Northerner's Disease Essay

During the early 1900s, the South was plagued by multiple diseases that would negatively impact its people for years to come. This was in part caused by the South’s climate, which helped nurtured a wide variety of diseases ranging from epidemic diseases, like yellow fever, to debilitating illnesses, like hookworm and pellagra. The disease like environment of the South was not only fostered by the climate, but also by the poverty of its people, which led many to be unable to provide a nourished diet for their families. Northerners already viewed the South as an underdeveloped and sickly region at time, so their image of Southerners were only further tarnished by the realization that the people were malnourished and infected with worms. Due to …show more content…
Of course, the negative image the hookworm casted on the Southerners made Northers wonder if “the ignorance of the negroes and poor whites preclude the cure” (NYT Staff, 1908). This early New York Times articles continues to mock the South by stating “perhaps Georgia and other Southern states may in time pass laws making the wearing of shoes compulsory” (1908). The ignorance was not at the fault of the Southerners but of the Northerners who knew little about the issue then its cause. Many Southern families were unable to provide shoes for their children because of how poor they were. It was only with the slow economic and hygienic gains over the next few decades, with help from organizations such as Rockefeller, that the hookworm was finally eradicated from the South. This eradication led to higher school attendance and an increase literacy rate in the South (Martin & Humphreys, 2006, p. 862). Revealing that the South was not stupid but burdened and inhibited by the diseases its people carried. The years spent under the control of diseases such as the hookworm caused the South to decline economically and socially compared to the rest of the regions in the United