Individual and organizational responses to health conditions in Harlem, New York, during the interwar period.

Between 1919 and 1940, Harlem's social activists, health workers, physicians, and politicians mounted a political action and public advocacy campaign to improve health care resources in the community. Protest as a political strategy was only one method utilized by Harlem's black population to improve institutional conditions, physical health, and well-being and thereby develop community. Simultaneously, Harlem's black residents forged alliances among themselves and with white philanthropists to formulate organizational responses, create voluntary arenas for social engagement, and sustain services aimed at improving the health and well being of Harlem residents. (2) This voluntary sector, far from being unified, was internally divided. The participating agencies constituted a social field of competing ideologies, needs, and interests, and the amount of resources available to those seeking to improve wellness--their own and Harlem's--had little support from governmental sources.

Black and white health and social welfare activists, medical practitioners and statisticians debated the causal factors in mortality rates among native blacks and immigrant groups. (3) Godias Drolet, purported that the decreased incidence of tuberculosis in whites was the result of increased immunity due to prolonged exposure to "tuberculization" and urbanization. (4) Similarly, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that African Americans' high death rate from tuberculosis was the result of blacks' lack of immunity because of their "relatively short period of contact with the disease." (5) While not disavowing racial differences, Clark Tibbits, Chairman of the National Health Inventory Operating Council of the United States Public Health Service, maintained that more emphasis should be placed on environmental conditions in "determining Negro health status." (6) Montague Cobb, a physician and NAACP health activist, echoed Tibbits' ideas, arguing that African Americans' health problems were the "reflection of their socio-economic circumstances." (7)

Discussions of hereditary and biological factors provided conflicting data given the difficulties that inevitably arise when trying to classify individuals into distinct, pure racial groups. (8) In their organizing and activities, voluntary and philanthropic organizations concerned with black Harlem's well being stressed the social and racial neutrality of infectious microbes and argued that employment opportunities, living conditions, dietary habits, and the availability of health services were primary determinants for differences in morbidity and mortality rates among blacks and whites. (9) The work performed in the fields of charity and relief was central to broader health issues and community development as it was an attempt to ameliorate the adverse conditions affecting health. Providing relief and charity work for families and children--these were all methods and efforts that considered the multiple influences on the lived reality of Harlem residents. To understand the ways black Harlem developed, reacted to, and handled the social, physical, and economic realties; it is necessary to move away from narrow notions of health and utilize broader conceptualizations of well being.

The records of voluntary health and social welfare organizations in Harlem in the 1920s and 1930s are limited and fragmented, making the construction of a narrative of their activities, at best, tentative. Focusing on the health and welfare of children, organizations like the Children's Aid Society (CAS), the Utopia Children's House (UCH), the Urban League, and other social welfare agencies and individuals created a broad-based approach to improve Harlem's general health. For most, Harlem's children were the target population of programs because working with adults was commonly believed to yield few results. (10) The Children's Aid Societies' social work with African Americans began in 1863 when it established a school for black children in lower Manhattan. (11) By the time African Americans began moving uptown in the early twentieth century, the CAS had more than fifty years of experience in the field of social service. According to Owen Lovejoy, secretary of the CAS, the organization began working extensively with the two largest black communities in Manhattan in the 1920s "because the children in Harlem and Columbus Hill [were] in greater need than any other group of our city's children." (12)

The Society put great emphasis on the moral development of boys whom they believed were more susceptible to vice than girls. Society records frequently depicted boys in trouble with the criminal justice system to encourage donors to give generously. To give money for the moral development of young boys, the CAS argued, would divert them from a life of crime--a road they would surely follow if not for the CAS. This emphasis on the recreational opportunities for boys led the CAS to open its first boys' club within the boundaries of black Harlem in 1923. (13) In 1928, the CAS disbursed $16,296.82 to the Harlem Boys' Club. (14) Two years later, in 1930, the CAS opened the Harlem Children's Center on West 133rd and West 134th, between Fifth and Lenox Avenues with the capacity to provide services for 6,000 children. (15)

The Utopia Club, an African American women's social club, also recognized the need for safe recreation space for Harlem's children to prevent and ameliorate juvenile delinquency. As early as 1920, the club began a fund-raising drive for a recreation and community center they named the Utopia Children's House. By 1924, the women had accumulated over $15,000 from supportive Harlem residents and purchased the building at 170 West 130th Street. After spending over $10,000 to renovate and revitalize the structure, the building fund was exhausted and the club appealed to John D. Rockefeller for $41,340 and several thousand dollars from the Children's Aid Society in order to complete construction. The CAS and Rockefeller were skeptical at first, but were encouraged to support the Utopia House after reading data from an Urban League and Women's City Club study on juvenile delinquency among black children. The study found that although blacks comprised 2.7 percent of the total city's population in 1920, black children made up eight percent of the juvenile delinquency cases. (16) The majority of African American boys in the juvenile court system were charged with disorderly conduct or desertion. Of the African American girls in the court system, about eighty-five percent were characterized as "ungovernable and wayward" and charged with running away. (17) The behavioral problems, according to the multi-agency report, could be attributed to the dearth of supervised recreation opportunities and "the lack of parental control commonly [sic] where mothers work outside the home." (18) The committee made several recommendations that would reduce the number of black juvenile delinquents and neglected children, all of which focused on increasing the number of recreational spaces throughout black neighborhoods, especially in Harlem.

