By Melissa Dombrowski, Bicentennial Intern, Class of 2018, History
Part 2: The 1922 Indiana Health Exposition
Between 1921, when the Indiana Legislature passed an act establishing a new children’s hospital under the direction and control of Indiana University in partnership with the Riley Memorial Association, and when the doors of Riley Hospital opened in November 1924, a sense of panic arose among some members of the medical community.
Some local practitioners opposed the creation of the new hospital, worried that the expansion of the university’s medical services would create competition to the detriment their careers. Others were against the idea of a hospital of its kind existing at the expense of the state or were opposed to the admission of any patient who wasn’t completely indigent.
However, Riley Hospital was never intended to operate entirely on state funding as some of these doctors believed. The initial act establishing Riley Hospital only appropriated $125,000 in state funds for the project. The James Whitcomb Riley Memorial Association (today Riley Children’s Foundation) operated as a force for garnering public support and funding for the hospital, which opened its doors in 1924.
Nevertheless, some articles from the Journal of the Indiana Medical Association (JIMA) between 1921 and 1924 raised several points of contention regarding the future children’s hospital and made clear the need to augment public support and awareness of the critical need for such a facility. While the medical community bickered about competition and misunderstandings about funding, many children with dire illnesses such as polio and tuberculosis waited for care.
May of 1922 offered one especially unique opportunity to get the message out to both the public and the medical community at the same time. That month, the Indiana State fairgrounds hosted the Indiana Health Exposition.
The aim of the exposition was “the education of the public in disease prevention.” An article in JIMA estimated that “three hours devoted to the study of the exhibits and displays would provide the average citizen with a liberal education in how organization and government provide for the care of community health and at the same time how the individual in his daily and family life may escape disease.”[1]
Similar public-health-oriented expositions had been held in New York, Chicago, Louisville, and Cincinnati beginning in 1921.
However, according to an Indianapolis Star article reporting on a statement made by Dr. Frank B. Wynn, faculty member at the Indiana University School of Medicine and author of The Ten Commandments of Medical Ethics, “The idea of having a health show…really originated in the state of Indiana. He denied that the plan was imported from another state, [calling] attention to the health exhibits sent out by the state board of health during the past years at the real beginning of the movement for health expositions.”[2]
Wynn also served as chairman of the educational exhibit committee of the Indiana Health Exposition.
The exhibition served different goals for different groups. While it served as a forum for child health advocates, the exhibition also functioned as a showcase for the followers of eugenics. Newspapers at the time credited Dr. John Hurty, director of the Indiana Board of Health, as responsible for bringing this particular exhibition to Indianapolis.[3]
Hurty is often celebrated for the great strides he made in the betterment of public health in areas like clean water and food, improving the physical conditions of schools, and campaigning against tuberculosis. He was also a strong proponent of eugenics and authored the books Practical Eugenics in Indiana and the highly popular Mother’s Baby Book.[4]
A lack of understanding of genetics and a naïve and strong desire to rid the world of all disease made eugenics (which suggested that the ills of society such as crime, disease, and poverty were genetically inherited and could be eradicated through selective breeding) was a popular scientific theory at the time and one accepted by many medical professionals.
The 1922 exhibit had more than one connection to the eugenics movement. Dr. Ada Schweitzer, director of the Indiana Board of Health’s Division of Child and Infant Hygiene, had an exhibit in a glass structure especially built for the exposition where she gave medical examinations to children.[5] A few years later, this format evolved into her “Better Baby Contests” which took place at Indiana state fairs. However, not necessarily all of the exhibitors shared Hurty’s and Schweitzer’s sentiments.
According to the Indiana Health Exposition’s official program, “progress in the prevention of disease [was] represented in this great exposition by nearly 200 exhibitors,” with a goal of “the prevention of disease.”[6]
These exhibitors included organizations like the YMCA, the Child Health Organization of America, the Jewish Federation, the Indiana State Board of Charities and Corrections (which also played a role in passing the 1921 act establishing Riley Hospital), the Indiana State Library, the Indianapolis Board of Education, the Indianapolis Fire Department, the American Medical Association, and the Coca-Cola Company, among others.[7]
The exhibition was also a product of the 1921 Sheppard-Towner Act. The predecessor of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Social Security Act, the Sheppard-Towner Act resulted from nine years of investigations into high national child and maternal mortality rates conducted by the federal Children’s Bureau.[8]
In 1922, 218,201 (19.8%) children under the age of five years died yearly in the United States. This tally did not include ten states which were not yet registered with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, so the potential for a still greater number of these deaths exists.[9]
Investigators of the Children’s Bureau found that many of the illnesses killing mothers and children were preventable.[10] The main purpose behind the Sheppard-Towner Act aimed to provide funding to states for public health initiatives and public health and hygiene education (especially for women and children) to prevent diseases.
