overall: 7 1/2 in x 5 in x 1/2 in; 19.05 cm x 12.7 cm x 1.27 cm
Object Name:
book
Place made:
United States: New York, New York City
Date made:
1922
Description:
<i>The Land of Health: How Children May Become Citizens of the Land of Health by Learning and Obeying its Laws</i> is a handbook on principles of good hygiene. Each chapter is a distinct story or fable in the traditional sense. For example, Chapter III is a fact-based recounting of how an Italian immigrant became a naturalized United States citizen after living in the U.S. for five years and passing a citizenship test demonstrating his ability to speak English and knowledge of U.S. civics. There is also a chapter on physical exercises. The text contains many black and white illustrations. The cover is illustrated with an hour glass in each corner, inside of a grid. Co-author Grace T. Hallock was born in rural Milton, New York in 1893 and graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1914. She was a leader in the American Child Health Organization. Hallock was recognized with a Newbery Honor in 1929 for The Boy Who Was, an historical fantasy novel. In addition to the Land of Health, she wrote children’s books about Florence Nightingale and Marie Curie.
Charles-Edward Amory Winslow was a pioneer in public health and medicine who believed that equal in weight with scientific ideas about health and disease must be a commitment to social justice. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1877 and received his Bachelors and Masters of Science degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1915, Winslow founded the Yale Department of Public Health within the Yale Medical School, where he was professor and chairman of the Department. He emphasized a holistic perspective on health promotion and disease prevention. He taught that poverty was an incubator for disease, both physical and mental. Winslow stressed that the basics of public health — clean water, uncontaminated food, safe disposal of garbage, good personal hygiene, decent housing, prenatal care, children’s health and nutrition — were not universally understood, and needed to be regulated. Winslow was the first Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Bacteriology from 1916 to 1944 and the editor of the American Journal of Public Health from 1944 to 1954. He was the curator of public health at the American Museum of Natural History from 1910 to 1922. In 1926, he became president of the American Public Health Association; and in the 1950s was a consultant to the World Health Organization.
Contributing author Walter Camp wrote the Land of Health’s chapter on exercise. He was known as the ‘Father of American Football’ for his development of and promotion of college football. While working as an adviser to the United States military during World War I, he devised a program to help servicemen become more physically fit.
The Charles E. Merrill Company has been a major New York textbook publishing house, since its establishment by Charles E. Merrill circa 1913.