John D. Rockefeller, though not providing all that was requested, donated $37,500 to the House. The donation was issued in five parts: $3,000 for improvements and equipment, $12,000, $10,000, $7,500, and $5,000 for the first, second, third and fourth years' annual budget, respectively. Rockefeller's contribution could have allowed him the opportunity to determine the nature and scope of services provided, but he did not attempt to sway the organization in any direction. Surprisingly, it was the Children's Aid Society, one of the only predominately white social welfare organizations that provided money and activities to assert control over the Utopia House's efforts. In 1928, the CAS provided monetary support of $4,872.07 and made a deal to bring the activities of the Utopia House under the administrative supervision of the Children's Aid Society. (19) At first, it appeared that the merger would render the Utopia Club ineffective by redirecting its original efforts. But after discussions, it was determined that the club's advisory board would be composed of six Utopia Club members, six Harlem residents at large, one Children's Aid representative, and one Welfare Council member. Daisy Reed, one of the members of the Utopia Club and first Director of the Utopia Children's House, suggested that by joining with "the most influential and experienced white organization" in the field of child welfare, the Utopia Children's House would gain crucial institutional support, credibility, and a funding source. The merger, for her, was a "practical demonstration in interracial cooperation." (20)

This demonstration in interracialism was a success for Harlem's children. Children from as far north as 146th Street and as far south as 112th Street participated in Utopia House activities and services. Understanding their role to be a daily foster parent for up to twelve hours per day to children between the ages of two and fourteen, the House attempted to "strengthen the child physically, morally, spiritually, and intellectually." (21) They employed several strategies to do this. The first, and perhaps, most important, was the medical service given to children at no charge to parents. A trained nurse examined each child upon their arrival to the House and treated, when possible, minor illnesses, abrasions and cuts, and, when necessary, referred children to local physicians or the Harlem Hospital. Two dentists and dental hygienists were onsite to provide oral examinations, cleanings, and other dental services for participating children. As the average parent received only $7 to $14 in weekly wages, free health care for their children removed a large financial burden. The second strategy involved working with parents through the Mother's Club. The Mother's Club organized lectures for parents to educate them about proper dietary and sanitation habits to encourage the healthy development of their children. The Club also sponsored ice cream socials in Pelham Bay Park for mothers, children, and teachers. The activities provided children and mothers with fresh air, a respite from the mundane tasks of urban living, and the opportunity for mothers and children to spend time together. Providing children with opportunities to leave the city and attend a two-week summer camp was the third strategy utilized by the Utopia Club. Sponsored by the Herald-Tribune Fresh Air Fund and later Mayor LaGuardia's Camp Fund, between fifty to eighty children were sent to the Catskill Mountains to stay on campgrounds or with private families for the summer. In addition, the Utopia House joined with the Horace Mann High School League who provided toys and coats for Utopia's children. (22) A look at their activities for the year 1936 to 1937 provides an indication of the Utopia Children's House's profound effect on Harlem family life.

The Utopia Children's House's contribution was not lost on the community. Judge Jacob Panken declared that the organization "has done a fine constructive piece of work." Shirley Friedman, a school principal observed that the Children's House, was "the only place of its kind that can care for children of working parents, keeping them off the street, busy and happy while their mothers are at work." M. Brown, a mother of three children who attended the House and a frequent participant in the Mother's Club activities, maintained that her children learned "many useful things" and she "learned to make different things in craft at the Mother's meeting." (24)

The Utopia Children's House was also dependent, at least partially, on the Board of Education of the City of New York who, as part of its citywide dedication to children, offered financial aid to the Utopia House, provided school lunches to hungry children, and opened school yards after school hours and during vacation periods to give children and adults in congested areas safe places to play. In 1926, at the request of the Board of Superintendents, the Board of Education authorized the opening of playgrounds after school until dusk and all day during vacation periods for children to play in relative safety under teacher supervision. (25) The decision meant that over half of Harlem's elementary school yards were opened after years of desertion. Throughout the late 1920s, the Board also allotted resources for the establishment of community and recreation centers throughout the city. Harlem Public School 5, 10, 157, 170, and 184 received such centers. According to Utopia House's reports throughout the 1930s, the Board of Education provided monetary support as well as reduced prices for milk and bread to allow the organization to provide lunches to participating children. In 1937, for example, donations and subsidies provided by the Board of Education were close to $5,000. (26) In 1938, the Board of Education provided $4,054 for lunches. (27)

