Article
Go Tell It On the Mountain: Hilla Sheriff and Public Health in the South Carolina Piedmont, 1929 to 1940
American Journal of Public Health
(1995)
Abstract
As director of the South Carolina units of the American Women's Hospitals and as the state's first female county health official, Hilla Sheriff combined elements of the Progressive Era's social gospel; the New Deal notion that concerned, public-spirited officials could make a difference; and a nascent feminism that led her into the controversial fields of family planning and nutrition. Sheriff's responses to endemic pellagra, innovative maternal and child health campaigns, and contraceptive research for the Milbank Memorial Fund attracted national attention and spawned programs based on her models throughout the South. Her ability to tailor programs to diverse communities--mothers who bore double burdens as textile workers, isolated farm families, mountaineers, and African Americans denied access to most health care facilities in the Jim Crow South--serves as a timeless example for those committed to community medicine.
Disciplines
Publication Date
April, 1995
DOI
10.2105/AJPH.85.4.578
Publisher Statement
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Citation Information
Patricia Evridge Hill. "Go Tell It On the Mountain: Hilla Sheriff and Public Health in the South Carolina Piedmont, 1929 to 1940" American Journal of Public Health Vol. 85 Iss. 4 (1995) p. 578 - 584 ISSN: 0090-0036 Available at: http://works.bepress.com/patricia-hill/8/