Summary Of Restrooms In American Cities By Peter Baldwin

Peter Baldwin, “Restrooms in American Cities,” Journal of Social History, no. 2: (July 2014) 264, accessed October 29, 2017 http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=3&sid=11ed77aa-0c43-42ff-ac05-b202896ae195%40sessionmgr4010 Baldwin reports on the frustrated ambitions in which a relationship between the public authority and private body is established; a relationship that promotes privacy, and encourages personal care. The people of America badly needed a place to clean up. However, the country had no public bathrooms, otherwise known as “comfort rooms”. Baldwin then discusses how municipal governments even in the largest cities hesitated to build more than a few comfort stations because of the high cost of construction and maintenance. Comfort stations proved unsuccessful in competing with department stores, hotels and other privately owned alternatives. This source proves to be reliable because it was published in a social history

established public health programs, founded settlement houses, and undertook other reforms.As city health officer, she collected vital statistics and her annual reports for 1907 and 1908 revealed that Portland had the lowest death rate of similarly sized cities in the country. In this source Lovejoy cited infant mortality statistics to demonstrate that preventable diseases in children was a public health crisis in America. The primary source states that the milk being served in Oregon was not sanitary and need to be reformed. Lovejoy’s efforts to regulate Portland’s milk supply were successful. Under her direction, Portland advanced its national reputation for high standards in sanitation. This source is reliable because it is a primary source from the progressive era which discusses the reforms/statistics of public health in Oregon. Also, this source was found in the historical collections and archives section of a state educational