Woman's work in municipalities. Mary Ritter Beard
proprietor of one of the motion-picture theaters gave the pure food committee the use of the theater with all proceeds for one day for the presentation of the fly-pest film. …
As a result of complaints from dairymen and confectioners that bottle and ice cream cans were returned in bad condition, cards with hints to housewives were printed and distributed by milkmen to their customers.
The subject of a municipal slaughter house was brought before various organizations and committees were appointed to coöperate in a city-wide effort to solve the problem. The subject of a city incinerator for the disposal of garbage was also agitated.
The pure food committee, through the courtesy of the Minnesota food commission, secured the pure food exhibit of the commission, placing it in a conspicuous place on the grounds during the state fair, with a lecturer in charge. This proved a great attraction, and the space in front of the exhibit was crowded with people from the rural districts who had heard little of the new gospel of pure food. The local food inspector visited each food concession as it was being placed, and explained the pure food law, with a hint that it was to be enforced on the grounds during the fair. Several later visits were made to the concessions, and suggestions were made and many bad practices discovered and stopped. For example, lemonade must be made from lemons rather than from acid powder was one order enforced. It was noticeable that the eating places having screens were the most popular.
The second season of pure food education is naturally less strenuous for the committee, but not so for the inspector, who, if she be the woman for the place, continually finds new problems to be solved. No small part of her time must be devoted to receiving complaints and assisting merchants in planning ways of complying more completely with the law. She should be kind, tactful, firm and resourceful, with a touch of the Sherlock Holmes quality.
It is well to invite the members of the city council and board of health to take an early spring drive to the city dumping grounds and slaughter houses—early enough to find conditions at their worst.
No one factor can make for the health of a community more surely than a strict enforcement of the pure food laws. This enforcement by a special officer makes it possible for bad practices of all kinds to be traced and eliminated, either by persuasion or fine. It makes it possible for the poor to be supplied with clean, pure food, and this is really the greatest good that can come of the law, since the well-to-do, who buy at large, well-kept stores on main business streets, where neatness is an asset, can more easily influence the food merchants. The poor, buying in small quantities, patronize the small, ill-kept store in the vicinity of the home, and have little influence. With food inspectors, one store is as rigidly scrutinized as another, and the small buyer at the small, out-of-the-way store has equal protection with the large buyer at the large store in the center of business.
In response to an inquiry the following report comes later from Mrs. Leonard:
The municipal abattoir was built in Grand Forks, and, by dint of all the pressure the Civic League could bring to bear, it was put in working order after being carelessly constructed. After working for years to get the abattoir and telling the Council what features were necessary to make it efficient and sanitary, not one of the women was put on the advisory committee, even, when it was being built. It is still far from perfect and yet scarcely a week passes that the food inspector does not receive inquiries for plans and advice from towns all over the West, such is the interest in the smaller Western cities in doing things for themselves. With all the bad management, the abattoir has some months paid expenses, which is an excellent showing for so new an institution.
The activity of Indiana women was a large factor in the establishment of a state laboratory of hygiene under the Board of Health charged with the examination of food and drugs and assistance in the enforcement of health laws. The chief of the food research laboratory in Philadelphia is a woman—Dr. Mary Pennington.
Missouri women pledged their efforts to a pure food crusade some time ago, while the excellent laws in Texas reflect the interest of the women of that state. In 1906 the women of Iowa drafted a pure food bill which they presented to the legislature. In Ohio where fair legislation existed, the women worked to have it enforced.
In Kansas State Food Commissioner Fricke appealed to the club women to aid him in enforcing food regulations of that state by acting as volunteer inspectors. Where they have not been asked by city and state officials to act, women have often proceeded to act on their own initiative. An official inspection and report on dairy products were recently undertaken by Chicago Club women during the session of the National Dairy Show. Women in Louisiana are active in the inspection of bakeries, meat markets and dairies. It is largely due to the work of women that fruit stands and markets are screened in New Orleans, a city in utmost need of such care. This is true of many other cities. Louisiana has a woman as state health inspector—Agnes Morris.
In Wheeling, West Virginia, the club women have been asking for a woman food inspector. Tacoma, Washington, is one of those cities which already have a woman serving in that capacity. Such a clean food supply is reported from that city that other communities in the state are imitating its example. The women of Seattle, Washington, transformed some old plants into five large modern sanitary bakeries.
Mrs. Sarah Evans was in 1909 Inspector of Markets in Portland, Oregon, and her publication of clean market requirements was the inspiration of more than one organization of women for better civic conditions.
The Housewives’ League, organized and directed by Mrs. Julian Heath of New York, has the twofold aim of securing pure food uncontaminated by dust and flies and of securing it at a lower cost. In the general pure food war, Mrs. Heath and her assistant, Miss M. E. McOuat, have, among other things, sought to interest girls in their teens in the purity and cleanliness of the candy and soda water they buy. Open-air meetings in the poorer districts of New York City, where cheap and dangerous wares are on every hand, have been held to warn young children against poisons of various kinds. At the same time this organization has assisted those officials who have sought to induce storekeepers to carry better varieties. They have also reported violations of the law as they have been discovered.
The Women’s Health Protective Association of Philadelphia had a Bakeshop Committee which visited bakeries and consulted with the bakers themselves over conditions. The state of affairs that was revealed to the women led to a public agitation and legislation controlling the most unsanitary features of these places.
A new bakeshop code secured by the women of Cleveland requires absolute cleanliness and a ten-hour day for employees. A “White List” is published showing those bakers who best observe the code.
Mrs. E. E. McKibber, chairman of the Food Sanitation Committee of the General Federation of Clubs, has sent a letter to the clubs of each state to this effect:
“Do you as club women keep yourselves informed and discriminate against poor food as you do against poor clothing?
“Have you helped pass an ordinance looking to a better food supply, to the better handling of food?
“Have you any organization in your town that looks after the food supply?”
This pressure by the chairman of the Food Sanitation Committee of the clubs indicates that hundreds of committees representing thousands of women are instituting a constructive campaign for better and cleaner food.
The Women’s Municipal League of Boston has been very active. “The cleanliness and hygienic condition of markets seems to me to belong peculiarly to woman’s province,” writes the chairman of its market committee, “and I confess it gives me a certain feeling of shame that a comparatively small and new city like Portland should be more civilized in this respect than Boston. It is, however, encouraging to think that Portland has been brought to this standard from a lower condition than Boston’s by the efforts of a few women.”
The Boston League in connection with its market work made a study of oysters last year in their relation to the transmission of infectious diseases, and cold storage.
For an investigation of provision shops, twenty-four Radcliff students were used who conducted the investigations “with enthusiasm and success, bringing to the committee papers of decided ability.