According to the exposition’s official program, “nearly 15,000 persons die[d] in Indiana each year from preventable disease. In the city of Indianapolis alone, over 2,000 such deaths occur[ed] annually.”[11] The motto of the 1922 Indiana Health Exposition, “Live a little longer,” reflected the aspiration of these efforts to save lives.
A meeting of the Indiana Board of Health following the exhibition confirmed that “every requirement of the Children’s Bureau at Washington had been complied with and that the plan of activity and co-operation under the Sheppard-Towner Act had been accepted and approved by the Children’s Bureau.”[12]
The Indiana University School of Medicine was represented in various capacities at the exposition. Dr. William N. Wishard, who had founded Indiana University’s department of genitourinary surgery and had written the Indiana law requiring medical licensing, held the position of chairman of the pre-exposition sale of tickets committee.
Also, Charles P. Emerson, dean of the Indiana University School of Medicine (IUSM), stood as chairman of the exposition’s collaborating committee. Additionally, seizing the opportunity to promote the school and raise public awareness for the need for Riley Children’s Hospital, the IUSM obtained two booths at the exposition.
While Dr. John Hurty did, in fact, sit on the IUSM exhibition planning committee, other committee members included Dr. Virgil Moon (chairman and associate professor of pathology), Dr. B. Bernard Turner (professor of pharmacology), Dr. James Oscar Ritchey (instructor in medicine), Robert E. Neff (registrar and auditor of the Robert W. Long Hospital), and Ethel P. Clarke (director of the Indiana University Training School for Nurses).
In one letter to Ethel P. Clarke, IUSM Dean Charles P. Emerson pointed out a previous suggestion for an exhibit consisting of a children’s ward, “and have two or three children there in proper appliances and with placards showing the length of time of such treatment, the need of supervision etc., in order to emphasize the need of a Children’s Hospital, with convalescent home, etc.” Emerson went on to stipulate that such an exhibit would require attending nurses to care for the children for the full time of the exhibition.
However, he was not sure about the practicability of such an exhibit.[13] Clarke’s response indicated that such an exhibit held promise, adding, “Certainly it would be well to place emphasis on the needs of the children.”[14]
An exhibit featuring living children would not have been unusual at the 1922 Health Exposition. In one article of the Indianapolis Star, Dr. Hurty stressed that “More than 4,000 persons will be engaged in the production of the exposition and by means of actual demonstration we expect to teach all visitors things about themselves and their communities concerning health which would ordinarily require months of actual study.”[15]
The article went on to explain that more than 100 organizations would present interactive live exhibits with doctors, nurses, and dentists providing on-site healthcare to all, especially to children, “in the hope of eliminating disease before its inroads have caused an incurable condition.” The article pointed out that “eye, ear, nose, throat and dental clinics” were planned and that “children of the city will be examined and if necessary operated upon during the exposition.”[16]
In these “live exhibits,” Schick treatments for diphtheria,[17] Schweitzer’s baby examinations, and other “clinics of various sorts” brought increased attendance to the exhibition.[18] Moreover, the majority of the booths offered the services of public health nurses.[19]
For just .25 per ticket, exhibition-goers could receive free medical care and advice from approximately 6,000 professionals in medically related fields from all over the country that they might not have access to otherwise.[20]
The trend of live exhibits included Indiana University School of Medicine, which worked jointly with the Robert W. Long Hospital and the IU School of Nursing. At these exhibits, exhibition visitors could hear their own heartbeats through an adaptation of a plethysmograph. Another portion of the exhibit featured “another large instrument [to]…show blood examinations in actual tests making public demonstrations of some of the latest developments in blood chemistry.”[21]
Another exhibit from the IUSM allowed visitors to view bacterial cultures, and live animals “shown aiding in the actual diagnosis of diseases such as tuberculosis.”[22] Whether children were actually used in the exhibit is not completely clear, however, the Indianapolis Star indicated that “an exhibit of the procedure in the care of patients” existed as a product from the three joint-exhibitors.[23]
Additionally, a portion of the exhibit presented “a hospital room equipped for the care of children” which “illustrated the correction of deformities, occupational therapy and other subjects” along with “many unusual x-rays.”[24] In addition to these exhibits, Long Hospital also had a popular “Children’s Reading Room” exhibit in conjunction with the Indianapolis Public Library featuring the book wagon that was used to bring books to different wards at the hospital.
This exhibit also had a display of children’s books which taught children “how to live a little longer,” and posters of nursery rhymes with the words changed to teach about personal care.[25]
Overall, the exposition had a distinct focus on child health. As well, organizers distributed 100,000 free tickets to schoolchildren in the state, with an additional 25,000 tickets distributed by social service agencies.[26] The attention to child health was not lost on the Riley Memorial Association (RMA), which had recently been established to raise funds for the creation of a children’s hospital in memorial to the late poet James Whitcomb Riley.
