	(62)
Index	245