Metropolitan Board of Health

History

The Board of Health, later known as the Metropolitan Board of Health began after the American Civil War on February 18, 1865, when the first Report of the Council of Hygiene and Public Health of the Citizens' Association of New York (known as Citizen's Association Report on the Sanitary Condition of the City) was written:

The board's formation was in part a response to the New York City draft riots, the council would state:

Poor sanitation and filthy streets threatened both the physical health of the public as well as the economic welfare of the developing metropolis in the mid nineteenth century.

The sanitation of the city went under city politics. Most of city sewage and welfare in New York City was headed by Tammany Hall. In 1863 Tammany Hall nominated City Street Inspector Francis I. A. Boole for mayor. Reformists discovered that street cleaning was deeply embedded in corruption. Workers were paid by Tammany Hall below minimum wage and forced to sign contracts that gave up half of their paycheck to Boole.

After the release of the Citizens Association Report in late 1865, the new board began to manage New York City's worst environmental problems.

The Board of Health in New York, inspected at least 500 factories in the area and demanded that the factory owners decrease the amount of toxic air they released which they say was becoming a major health risk as well as the dirty tenements that contained new immigrants into the area.

A Health official in 1866 wrote of the tenements in a 300-page document, entitled Inspection of Tenement living:

The Board of Health helped encourage scientists and doctors to help cure diseases as well as join reformers in bringing attention to tenement law and work laws. By 1915 many of the powers originally possessed by the health department as to tenement houses had been transferred to the tenement-house department, which was charged with enforcing the tenement-house law in all flats and apartments.

References

References

1. [http://www.vny.cuny.edu/cholera/1866/cholera_1866_3new.html CUNY VNY] Cholera in New York
2. [http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/php/php-smith.html Stephen Smith, American Surgeon and NYC Public Health Pioneer] {{webarchive. link. (2006-10-14)
3. [[New International Encyclopedia]]
4. Report of the Council of Hygiene and Public Health of the Citizens' Association of New York upon the sanitary condition of the City ([https://books.google.com/books?id=_fFHXa7zbt4C Google eBook]), 1865
5. Lipsky, Michael. (1970). "Protest in city politics : rent strikes, housing, and the power of the poor". Chicago : Rand McNally.
6. [https://www.nytimes.com/1863/11/28/news/mass-meeting-democracy-francis-ia-boole-for-mayor-speech-hon-samuel-b-garvin-hon.html Mass Meeting of the Democracy] New York Times, November 28, 1863
7. [[New International Encyclopedia]]