‘The dangers attending these conditions are evident’: public health and the working environment of Lancashire textile communities, c.1870–1939

This article examines the position of the working environment within public health priorities and as a contributor to the health of a community. Using two Lancashire textile towns (Burnley and Blackburn) as case studies and drawing on a variety of sources, it highlights how, while legislation set the industry parameters for legal enforcement of working conditions, local public health priorities were pivotal in setting codes of practice. The complexities entwined with identifying the working environment as a cause of ill health and with improving it were entangled within the local community health context. In addition, the multiple understandings of Medical Officers of Health surrounding the remit of their responsibilities impacted the local health context. These did not always parallel national regulations. Indeed, it was these local, community specific forces that set the public health agenda, determined its path and the place of the working environment within this

‘For the convenience and comfort of the persons employed by them’: The Lowell Corporation Hospital, 1839-1930’

The first industrial hospital in America opened in 1840 in Lowell, Massachusetts. The Lowell Corporation Hospital was sponsored by the town’s textile employers for ninety years. This article analyses the contextual complications surrounding the employers’ sustained funding of the hospital. Motivations for sustained sponsorship included paternalism, clinical excellence, business custom, the labour situation in Lowell, civic duty and the political advantages of paternalism. By analysing the changing local context of the hospital, this article argues that a broader, more integrated approach to healthcare histories and institution histories is needed if we are to fully understand the myriad of healthcare providers and their local and national importance

‘They didnae tell you nothin’: The failings of sex education, antenatal care and welfare bureaucracies in Glasgow, c. 1970s-2000s

Utilizing group oral histories from nineteen women who were pregnant and living in areas of social and economic deprivation in Glasgow, Scotland, between the late 1970s and early 2000s, this article analyses the difficulties the women faced in accessing information about pregnancy and welfare entitlements. It reveals a disconnect between women’s knowledge about reproduction and maternal health and welfare benefits and the political initiatives designed to improve antenatal care and pregnancy outcomes in Britain since the 1980 Short Report. This divide was widened by a broader Scottish culture of reticence around sex education and the ongoing moral influence of the churches. The article clarifies the class-blind English arguments within the patient consumer model that was promoted since the 1960s. It demonstrates how marginal groups were ill equipped to participate as patient consumers, either individually or as a collective group. More broadly, this article gives voice to an underrepresented group and highlights how these women utilized adaptive decision-making to navigate their pregnancy journeys in a society with uneven maternity and welfare provision and inhibitions about sex education. By highlighting the realities of marginality and lived experiences, it adds nuance to conventional welfare and policy histories