Swatting Flies for Health: Children and Tuberculosis in Early Twentieth-Century Montreal

Type of resource
Authors/collaborators
Title
Swatting Flies for Health: Children and Tuberculosis in Early Twentieth-Century Montreal
Abstract
Responding to an appeal by city physicians and health reformers to destroy a prodigious disease carrier, the housefly, the Montreal Daily Star launched a contest in July 1912, offering prizes to children who collected the most dead flies. Nearly a thousand children, mostly from working-class families, participated in the three-week long “Swat the Fly” competition. The authors argue that engaging children in public health reforms was a way of combating the ignorance of one generation by arming the next. They maintain that children were active agents in public health crusades both as consumers and as advocates.
Publication
Urban History Review/Revue d’histoire urbaine
Volume
Vol. 36
Issue
no. 1
Pages
32-44
Date
2007
Language
en
Citation
Minnett, Valerie, and Mary Anne Poutanen. “Swatting Flies for Health: Children and Tuberculosis in Early Twentieth-Century Montreal.” Urban History Review/Revue d’histoire urbaine Vol. 36, no. 1 (2007): 32–44.
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