The Board of Education first started offering lunches in schools in 1919 on a limited basis. Prior to 1919, students, when of age, had the option to return home during lunch time. In other cases, students were expected to bring their lunches to school. Students without lunches simply did not eat or shared other students' lunches. With the onset of the Great Depression, the number of free school lunches provided to children increased significantly. Lunches were made in central kitchens located in Manhattan and Queens and sent out to the city public schools. Menus were served on a weekly rotating basis and included "soup, [a] hot dish (baked beans, spaghetti, carrots and peas, etc.) or salad, [a] sandwich and dessert." (28) In 1932, in addition to the regularly reduced-priced lunches that the Home Making Department of the Board of Education provided, the Bureau of Attendance opened emergency lunchrooms in which children unable to afford lunch could eat free of charge. The majority of Harlem's black children attended seventeen public elementary schools, four public junior high schools, and three public high schools and when necessary participated in the reduced and free lunch programs at the schools. (29) The number of Harlem students participating in public school lunch programs is unknown, but given the ratio of free emergency lunches to paid lunches provided throughout the city, it is estimated that over two-thirds of the lunches provided in Harlem were free and paid for by relief funds. (30)

In addition to school lunches, the Board of Education collected donations from employees and distributed them to needy families. In a October 29, 1930, memo sent to all its employees, the Board requested that teachers, administrators, and staff of the public schools throughout the city voluntarily give donations to the School Relief Fund. The Board asked for a committed and sustained effort:

    In order that the plan of relief be carried on in a systematic way
  during the next six months, monthly contributions are requested for
  each month of the six months' period beginning in November 1930. Many
  persons in the educational system suggest that each person contribute
  one percent of his monthly salary, each month, for this six
  months'[sic] period. It is to be understood that no coercion or
  pressure is to be brought to bear on teachers as far as their
  contributions are concerned. (31)

The Director of the Bureau of Attendance was placed in control of the fund, which, by November 1931, had grown to over $1,000,000. (32) Families were provided with clothing and sundries purchased by the Relief Fund at wholesale prices, food tickets to local stores, and cash disbursements to make ends meet. (33) In Harlem, teachers and social workers investigated family need and disbursed aid at school, playgrounds, and community centers.

Teachers were not only important contributors to the School Relief Fund, they were also integral in the classroom where they supported students. Teachers embraced the idea of "no child shall be hungry in school" and where school lunch programs were not enacted or not enough to eliminate student hunger, teachers provided their students with milk and crackers in the classroom. (34) They also gave students lessons in hygiene. Some cleaned students themselves. Sarah Delany provides an amusing yet poignant story of the situations within which children were located in the twenties and thirties and the compassion teachers had when approaching them. While Delany taught public school, there was a young woman who was constantly teased by other students because of a dark ring on her neck. The girl's mother told her it was a birth mark, but it was a ring of dirt. She writes:

    So I said, Child, I don't think this is [a birth mark]. Would you
  like me to try and fix it? So she stayed after school and I took her
  into the girls' room and took a towel and cleaned her neck. Soap and
  water didn't get it off, so I rubbed cold cream in it, and I rubbed
  and rubbed until I got it all off. The next day, she came in and said,
  "Miss Delany, my mama said to thank you so much for cleaning up my
  neck." (35)

The New York Tuberculosis and Health Association established the Harlem Tuberculosis and Health Committee as a neighborhood committee in 1922, and worked with public schools to become one of the most influential Harlem voluntary health organizations. It was organized through the efforts of the New York Urban League and physicians to keep the League abreast of Harlem's health problems and create community awareness of tuberculosis. (36) However, by the mid 1920s, when the organization gained strength, structure, and more information about the extent of Harlem's health problems, it chose to expand its programs to include a dental clinic, free and low cost health examinations, an information service, nutritional classes for children, and educational opportunities for Harlem's physicians and nurses.

