Social Hygiene Movement Of The Progressive Era

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Social Hygiene Movement of the Progressive Era The social hygiene movement was founded in the late 1800s by Dr. Prince A. Morrow (Jensen, 2010). His goal was to eliminate the spread of STIs through public sex education. Other groups, such as social purity advocates and vice reformers, had made efforts to prevent prostitution, the spread of STIs, and other sexual deviance by utilizing a moral framework; however, the social hygienists were the first to incorporate science into the discourse and frame sex education as value-neutral (Jensen, 2010). In 1913, Dr. Ella Flagg Young, a social hygienist and superintendent of the Chicago school system, implemented the first school-based sex education program across all twenty-one public secondary schools …show more content…
The National League for Medical Freedom attempted to send transcripts of the social hygiene lectures to parents in hopes of them gaining a better understanding of the material and expressing support for the program. However, the lectures were deemed “unmailable” under the federal Comstock Law, which prohibited the distribution of “obscene literature” in addition to sex toys, contraceptives, and abortifacients (Jensen, 2010). This court decision was used by opponents of the social hygiene program to illustrate the immorality of public sex education (Jensen, 2010). Critics of public sex education argued that any open discussion about sex would “undermine” traditional ideas of sexual virtue. At this time, the Lockean philosophy that at birth the mind is tabula rasa, or a blank slate without preconceptions or innate knowledge, was widely popular. This philosophy fueled the argument that exposure to sex would corrupt the minds of children “just as surely as exposure to tuberculosis would destroy their bodies” (Moran, 1996, pp. 502). Although only eight percent of parents removed their children from the social hygiene program, alluding to its necessity and success, the Chicago Board of Education was persuaded by opponents of public sex education and voted to discontinue social hygiene lessons in the 1914-1915 school year. Backlash from social conservatives and the Board of Education led Young to resign from her position as superintendent. Sex education did not return to schools for some
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