For the RMA, the exposition offered the chance to promote their campaign under the direction of John B. Reynolds (general secretary of the Indiana Chamber of Commerce) to raise $2,000,000 in building funds for Riley Hospital that had commenced the previous month in Indianapolis at the James Whitcomb Riley Home Dedication in Lockerbie.[27]
The RMA not only had a booth which featured plans and color drawings of the new hospital, but also had an entire day at the exhibition dedicated to the memory of James Whitcomb Riley and the promotion of Riley Hospital.
James Whitcomb Riley Day at the Indiana Health Exposition took place on Saturday, May 20. According to the Indianapolis Star, almost the entirety of attendees consisted of children. The Star reported that events “moved about the lives and health of children to whom the poet was so devoted, and nine out of every ten exhibits dealt in some way with children,” also pointing out that “the majority of the adult visitors were mothers and fathers.”[28]
Officials presiding over James Whitcomb Riley Day included members of the Indiana University Board of Trustees–George A. Ball, Dr. Samuel E. Smith, Frank H. Hatfield, and Charles M. Neiser–all served as vice chairmen of the event.[29] Hugh McK. Landon, president of the Riley Memorial Association, presided over the afternoon events at the exposition while Dr. Lafayette Page, the Indianapolis surgeon and IUSM faculty member credited with the original idea of creating a children’s hospital in memorial to the poet James Whitcomb Riley, presided over evening events.[30]
Additionally, Mrs. Felix T. McWhirter, a leader in the Indianapolis Equal Suffrage Society and president of the Indiana Federated Women’s Clubs, and Mrs. Barrett Moxley of the Junior League served as “chair patronesses,” with additional patronesses including Mrs. James W. Fesler, wife of the president of the IU Board of Trustees.
The abundance of children attending the Riley Day programs in the Women’s Building noticeably outnumbered the adults.[31] The schedule consisted of activities designed to capture the attention of the youthful exhibition goers: group exercises, health games, folk dances, a Girl Scout pageant, motion pictures, readings of James Whitcomb Riley’s popular poems, and live music including performances from the Orloff Trio (an all-girl musical group), the Newsboys’ Band (a musical group made up of boys who also worked as newspaper carriers), and a performance from the Boy Scouts’ Drum Corps.
However, the main purpose of the day was to draw attention to the need for a new hospital built solely for the care of children. Among the speakers was Dr. Paul A. Turner, Washington state health officer, Dr. J.H. Dillon, state health officer of Nebraska, Dr. Arthur T. McCarmack, president of the National Health Exposition Association, and Frederick E. Schortemeier, secretary of the Riley Memorial Association and future Indiana Secretary of State.
As part of the presentations, Schortemeier read a telegram Hugh McK. Landon had received from President Warren G. Harding endorsing the future children’s hospital as a memorial to James Whitcomb Riley. However, the words of Schortemeier as principal speaker aimed to drive home the urgency for support for Riley Hospital and purpose of the event, stating, “Ten thousand children in Indiana need medical and surgical care.
They need it now before it is forever too late…” and that James Whitcomb Riley’s “spirit lives on in the hearts of others and his love for children will live again in the great James Whitcomb Riley Hospital for Children,” appealing to all for “subscriptions for aid” in the building of the hospital.[32] The captive audience, obvious fans of James Whitcomb Riley, provided the perfect opportunity to kick off the hospital’s capital campaign.
In an era before television or internet, a showcase combining entertaining and education such as the Indiana Health Exposition would have been the optimal way to reach an audience. Live demonstrations and treatments were not only part of the attraction but may have also seemed like a godsend. Many individuals were suffering from diseases due to ignorance of self-care, while others did not have access at all to healthcare.
All of the representatives at the health exposition had one goal in common–to “pave the way for a public awakening on the very great importance of raising the public health.”[33] For Indiana University and the Riley Memorial Association, the event also served to garner much-needed support from the public for Riley Hospital for Children in a time of opposition from local practitioners.
Read part one here: https://blogs.iu.edu/bicentennialblogs/2018/09/05/the-rocky-road-to-the-creation-of-the-riley-hospital-for-children-part-1/
Notes
[1] “Under the auspices of the Indiana State Board of Health and the Indianapolis Board of Health…,”Journal of the Indiana Medical Association, ed. Albert E. Bulson, June 1922, accessed 22 June 2018, https://archive.org/stream/journalofindiana15unse_0#page/n254/
[2] “Health Show Plan Endorsed,” Indianapolis Star, 13 April 1922, p. 18
[3] “Riley Program at Health Exposition,” Indianapolis News, 20 May 1922, p. 1
[4] Jennifer Burek Pierce, “Indiana’s Public Health Pioneer and History’s Iron Pen: Recollecting the Professional Idealism of John N. Hurty, 1896 – 1925,” Indiana Magazine of History, Vol. 106, No. 3 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, September 2010), pp. 224-245, accessed 8 July 2018, https://www-jstor-org.proxy.ulib.uits.iu.edu/stable/pdf/10.5378/indimagahist.106.3.0224.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A8dd87d68361f79b83a8f382992aaa02b
[5] “Health Exhibit Starting on Friday,” Call-Leader (Elwood, IN), 17 May 1922, p. 3
[6] National Health Exposition Association, Official Program of the Indiana Health Exposition (Indianapolis: Mellett Printing Co., 1922), p. 1.
