A History of Neglect - by Edward H Beardsley (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Winner of the Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award from the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights.

This book examines the environmental, political, and economic forces that contributed to the poor health and substandard medical care of poor people in the US South, including the Black population and those working in mills. The author draws on a massive amount of hitherto untapped published and unpublished material, including interviews with the people involved, from Georgia and the Carolinas. A History of Neglect represents a thoroughly researched indictment of the failure of the southern medical, economic, and political establishment to respond to the suffering of the poor.

Review Quotes

"Professor Beardsley's excellent study is a grim but powerful chronicle of the South's 'bad old days' in racial and industrial relations. His immediate focus is on health care practices, but his study illuminates the entire social and political landscape. Professor Beardsley's study shows us how far we have come and reminds us how far we have yet to go." --Ernest F. Hollings, US Senate

"While Beardsley's work is in no way lacking in form, it is the content that makes A History of Neglect monumental. In page after page, the author reveals atrocity after atrocity." -Mamadi Chinyelu, The State

"Based on a wide variety of primary and secondary sources, including oral history interviews, the book is a pathfinding study that casts new light on a most important subject." -M. Kaufman, Choice

"This book is valuable and, indeed, indispensable reading for anyone who hopes to understand the very complicated events involved in the medical treatment of mill workers as well as blacks in the South during the current century." --Richard Allen Williams, MD, Journal of the American Medical Association

"This is a disturbing and compelling book crafted from a blend of passion and exhaustive research. . . . illuminates dark corners of our past and warns against the growing privatization of health care as well as glib attacks on contemporary welfare policy. This book deserves the attention of scholars, health professionals, policy makers, and ordinary citizens who consider health a right rather than a privilege." --James Leloudis, Bulletin of the History of Medicine

"A pioneering book, treating its subject with a sweep and range it has long needed." --David L. Carlton, Journal of Southern History

"Edward Beardsley has produced a provocative history of irresponsibility and neglect in the matter of health hazards and medical care in the environment of blacks and mill workers in the South." --Rudolph H. Kampmeier, Journal of the History of Medicine

"The task of uniting these two, somewhat disparate, stories--the health of white millworkers and the health of black people--was no small challenge and Beardsley is to be commended for accomplishing it in surprisingly smooth fashion. The study is lavishly documented, rests in part on oral interviews, and contains numerous photographs, as well as a useful bibliographic essay. . . . this is an important book which joins other recent studies in exploring questions of the history of Southern health since the Civil War." --Kenneth F. Kiple, Medical History

"Good social history, and good medical history. It also contains valuable segments dealing with the occupational health hazards of mill workers as well as desegregation in medicine." --Clark R. Cahow, The North Carolina Historical Review

"An important and valuable reference for historians in a variety of fields." --Harris D. Riley, Jr., Tennessee Historical Quarterly

"This is an important book. It deserves to be read and studied by historians of science, social historians, and others." --Gerald Markowitz, History of Medicine Review.

"A major contribution to the literature on the New South and the social history of medicine." --Ronald L. Lewis, American Historical Review

"A pioneering study . . . in crossing the southern racial barrier to analyze how the poor, both black and white, have been denied access to basic medical care. . . . this stands as a major indictment of the whole region in its neglected attitude toward health care for the poor." -- Edward N. Akin, The Historian

About the Author