In 1926, no fewer than 1,500 people received free information on health issues ranging from the common cold to heart disease and received referrals to Harlem Hospital and private sanatorium, like the Edgecombe Sanatorium where one could receive preventative care and treatment. Its educational program sponsored lectures for schools, social organizations, and churches and acted as a clearinghouse for educational pamphlets like How to Prevent Diphtheria, The Care of the Baby, Preventing Tuberculosis, Heart Disease, A Proper Diet and other pamphlets and leaflets on a variety of topics published by the Children's Bureau, the New York Tuberculosis and Health Association, and the State Department of Health. (37)

In 1925 and the first six months of 1926, almost 2,400 children received dental examinations in the North Harlem Dental Clinic, the Committee's free dental health facility in which thirteen black dentists volunteered their time and services. (38) Children were also given free or low cost health examinations during which they were weighed and measured. Mothers of children earmarked as malnourished during examinations were visited and offered aid in planning a diet for their children. (39)

Harlem's youth were also involved in understanding the importance of dieting habits during nutrition classes conducted by Mabel Doyle Keaton Staupers, a graduate of the nurse-training program at Freedman's Hospital in Washington, D.C. in 1917. (40) Before Staupers was affiliated with the Harlem Committee, she worked as a private nurse in New York City and the Booker T. Washington Sanitarium, a private health facility that focused on the health needs of black patients and the training of health care professionals. She had also been the superintendent of nurses at Mudget Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and served as a resident nurse in Philadelphia's House of St. Michael and All Angels for Crippled Children. Her training at Freedmen's Hospital and subsequent experience made her a skilled teacher and worthy candidate for the Executive Secretary position of the Committee, which she assumed in 1922. She relinquished it in 1934 to become the executive secretary of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses. (41) Her work with the Harlem Tuberculosis and Health Association points to the importance of middle class African American professional women in providing much needed health care and curbing high mortality rates.

By teaching children the value of healthy meals and rules of hygiene, Staupers empowered children and encouraged them to be partially responsible for their own well being. When asked why she attended nutrition classes, a young girl responded: "I want to know what things I should eat to grow strong. If I eat them my blood will get red and I'll be healthy." To the same question, a young boy declared that he attended because "if I'm sick, I'm not happy--so I don't want to be sick." (42) Nutrition lessons were obtained through movies, games, demonstrations, a health clown, plays where children dressed like vegetables, songs, dances, and speeches. During each class, the children recited "The Ten Commandments of the Children in Nutrition Class" which reviewed the importance of a balanced diet:

  Drink four glasses of water daily.
  Sleep ten hours with windows open.
  Eat fresh vegetables and fruits everyday.
  Drink three glasses of milk daily.
  Take a tub bath at least three times a week.
  Wash your hands and face before each meal.
  Brush you teeth twice a day
  A bowel movement every day.
  Play long hours in the sunshine.
  Never drink coffee or tea. (43)

Other black women, like Dr. May Edward Chinn, supplemented Mabel Staupers' work. Born in 1896 in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Chinn moved to New York City as a young child with her family. She initially studied music at Columbia Teacher's College in 1917, but changed her major to science after writing a paper on sewage disposal in a science class with her mentor, Dr. Jean Broadhurst. Shortly after graduating, she began studying medicine in 1922 at Mount Sinai Hospital. Upon graduating in 1926, she became the first woman of color to graduate from postgraduate studies in medicine in New York City.

Along with other black doctors who were refused privileges in area hospitals, Chinn opened her private practice in the Edgecombe Sanitarium, a three-story brownstone, in 1928. Chinn's private practice within the hospital was small. Her office was on the first floor; her living quarter, which she shared with her parents, was on the second floor; and the operating area was located on the third floor. The small size of her practice did not prevent her from caring for different segments of the Harlem community. Chinn cared for whites, a small population of Mohawk Indians who lived in Harlem and worked in building construction trades, the Handmaids of Mary, a convent of black nuns, and Harlem area prostitutes. Though fees for the Edgecombe Hospital were exorbitant for many of her patients, she often admitted them anyway free of charge. (44) The absence of admitting privileges in local hospitals and inefficient ambulatory services in the area meant that Chinn had to perform operations in patients' homes. In her oral history, she recalls that minor surgical operations were performed in her medical office, but "surgical and obstetrical cases [were performed] in the patients' home--using their bed or ironing board as our table of action." (45)

Chinn was part of a nationwide movement. To keep black doctors abreast of new scientific procedures, maintain their doctor's financial and professional well-being, train black nurses, and care for sick members of black communities, African Americans created hospitals. The creation of black hospitals was also the institutionalization of Booker T. Washington's ideas of self-help, racial solidarity, and economic development. Funding difficulties, internal debates between integrationists and supporters of black hospitals, and conflicts with white philanthropists for control of hospitals were constant problems facing black hospitals. Consequently, many black hospitals were small, ill equipped, and without training programs for nurses and physicians. However, black hospitals and their physicians, the National Medical Association, and the National Hospital Association, played integral roles in forming, sustaining, improving, and critiquing black hospitals and health care for blacks throughout the Midwest and South. (46) Beginning with the creation of Provident Hospital and Nurse Training School in Chicago in 1891 and well into the twentieth century, black physicians, nurses, and community members created black-owned hospitals in every region of the country. Among the many black hospitals were Tuskegee Institute and Nurse Training School in Tuskegee, Alabama, Frederick Douglass Memorial Hospital and Training School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Home Infirmary in Clarksville, Tennessee.

