The Role Of Public Health In The 19th Century

Land use regulation, planning, and a concern for the built surroundings began from a focus in public health. The Industrial Revolution of the 19th century caused an accelerated growth of steel, manufacturing, and coal industries. Following that, brought hoards of workers and their families from non-urban areas into the cities. These rapid growing cities lacked hygienic infrastructures to handle and endure with the expanding population. Many people had to quickly improvise and were subject to often jam packed housing and usually sleep across the street from the factories that released smoke and other pollutants. Urban residents, “lived in tiny unventilated apartments, often with whole families—and perhaps a few boarders—occupying the same room…the most miserable and degraded lived in unfinished cellars, their walls a mat of slime, sewage, and moisture after every rain” (Frumkin pg.46). …show more content…
During the nineteenth century, the public health profession was assembled. The leading cause of death in the U.S. was infectious diseases. Because of overcrowding and poor cleanliness in public areas, these were the initial reasons for high rates of infectious disease. The Tenement House Act in 1901 in New York City was one of the first acts that led the way in regulating these conditions and setting codes and regulations for housing that conducted construction, maintenance and the arrangement of light and air. By the early 20th Century, industrial zones progressively used public nuisance laws to monitor land use and separate toxic activities from