[7] “Exhibitors at Health Exposition,” Indianapolis Star, 19 May 1922, p. 18.
[8] Anna E. Rude, “The Sheppard-Towner Act in Relation to Public Health,” Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 79, No. 12, ed. George H. Simmons (Chicago: American Medical Association, 1922), p. 959.
[9] Did not include North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, or Alabama; Department of Commerce Bureau of the Census, “Mortality Statistics 1922,” Twenty-Third Annual Report, director W.M. Stewart (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1925), accessed 20 June 2018, https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsushistorical/mortstatsh_1922.pdf
[10] Anna E. Rude, “The Sheppard-Towner Act in Relation to Public Health,” Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 79, No. 12, ed. George H. Simmons (Chicago: American Medical Association, 1922), p. 959.
[11] National Health Exposition Association, Official Program of the Indiana Health Exposition (Indianapolis: Mellett Printing Co., 1922), p. 1.
[12] Members of the State Board of Health, “Report of the State Board of Health,” Year Book of the State of Indiana for the Year 1922, the Legislative Reference Bureau, dir. Charles Kettleborough, compiled and published under the direction of Governor Warren T. McCray (Indianapolis: Wm. B Burford, Contractor for State Printing and Binding, 1923), p. 260, accessed 1 July 2018, https://archive.org/stream/yearbookofstateo00indi_1#page/n271/
[13] Letter from Charles P. Emerson to Ethel P. Clarke, 21 March 1922, Office of Dean Records UA-043, Box #1, Folder 35, Ruth Lilly Special Collections and Archives, IUPUI University Library.
[14] Letter from Ethel P. Clarke to Charles P. Emerson, 12 April 1922, Office of the Dean Records UA-043, Box #1, Folder 35, Ruth Lilly Special Collection and Archives.
[15] “Health Gathering to Lengthen Life, Says J.N. Hurty,” Indianapolis Star, 20 Mar 1922, p. 13
[16] Ibid.
[17] These treatments were similar to vaccines, and sometimes accompanied the “Schick test” for diphtheria, which was invented by Hungarian-American pediatrician Béla Schick between 1910 and 1911.
[18] “Plan to Give Schick Clinic,” Indianapolis Star, 23 May 1922, pp. 1-2.
[19] Members of the State Board of Health, “Report of the State Board of Health,” Year Book of the State of Indiana for the Year 1922, the Legislative Reference Bureau, dir. Charles Kettleborough, compiled and published under the direction of Governor Warren T. McCray (Indianapolis: Wm. B Burford, Contractor for State Printing and Binding, 1923), p. 337, accessed 1 July 2018, https://archive.org/stream/yearbookofstateo00indi_1#page/n348/
[20] “’Live a Little Longer” is the slogan…,” Argos Reflector (Argos, IN), 18 May 1922, p. 10.
[21] “Indiana Health Exposition May 19 to 27,” Indianapolis Star, 19 May 1922, p. 14.
[22] Ibid.
[23] Ibid.
[24] Ibid.
[25] “Governor M’Cray Will Preside Indiana Night,” Indianapolis News, 22 May 1922, p. 17.
[26] “The health exposition to be held in Indianapolis…,” Indianapolis News, 12 April 1922, p. 10.
[27] “Dr. S.E. Smith to be Vice-Chairman of Riley Day Program,” Richmond Palladium (Richmond, IN), 18 May 1922, p. 12.
[28] “Kiddies Crowd Health Show,” Indianapolis Star, 21 May 1922, p. 1.
[29] Note: George A. Ball and Dr. Samuel E. Smith were also members of the Joint Executive Committee of the James Whitcomb Riley Joint Executive Committee, tasked with fundraising, promoting, and building the James Whitcomb Riley Hospital for Children.
[30] “Names Patronesses for Riley Day Program at Show,” Indianapolis Star, 19 May 1922, p. 7.
[31] “Kiddies Crowd Health Show,” Indianapolis Star, 21 May 1922, p. 1.
[32] “Kiddies Crowd Health Show on Riley Day,” Indianapolis Star, 21 May 1922, p. 1 & p. 7.
[33] “State Health Exposition is Arranged,” Hammond Times (Hammond, IN), 1 April 22, p. 3.