Hospitals, voluntary social service agencies, and schools were not the only places to seek healing. Because many Harlem residents were church members, Harlem churches were, for many, the first line of defense against poverty and illness. Over 42 percent of Harlem's population was regular participants in churches. (47) In his study of black clergymen, William Welty noted that 31,565 Harlem residents attended thirteen of Harlem's major congregations in 1929. Through their teachings of self-worth and eventual redemption, preachers and pastors gave the laity hope and solace to carry on for another week or at least until their spirit could be replenished at the next church meeting. Churches provided a safe space where black Harlem residents could meet with friends, participate in a variety of activities, obtain status in an organized institution, and "win the applause and acclaim" of fellow church members--important self-affirming activities that could not always be obtained outside of the church. (48)

Equally important to self-affirmation and community, Harlem's churches provided material aid to their members and the community. Abyssinian Baptist Church, led by Adam Clayton Powell, Sr., had the largest congregation--8,000 in 1929--and was a leader in providing faith-based aid to Harlem residents. In 1930, Powell, Sr. called on his employed members to contribute to the Unemployment Relief Fund by donating five percent of their monthly salaries. Powell himself contributed $1,000, four months salary, to the cause. His son, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., contributed ten percent of his monthly income for four months, $1,000. Powell writes in his autobiography that after he asked for donations and made a contribution "then came the money and pledges thick and fast from all salaried people." (49) In the early 1930s, the church conducted three Sunday services to accommodate all of its members. When the request for donations was made at the third service Powell remembers, "the audience was rushing forward placing money on the table 'to feed a hungry God.'" (50) Powell's and the congregation's contributions added to over $2,500. The money was, in turn, used to fund a free food kitchen for indigent Harlem residents. Between Christmas of 1930 and Easter of 1931, the money raised from church members, Harlem stores, and white philanthropists allowed the food kitchen to provide provisions for 28,800 mouths, distribute over 19,000 articles of clothing, and give over $16,000 to families in need of monetary aid. (51) The food kitchen was just one aspect of social welfare services. In addition, Abyssinian Baptist Church offered nursing and nutrition classes, Girls' Scouts, an elderly home, and an industrial education and employment department. (52)

Powell's charitable efforts were, no doubt, motivated by Christian love and biblical edicts of charity, but they may have also emerged from fear of embarrassment and ridicule. Nannie Burroughs, the notable clubwoman and black newspaper columnist, was skeptical of black clergymen who lived comfortably while their congregations lived in poverty. In one column, she called black leaders "hibernating ground hogs who will peep out in February to see if winter's over." She demanded, "if we have leaders, now is the time for them to go to leading the people and stop bleeding the people." (53) Powell respected Burroughs, her work, and her ability to castigate members of black communities with her pen, which he described as being "mightier than a sword." (54) As the pastor of one of Harlem's largest churches, to appear apathetic to the needs of community members could negatively affect his reputation among white and black clergymen and provide fodder to those who criticized black religious institutions for allegedly robbing the people of their hard earned dollars. Throughout the 1920s with the increasing poverty of urban blacks, African American churches were viewed suspiciously as organizations that exploit communities. In his study of Bronzeville, Chicago, St. Clair Drake, cites a number of community residents who held this opinion. One worker exclaimed that black preachers were "blood-sucker[s]" who take the food out of your mouth and make you think they are doing you a favor." A church member said that preachers are "fake leaders" with pockets lined with gold. (55) At the onset of the Great Depression, Powell refused his board members' offer to purchase him a new car. Powell refused the offer, not because he did not want a new car or because he felt that he did not deserve one; he refused the car and other gifts because he wanted to prevent his congregation and the Harlem community from viewing him as a religious hustler. He wrote, "what sort of a representative of the lowly Jesus is a big, fat, well dressed preacher in a new car riding up and down streets which are lined with homeless, penniless, and foodless men, women, and children?" (56) Whatever his motives, his heart, fear of scorn, or personal aggrandizement, Powell's efforts assuredly encouraged other churches, whose pastors experienced similar anxiety, to provide social services.

