6. Samuel Crumbine, Public Health Pioneer
Samuel Crumbine was a physician and public health pioneer known throughout Kansas and the nation for his evidence-based methods of promoting food safety, sanitation, and combating communicable diseases. Many Kansans may still tread on his “Don’t Spit on the Sidewalk” bricks or have heard his catchy “swat the fly” campaign. he also helped Kansas navigate the 1918-1920 flu pandemic as secretary of health. But Crumbine has a “darker” legacy of supporting eugenics policies that imprisoned women infected with STDs in Kansas. We’ll discuss Crumbine’s complicated legacy and how conflicts over public health versus individual rights were as present in 1918 as they are today.
GO FURTHER
Curious about the sources we use and want to learn more about the topics, people, and places we discuss in this episode? Then this space is for you.
Read the Kansapedia entry on Samuel Crumbine and examine artifacts associated with Crumbine on the Kansas State Historical Society’s website, including an early flyswatter and the “His Death or Yours!” cartoon from the Kansas State Board of Health Bulletin
Read about the statue of Dr. Samuel Crumbine and pocket park in front of the Kansas Health Institute in downtown Topeka.
Crumbine fought to regulate pseudo-scientific patent medicines that were popular at the time. two mentioned in the episode are “Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup” and “Dr. Perdue's Ague Cure.”
See a photo of my own personal Crumbine “Don’t Spit on the Sidewalk” brick.
Read about the Samuel Crumbine Award for Excellence in Food Protection from the Conference for Food Protection
View copies of the Bulletin of the Kansas State Board of Health between 1905-1939 online at the Kansas State Library website.
See images of the first “Fitter Families” contest at the Kansas State Free Fair in 1920 from the DNA Learning Center website.
Read Christopher Lovett’s article in the Spring 2018 issue of Kansas History magazine “Bad Girls: Sex, Shame, and the Legacy of Samuel J. Crumbine in Kansas, 1917-1955.”
View statistics and other information on compulsory sterilization in Kansas and elsewhere in the U.S. on Prof. Lutz Kaelber’s website “Eugenics: Compulsory Sterilization in 50 American States.”