The Origins of Environmental Activism, 1840–1889 47
DOCUMENT 40: The Shattuck Report’s Recommendations for
Sanitary Improvement (1850)The degradation of sanitary conditions and the high death rate among the poor that accompanied the
rapid growth of urban populations spurred various state and local organizations to examine the spread of
communicable diseases as a result of unsanitary water, milk, food, waste disposal, and living conditions and
to make recommendations for change. The Massachusetts Sanitary Commission’s Report, prepared under
the direction of Lemuel Shattuck, a pioneer in American public health, was one of the most thorough and
influential of these studies. The conditions it sought to alleviate were well documented in both the fiction [see
Document 41] and the nonfiction [see Document 46] of the period. While many state and local authorities had
begun to deal with these problems by the mid-eighteenth century, several of the problems proved overwhelming
for local authorities, and as the century progressed, they intensified [see Documents 64, 65, 67, and 72]. The
federal government did not start to confront many of the issues raised in the Shattuck Report until well into the
twentieth century.II. We recommend that a GENERAL
BOARD OF HEALTH be established, which
shall be charged with the general execution of
the laws of the State, relating to the enumera-
tion, the vital statistics, and the public health of
the inhabitants....
V. We recommend that a LOCAL BOARD OF
HEALTH be appointed in every city and town....
XIV. We recommend that the laws relating
to the public registration of births, marriages,
and deaths be perfected and carried into effect
in every city and town of the State....
XVII. We recommend that, in laying out
new towns and villages, and in extending those
already laid out, ample provision be made for a
supply, in purity and abundance of light, air, and
water; for drainage and sewerage; for paving and
for cleanliness....
XIX. We recommend that, before erecting
any new dwelling-house, manufactory, or other
building, for personal accommodation, either as
a lodging-house or place of business, the owner
or builder be required to give notice to the local
Board of Health, of his intention and of the
sanitary arrangements he proposes to adopt....
XX. We recommend that local Boards of
Health endeavor to prevent or mitigate the sani-
tary evils arising from overcrowded lodging-
houses and cellar-dwellings....
XXI. We recommend that open spaces be
reserved, in cities and villages, for public walks;
that wide streets be laid out; and that both be
ornamented with trees....
XXIII. We recommend that local Boards of
Health, and other persons interested, endeavor
to ascertain, by exact observation, the effect of
mill-ponds, and other collections or streams of
water, and of their rise and fall, upon the health
of the neighboring inhabitants....
XXIV. We recommend that the local Boards
of Health provide for periodical house-to-house
visitation, for the prevention of epidemic dis-
eases, and for other sanitary purposes....
XXV. We recommend that measures be
taken to ascertain the amount of sickness suf-
fered in different localities; and among persons
of different classes, professions, and occupa-
tions....
XXIX. We recommend that nuisances
endangering human life or health, be prevented,
destroyed, or mitigated....
XXX. We recommend that measures be
taken to prevent or mitigate the sanitary evils
arising from the use of intoxicating drinks, and
from haunts of dissipation....
XXXV. We recommend that the authority to
make regulations for the quarantine of vessels be
intrusted to the local Boards of Health....