By 1935, Harlem's major churches offered some form of aid to the sick and poor. Saint Phillip's Protestant Episcopal Church employed nurses and social workers to conduct health screenings, home visits, and aid work. Salem Methodist Church worked closely with the Red Cross. Metropolitan Baptist Church offered its members sick benefits that paid $5 per week if one were ill and unable to work and death benefits of $100 issued to the family of the deceased to offset funeral expenses. The church's Poor Fund offered indigent members aid in times of distress. (57) Even non-mainstream churches like Elder Rose Artimus Horn's Calvary Assembly Hall of the Pentecostal Faith offered aid. Horn organized Gloria's Aid Home for the hungry and unemployed. During one year of operation, Horn claimed to have fed over 48,000 people. (58) The Pastor of Allen Memorial Church, medium, and psychic reader, Reverend Mrs. Josephine Bufford Becton, created and ran a working girl's lodge where she conducted an employment office, taught homemaking skills, provided medical care, and assisted unmarried women with children in finding homes. (59)

George Baker, popularly known as Father Divine, was the most well known of all the alternative religious leaders in Harlem who provided aid. Divine started his ministry in New York after he purchased a home in Sayville, Long Island in 1919. Sayville remained his home and the center of religious activity until 1932 when, after increasing tension with Sayville residents and authorities, he left and moved to Harlem, New York. Divine had visited Harlem churches before and by 1932 had a considerable following among the middle and working classes there; but, it was not until he moved to the area and rented Rockland Palace, an old casino on 155th Street and Eighth Avenue, to conduct his ministry, that he became one of the most popular leaders in the area. He was not only popular because he had an interracial following, he was charismatic, had grand public spectacles, and proclaimed himself to be God. He was also popular among Harlem residents and individuals nationwide because he had a different approach to understanding religion than Baptist, Methodist, and Episcopalian ministers. Influenced by New Thought philosophy, Divine maintained that negative thoughts produce illness. By changing one's way of thinking, one could improve their health. He did not eschew medical science, but medical science was the last resort since individuals were responsible for their health. If producing positive thoughts did not improve one's condition, then Divine would use his healing powers to rid the body of disease. (60) As Jill Watt has noted, Divine also "linked health to appetite and encouraged his followers to eat large well-balanced meals." (61)

Providing free healthy meals was important to Divine's ministry, but it was only one part. The meals he provided were clear indications of his generosity for many who became loyal followers and supporters. Surely the feasts were ways of attracting members, but since anyone could attend, they were also ways of feeding the hungry. Charles Braden, a frequent visitor of Father Divine's Communion Banquets, attests to the magnificence of every feast.

  Eleven different cooked vegetables passed in quick succession ... Then
  came the platters of meat ... First came three or four cold cuts,
  including baked ham. Then appeared the hot, freshly cooked meat ...
  Then came the salads ... Next came the bread ... The drinks consisted
  of iced tea, iced coffee, and iced water ... Dessert consisted of two
  kinds of cake ... The average number of different dishes served at
  these banquets is around fifty-five. (62)

Even those who spurned Divine's teachings or refused to attend the services, could visit Divine's Peace Mission restaurants in New York City and Newark, New Jersey, and buy a full meal for less than ten cents. While the banquets may have been symbolic religious activities to assert Divine's authority and only fed the hungry for the moment, the activities allowed the poor and destitute to obtain information about relief work sponsored by Divine's Peace Mission. Divine believed that occupational training and spiritual development were necessary to lift the poor out of the mire of poverty. (63) In order to bring these ideas to fruition, Divine stressed literacy and encouraged his followers and sympathizers to attend public night schools. When the demand for adult education became too much for the community's adult education resources to handle, Divine created, operated, and funded Kingdom Schools in which literacy and American government were taught. (64) In addition, Divine's followers conducted a free employment agency and provided food and shelter to Harlem residents.

Black and interracial voluntary organizations, churches, and to a lesser degree public schools, assisted Harlem's black residents in fighting hunger, illness, poverty, and physical and emotional alienation--all factors that determined one's well being in Harlem. While organizations provided aid; they did not eradicate black residents' needs or the conditions that led to these needs. However, their subsequent work placed Harlem at the center of local, city-wide, and nation-wide policies wherein cross-cutting forms of power and exclusion shaped and constrained health and wellness options while limiting avenues to fundamentally improve wellness options revealing agency in shaping public resources available to Harlem as well as the porous nature of the New York City's interwar political economy.

(1) Jamie Wilson is an Assistant Professor of History at Salem State College in Salem, MA. Comments should be directed to [e-mail].

(2) Linda Gordon, "Black and White Visions of Welfare: Women's Welfare Activism, 1890-1945," Journal of American History 78 (Sept. 1991), 560; "The New Feminist Scholarship and the Welfare State," in Linda Gordon, ed., Women, the State, and Welfare, (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990), 24.

