tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post3251317774129959049..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: Report on Conditions at North Carolina Mills (Martha Gellhorn to Harry Hopkins, 1934)Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-5939729905418402492010-09-26T14:50:56.057-07:002010-09-26T14:50:56.057-07:00error:It was Dr.Goldberger who
took on Pellagra no...error:It was Dr.Goldberger who<br />took on Pellagra not Goldberg<br /><br />sorry folksElmo St. Rosehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01588245143022651357noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-82368825157496449152010-09-26T09:11:53.455-07:002010-09-26T09:11:53.455-07:00luck of the draw
penicillin was accidentally
foun...luck of the draw<br /><br />penicillin was accidentally<br />found as mold on a culture<br />plate by Flemming but syphillis<br />is making a come back<br /><br />the Rockefellers were among<br />those who financed Planned<br />Parenthood, ostensibly at that<br />time, to decrease the birth rate<br />of the underclass<br /><br />reasonable birth control is<br />reasonable, but what would the<br />church say about it?<br /><br />we've come a long way from<br />the Gellhorn report but we<br />still sees it allElmo St. Rosehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01588245143022651357noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-17235058405255742882010-09-26T08:09:23.670-07:002010-09-26T08:09:23.670-07:00And a further excerpt:
#
Which brings us to bir...And a further excerpt: <br /><br />#<br /><br />Which brings us to birth control. Every social worker I saw, and every doctor, and the majority of mill owners, talked about birth control as the basic need of this class. I have seen three generations of unemployed (14 in all) living in one room; and both mother and daughter were pregnant. Our relief people have a child a year; large families are the despair of the social worker and the doctor. The doctors say that the more children in a family the lower the health rating. These people regard children as something the Lord has seen fit to send them, and you can't question the Lord even if you don't agree with him. There is absolutely no hope for these children; I feel that our relief rolls will double themselves given time. The children are growing up in terrible surroundings; dirt, disease, overcrowding, undernourishment. Often their parents were farm people, who at least had air and enough food. This cannot be said for the children. I know we could do birth control in this area; it would be a slow and trying job beginning with education. (You have to fight superstition, stupidity and lack of hygiene.) But birth control would be worked into prenatal clinics; and the grape vine telegraph is the best propaganda I know. I think if it isn't done that we may as well fold up; these people cannot be bettered under present circumstances. Their health is going to pieces; the present generation of unemployed will be useless human material in no time; their housing is frightful (talk about European slums); they are ignorant and often below-par intelligence. What can we do: feed them--feed them pinto beans and corn bread and sorghum and watch the pellagra spread. And in twenty years, what will there be; how can a decent civilization be based on a decayed substrata, which is incapable physically and mentally to cope with life?TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-42232868610798705612010-09-26T08:07:24.605-07:002010-09-26T08:07:24.605-07:00Elmo, Glad you found your way to this one, as it w...Elmo, Glad you found your way to this one, as it was with you in mind that I put it up.<br /><br />Some further bits from the Gellhorn report, on the subject of public health:<br /><br />#<br /><br />What has been constantly before me is the health problem. To write about it is difficult only in that one doesn't know where to begin......dietary diseases abound. I know that in this area there has always been pellagra; but that doesn't make matters better. In any case it is increasing; and I have seen it ranging from scaly elbows in children to insanity in a grown man. Here is what doctors say: "It's no use telling mothers what to feed their children; they haven't the food to give"..."Conditions are really horrible here; it seems as if the people were degenerating before your eyes: the children are worse mentally and physically than their parents.". . . "I've just come from seeing some patients who have been living on corn bread and corn hominy, without seasoning, for two weeks. I wonder how long it takes for pellagra to set in; just a question of days now." . . . "All the mill workers I see are definite cases of undernourishment; that's the best breeding ground I know for disease." . . . "There's not much use prescribing medicine; they haven't the money to buy it." . . . "You can't do anything with these people until they're educated to take care of themselves; they don't know what to eat; they haven't the beginning of an idea how to protect themselves against sickness.". . .