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Blog: Ben Schultz

Between the catastrophic smallpox outbreak of 1894 and the influenza pandemic of 1918, Milwaukee continued to face challenges in the field of public health that we were only able to cover briefly in this episode. Two of the most prominent health issues in Milwaukee during this period were milk contamination and tuberculosis, both of which the Socialists worked to combat when they gained power.

In 1912, W.H. Meyers wrote that “no article of the household ranks in importance with milk—upon no other single article in the family dietary so greatly depends the health and well-being of all its members, both old and young.” But, Meyers warned, the most important part of a family’s diet was also the most susceptible to dangerous chemical changes, which could make it unfit for human consumption. When it was improperly produced or distributed, milk could easily spread diseases like ptomaine poisoning and typhoid fever.

When Emil Seidel was elected Milwaukee’s first socialist mayor and the Socialist Party took control of the Common Council in 1910, they took these risks seriously. They passed an ordinance in 1911 requiring the Health Department to inspect food and milk. Milk, among other things, needed to be tested for bovine tuberculosis, as it could easily spread to humans. In his memoirs, Seidel described the ordinance as one of a handful of highlights of his administration, alongside the building of public drinking fountains and the first municipal electric power plant.

The reforms passed by the Socialists when it came to dairy safety are reflected in “The Laws and Ordinances Relating to Milk,” a 29-page booklet published by the Milwaukee Health Department in 1914. “It shall be the duty of the bacteriologist” and their deputies, the booklet stipulates, to visit and inspect “any store or building, platforms, establishments or places of any kind containing milk or cream, and ascertain or examine the condition thereof with reference to cleanliness and sanitation, and they are authorized, directed and empowered to cause the removal and abatement of any unfit, unclean or injurious condition.”

One bulletin in 1913 reported that “recently a case was called to the attention of the Division of Tuberculosis of a man who was said to live in a ‘rat hole.’” His dark and musty apartment was mostly below ground, and had become “inexpressibly filthy.” The bulletin continued: “a nurse was sent to make a call and learn the conditions. She reported that in all her experience she has never supposed that human beings could exist in such a place as she found.” Accordingly, even after the man was taken to the hospital and his apartment was fully fumigated, the health department declared it unfit for human habitation.

For Socialists like Emil Seidel, tuberculosis wasn’t just a sickness, it was a symptom of the squalid conditions laborers were forced into. And the Health Department endorsed this view, concluding in the case of the man in the ‘rat hole’ that “basement dwellings, as long as they are cheap, will be used for human habitation in Milwaukee, unless they are prohibited by law, and tuberculosis will certainly develop where there is no light, no air and people are underpaid, under-nourished and overworked.”