|
|
|
Putting It To A Vote: The Provision
of Pure Milk in Progressive Era Los Angeles1
Jennifer Koslow
Newberry Library
|
On May 28, 1912, Katherine Philips
Edson took her seven-year-old son by the hand and headed for her
local polling precinct. Women had recently won suffrage in California,
and Edson went to exercise her new right. This was a special referendum
election, and she needed to consider a number of very different
issues. Should she support the creation of an Aqueduct Investigation
Board? Should she allow the city to collect funds to erect a new
city hall? On this day, the question on the ballot that interested
her most was the one that she had played a role in crafting. It
read, "Shall the ordinance providing for the tuberculin test to
be applied to dairy cattle producing milk furnished to the City
of Los Angeles, or its inhabitants, be adopted?" After casting
her vote, she remained outside with her son at her side and attempted
to persuade the electorate that they should vote in favor of the
tuberculin ordinance because it protected the public, especially
children, from tuberculosis. The Los Angeles Herald photographed
her plea for pure milk and placed it on the front page of the
evening edition. Much to Edson's dismay, however, the bill was
resoundingly defeated.
|
1
|
|
Why did the public reject this
effort at providing the city with pure milk? As the photograph
illustrates, Edson used motherhood to influence voters. However,
no one who participated in these debates displayed indifference
to the law's possible impact on children. Instead, they differed
in how they conceptualized the problem of supplying food for their
families. Edson and other supporters of the law (mainly middle-class
reformers, health officials, and physicians) characterized pure
milk primarily as a technological difficulty, by which they meant
the mechanical procedures for producing, packaging, and distributing
milk. From their perspective, the use of scientific diagnostic
tests to detect dangerous microbes was an integral part of this
process, and Edson viewed tuberculin testing as the latest innovation
in this field. Their opposition (a coalition of small dairy farmers
represented by a socialist woman named Laura Locke) questioned
whether tuberculin testing would in fact result in safer milk.
They further stressed that the expense of implementing this new
method of analysis threatened to drive small local producers out
of business and thus raise the price of milk beyond what working
class families could really afford. While both sides concurred
that the problem of bringing milk from the cow to the consumer
was an important public health issue, they disagreed over whether
the local state should be more concerned with supervising the
system of production or worrying about the price of the product.
|
2
|
There are about 14083 more words in this article.
Please log in (or, if you are not yet an
authorized user, please go to the
User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
|
|