<br /><br />#<br /><br /><br />The medical set-up, from every point of view, in this area is tragic. In Gaston County there is not one county clinic or hospital; and only one health officer (appointed or elected?) This gentleman has held his job for more than a dozen years; and must have had droll medical training sometime during the last century. He believes oddly that three shots of neo-salvarsan will cure syphilis; and thinks that injecting this into the arm muscle is as good as anything. Result: he cripples and paralyzes his patients who won't go back...Another doctor in this area owns a drug store. He was selling bottled tonic (home-made I think) to his mill worker patients as a cure for syphilis. This was discovered by a 21 year old case worker; who wondered why her clients' money was disappearing so fast. When asked why he did this he said that syphilis was partly a "run-down" condition, and that "you ought to build the patients up." Every doctor says that syphilis is spreading unchecked and uncured. One doctor even said that it had assumed the proportions of an epidemic and wouldn't be stopped unless the government stepped in; and treated it like small-pox.<br /><br />#<br /><br /><br />I have seen three V.D. clinics only. One of them was over a store--three rooms; run by the county doctor, a nurse, and a janitor who acted as assistant. I am told by these clinic doctors that most of the patients come in when the disease is in the second or third (and incurable) stage. That of course it is being spread regardless; and often they treat the whole family. That congenital syphilis is a terrible problem and practically untreated; nature kills off these children pretty well...TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-78348390315210875992010-09-26T07:24:44.071-07:002010-09-26T07:24:44.071-07:00The textile mills are mostly
closed...John Edwards...The textile mills are mostly<br />closed...John Edwards talked about<br />his life growing up in a milltown<br />in North Carolina...the jobs now<br />in China.<br /><br />Air conditioning:"I think air-conditioning changed the South" said Senator Lott...air conditioning being invented by<br />Dr.Carrier, a physician, in<br />Appalachiacola,Florida who wanted<br />to keep his suffering patients<br />cooler<br /><br />Pellagra:Goldberg found this was<br />a result of B vitamin deficiency<br />related to the corn bread and<br />molasses diet of the poor in the<br />South while working for the US<br />Public Health Service in the early<br />1900s,lessened the load of the<br />psychiatric hospitals.<br /><br />There is, as a result of the<br />New Deal, and almost all the subsequent Presidents, a vast social safety net, so vast that it<br />actually threatens the prosperity<br />that made it possible. People still<br />fall through the cracks regularly but that's because they are people.<br /><br />If America fails today,given the<br />wealth that has been created,it will be because of our education<br />system...which is failing for <br />many reasons...an example on this<br />blog, is that among other things,<br />history is not taught(how many of<br />the poets know history,and these<br />are our literate) and an obvious<br />example is that TC among the other<br />things he does has a wonderfully<br />Socratic mind, and relies on self-<br />employment rather than being sought<br />after as a teacher.<br /><br />History is a pastime but it also<br />looks into the future which I guess<br />is purpose of TC revisiting the <br />New Deal which seems to outliving<br />the New AgeElmo St. Rosehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01588245143022651357noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-68799601681617813722010-09-25T08:31:38.872-07:002010-09-25T08:31:38.872-07:00Curtis,
Well, there is a curious near-hysteria of...Curtis,<br /><br />Well, there is a curious near-hysteria of allegiance in this report which borders on the religious, and from this distance the voodoo aspects are evident... as is the casual paternalism. <br /><br />But plainly the reporter was shocked by what she saw. <br /><br />The report goes on at length and in some detail about the epidemiological consequences of conditions in the cotton mill towns, malnutrition, pellagra and syphilis being common.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-38986616894493902842010-09-25T06:24:04.389-07:002010-09-25T06:24:04.389-07:00This is remarkably intense; the prose and the phot...This is remarkably intense; the prose and the photographs that accompany it make me feel as if I'm there with Ms. Gellhorn. I find all of the living Roosevelt hagiography very sad, however, and reminiscent of remarks I've sometimes seen reported about the current president. They also remind me of things my mother told me about her childhood feelings for Pres. Roosevelt, which were no doubt reflections of her own mother's views. Obviously, investing that sort of belief in individual politicians isn't a good or practical idea. Life doesn't work that way. It seems either they're accomplished grafters or aspiring grafters and that graft is the main object of their endeavors, with feeding a self-aggrandizement disorder running a close second. As I recall you remarking recently on another subject, everything else is just noise. Oh -- it was fascinating re-reading Martha Gellhorn's biography. I'm not sure I would have liked her, but she's a fascinating person. I would love to have a print of the Lange Dirt Road Pines photograph hanging on my wall.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com