The Lung Block: Plagues, Parks, and Power in Progressive-Era New York [Hardcover]

Public health, housing, poverty, and immigration dominated social and political discourse in early twentieth-century New York, much as they do today. The Lower East Side provided an urban environment where infectious disease and other public health concerns flourished. One city block in particular, known in muckraking circles as “The Lung Block,” housed four thousand first- and second-generation Americans in dilapidated tenements where deadly tuberculosis spread uninhibited.The Lung Blocklooks at a 1903 reform crusade to demolish this working-class tenement neighborhood and replace it with a park. Progressive reformers aimed to confront the area’s moral and environmental dangers, but their conceptualization of the problem and methods for addressing it placed them into direct conflict with the hand-to-mouth priorities of the residents. The campaign and its eventual failure illuminate the formidable social barriers distancing urban reformers and the marginalized populations they intend to help. “The Lung Blockis a wonderful contribution to American public health history. This important topic has found its perfect historian in Adrienne deNoyelles.”
 —Howard Markel, author ofThe Secret of Life: Rosalind Franklin, James Watson, Francis Crick, and the Discovery of DNA’s Double Helix
 “DeNoyelles takes a familiar story—progressive reform in New York City—and tells it anew with a depth of coverage that is unique.”
—Jennifer Koslow, Florida State University
 Adrienne deNoyellesis a writer and researcher who earned her PhD in American history from the University of Florida.