(3) In the opening years of the twentieth century, the majority of white physicians and medical authorities believed that high black mortality rates were caused by inherent racial characteristics. According to this view, blacks were most susceptible to primary infectious diseases, were the source of contagion, and possessed exceptional immunities against common ailments. Frederick Hoffman, considered one of the most renowned authorities on race and medicine in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, published his work Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro and The Surgical Peculiarities of the Negro in 1896. Hoffman maintained that blacks possessed a "constitutional trait" for psychological disintegration and an "immense amount of immorality." Evolution in the tropical climate made the gradual "extinction of the race" inevitable. W.E.B. Du Bois opposed Hoffman's ideas of black susceptibility. In The Health and Physique of the Negro American he concluded that improved sanitary conditions and health education could improve black morbidity and mortality rates. Such refutations did not prevail and protect blacks from such prejudice like that of Hoffman's. Throughout the early twentieth century, black people, particularly domestic servants, were seen as hives of sickness responsible for spreading disease to their white employers. According to Tera Hunter, throughout the South, African American women "bore the brunt of the racist conjectures that undergirded the discourse of tuberculosis" and other contagious diseases. See Tera Hunter, To' Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women's Lives and Labors After the Civil War (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press 1997), 188; David McBride, From TB to AIDS: Epidemics among Urban Blacks since 1900 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), 10, 15, 16, 20; Vanessa Northington Gamble, Germs Have No Color Line: Blacks and American Medicine, 1900-1940 (New York: Garland Publishing Inc., 1989); Marion M Torchia, "Tuberculosis Among American Negroes: Medical Research on a Racial Disease, 1830-1950," Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 32 (July 1977), 252-279; John S Haller,. "The Study of the Southern Physician: A Study of Medical and Racial Attitudes, 1800-1860," Medical History 16 (July 1972): 238-253; W.E.B. Du Bois, ed., The Health and Physique of the American Negro (Atlanta, 1906), 90; Frank L Hoffman, Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro (New York: Publications of the American Economic Association, 1896).

(4) Drolet, Godias and Lowell, Anthony. "A Half Century's Progress against Tuberculosis in New York City, 1900-1950." Report, 1952, Columbia University Social Work Library, New York City; Godias Drolet, Epidemiology of Tuberculosis (Philadelphia: F.A. Davis Co, 1939), A-12; Charles Garvin supports this idea in "Immunity to Disease Among Dark Skinned People," Opportunity (August 1926), 242-245.

(5) "Racial Characteristic of Negro Cause High Tuberculosis Death Rate," Journal of the American Medical Association, 10 June 1925, 144.

(6) Clark Tibbits, "The Socio-Economic Background of Negro Health Status," Journal of Negro Education 6 (1937), 428.

(7) Montague Cobb, "Removing Our Health Burden," Crisis 54, no. 9 (September 1946), 268.

(8) Albert Sidney Beckham, "Applied Eugenics," Crisis 28, no. 4 (August 1924), 177-178; "Columbia University Professor Studying Racial Admixture," New York Amsterdam News, 14 July 1926; "'New Negro' a New Physical Type, declares Dr. Melville Herskovitz," New York Amsterdam News, 8 September 1926; Gossett, Thomas, Race: The History of an Idea in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).

(9) David McBride, From TB to AIDS: Epidemics among Urban Blacks since 1900 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), 32, 48; Selwyn Collins, Economic Status and Health (Washington, D.C.: United States Public Health Service, 1927); Edgar Sydenstricker, Health and Environment (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1933).

(10) Peyton Anderson and Jerome Peterson, "Warring Against Tuberculosis in Harlem," Crisis 49, no. 11 (1942), 358.

(11) Children's Aid Society, The First Hundred Years, 1853-1953 (New York: Children's Aid Society, 1953); Thomas Bender, Towards an Urban Vision (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982), 166.

(12) Owen Lovejoy, The Negro Children of New York (New York: Children's Aid Society, 1932), 49.

(13) Children's Aid Society, The First Hundred Years, 1853-1953 (New York, 1954).

(14) Ibid., 49.

(15) Children's Aid Society, Seventy-Eighth Annual Report (New York: Children's Aid Society, 1930), 19-20.

(16) Joint Committee on Negro Child Study in New York City, A Study of Delinquent and Neglected Negro Children (New York, 1927), 17.

(17) Ibid., 6.

(18) Ibid.

(19) Children's Aid Society, Seventy-Sixth Annual Report (New York: Children's Aid Society, 1928), 43.

(20) "For Harlem Negro Children," Opportunity 6 (August 1928), 247.

(21) Utopia Children's House. 1938: A Report, Wilhelmina Adams Papers, Box 1, Folder 4, Manuscript Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York, New York.

(22) The Utopia House was also supported through donations from the Idle Hour Bridge Club, the Debutante Club, the Wall Street Boys, the Tau Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha, and the Board of Education.

(23) Utopia Children's House. 1937: A Report. Wilhelmina Adams Papers, Box 1, Folder 4, Manuscript Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York, New York.

(24) Ibid.

(25) New York City Board of Education, Journal, 11 May 1926, 837.

(26) Utopia Children's House, 1937: A Report. Wilhelmina Adams Papers, Box 1, Folder 4 Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York, New York.

(27) Utopia Children's House, 1938: A Report. Wilhelmina Adams Papers, Box 1, Folder 4, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York, New York.

