Writing for public health: medicine, statistics, and literature in the progressive era

Drawing on insights from health humanities, environmental humanities, and critical data studies scholarship, Writing for Public Health chronicles the early consolidation of statistics and public health in America and its impact on literary and cultural production from the Civil War to the Progressive Era. The field of public health, I show, emerged in the late nineteenth century alongside the study of statistics. Statistics thus started to appear more frequently in public health discourse, but not always in a way that advanced public health. For example, influential economists and public health officials used statistics to predict the extinction of the Black American race and portray Chinese immigrants as public health threats. Corporations mobilized statistics to advertise their businesses while obfuscating the toxicity of their industrially produced products. I argue that Progressive Era writers and editors counteracted such misleading statistics and turned to storytelling about health through popular literary forms: naturalist and realist novels, advice columns, and sketches. I reinterpret the literary works of established authors such as Charles Chesnutt, Upton Sinclair, Edith Maude Eaton, and Edith Wharton, and uncover the understudied medical advice columns by two early female physicians, highlighting their common concerns for public health. I contend that their literary imaginations brought attention to health risks, presented more accurate theories to explain the cause of illnesses, and offered insights on how to address them. Writing for Public Health ultimately demonstrates how literature can reshape the terrain of public health, with, against, or in the crucial absence of statistics.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English

Grantor

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2025

Author dc:creator

• Kim, Yoonsuh

Contributors dc:contributor

• Murison, Justine S.
• Parker, Robert Dale
• Barnard, John Levi
• Jones, Jamie L.

• Public Health
• American Literature
• Statistics
• Progressive Era

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2025 Yoonsuh Kim

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/130196

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F130196