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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 February 2017
In February 1899, the Committee of Physical Culture of the Chicago Public School Board approved an intensive “anthropometric” study of all children enrolled in the city's public schools. The study was a detailed attempt to measure the height, weight, strength, lung capacity, hearing, and general fitness of Chicago's student population. Through 1899 and 1900, thousands of Chicago's primary, grammar, and high school students had their bodies closely scrutinized, measured, weighed, tested, and, in a few cases, diagrammed. What the School Board members wanted to know was the “fitness” of the student body. Were Chicago public school students—many recently arrived immigrants from eastern and southern Europe—vital and vigorous children who could become energetic modern workers and citizens (Figure 1)?
1 In 1900 the school board established a separate committee for “Child Study and Pedagogic Investigation” to continue the work begun in 1899. See Chicago Board of Education, Forty-sixth Annual Report of the Chicago Board of Education (Chicago: Board of Education, 1900), 37–116.
2 “To Make Physical Tests,” Chicago Daily Tribune, February 8, 1899: 8.
3 Historian Jacqueline Wolf argues that wet nurses had “dreadful reputations” in the late nineteenth century. Wet nurses were often young working-class women, and frequently seen by their employers as vulgar, untrustworthy, and of questionable morality. Dr. Christopher reassured middle-class mothers that a wet-nurse was only necessary for sickly infants with low body weight. Christopher, W.S., “Feeding the Healthy Infant.” The Chicago Medical Recorder 3 (November 1892): 727–728; Wolf, Jacqueline H., “‘Mercenary Hirelings’ or ‘A Great Blessing'?: Doctors’ and Mothers’ Conflicted Perceptions of Wet Nurses and the Ramifications for Infant Feeding in Chicago, 1871–1961.” Journal of Social History 33, no. 1 (Fall 1999): 99.
4 “Dull Children Ill Fed,” Chicago Daily Tribune, May 13, 1900: 8.
5 Chicago Board of Education, Forty-fifth Annual Report of the Chicago Board of Education (Chicago: Board of Education, 1899), 28.
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