(28) New York City Superintendents of Schools, Annual Report, 1932-1933, 229.

(29) Mayor's Committee on City Planning in cooperation with the Works Progress Administration, West Harlem Community Study, (New York: Mayor's Committee on City Planning, 1937), 1-2.

(30) New York City Superintendents of Schools, Annual Report, 1932-1933, 230. In 1932-1933 according to New York City Superintendents of Schools statistics 1,305,855 paid lunches were provided compared to 2,334,499 free lunches. Given the concentrated poverty of the Harlem community, the ratio of free lunches to paid lunches probably exceeded seventy percent.

(31) New York City Superintendents of Schools, Annual Report 1932-1933, 54.

(32) "City Teachers Add Relief to the 3 R's By Raising $1,000,000 for Needy," New York Herald Tribune 25 November 1931. By September 1932, employees had contributed $2,363,352.89 to the School Relief Fund.

(33) New York City Superintendents of Schools, Annual Report, 1932-1933, 56.

(34) New York City Superintendents of Schools, Annual Report, 1932-1933, 57.

(35) Sarah Delany, A Elizabeth Delany, and Amy Hearth, Having Our Say: the Delany Sisters' First 100 Years (New York: Dell Books, 1993), 206.

(36) Floyd G. Snelson, "Harlem Tuberculosis and Health Committee," WPA Research Papers, Manuscript Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York, New York.

(37) Henry Harding, "Health Opportunities in Harlem," Opportunity 4 (December 1926), 386.

(38) Opportunity 5 (December 1927), 379; Berlack, Thelma, "Fighting Your Health Battles," New York Amsterdam News, 1 December 1926.

(39) Harding, 387.

(40) Freedmen's Hospital was one of the first hospitals owned and operated by African Americans. Daniel Hale Williams, the prominent black physician, organized it in 1894.

(41) For biographical information of Mabel Doyle Keaton Staupers see Darlene Clark Hine, Black Women in White: Racial Conflict and Cooperation in the Nursing Profession, 1890-1950 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989), 119-120; Helen S. Miller and Ernest D Mason, Contemporary Minority Leaders in Nursing: Afro-American, Hispanic, Native American Perspectives (Kansas, City, MO: American Nurse's Association, 1983), 122-125; W. Montague Cobb, "Mabel Keaton Staupers, R.N.," Journal of the National Medical Association 9 (March 1969), 198-199; Anna B Coles, "The Howard University School of Nursing in Historical Perspective," Journal of the National Medical Association 9 (March 1969), 105-118.

(42) Berlack, in Ibid.

(43) Ibid.

(44) George Davis, "A Healing Hand In Harlem," New York Times, 22 April 1979, SM10.

(45) Black Women Oral History Project: Interview with May Edward Chinn (Radcliffe College, 1981); May Edward Chinn Collection, Box 1, Folder 1, Manuscipt Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York, New York.

(46) Vanessa Northington Gambles, Making a Place for Ourselves: The Black Hospital Movement, 1920-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).

(47) Greater New York Federation of Churches, The Negro Churches of Manhattan (New York: The Federation, 1930).

(48) St. Claire Drake, "The Grip of the Negro Church," in Larry Murphy, Down by the Riverside: Readings in African American Religion (New York: New York University Press, 2000), 168-169.

(49) Adam C Powell, Against the tide; an Autobiography (New York, R. R. Smith, 1938), 198.

(50) Ibid.

(51) Ibid., 199, "36,000 Needy People Helped at Abyssinian," New York Age, 7 February 1931.

(52) Myrtle Pollard, Harlem as is ... (New York, 1936), 189.

(53) Powell, 226.

(54) Ibid.

(55) St. Claire Drake, in Ibid., 168-169.

(56) Ibid., 228.

(57) Baxter Leach, "Negro Churches in Harlem," in Negroes in New York, WPA Research Papers, Manuscript Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York, New York.

(58) Abram Hill, "Elder Horn," in Negroes in New York, WPA Research Papers, Manuscript Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York, New York.

(59) Pollard, 181-182.

(60) Jill Watt, God, Harlem U.S.A: the Father Divine Story (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 67.

(61) Ibid.

(62) Robert Weisbrot, Father Divine and the Struggle for Racial Equality (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983), 80-81.

(63) Watt, 93.

(64) Watt, 132.

Jamie J. Wilson (1)

Table. 1.1 Utopia Children's House Activities, 1936-1937 (23)

Type of Activity              Number of Children Served

Daily Preschool Care           8,750
Before/After School Care      16,500
Home Visits                      292
Educational Field Trips          142
Lunches                       85,340
Donated articles of clothing     712
Dental clinic treatments       3,400
Art and Crafts Classes           420
Performing Arts Classes          492
Weekly Film Series             3,456