The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1913-09-15
A WOMAN CLEANS CITIES.

In the Septemb Der American Maya
zine appears an article about Mrs.
Caroline Bartlett Crane, who is a
professional Municipal Sanitarian."
She is hired by cities, which gladly
pay her 500 a day for her services,
furnish funds for all expenses, secre-
tary, automobiles, theaters and halls
for meetings, official authority to
conduct her Investigations, and an
escort to accompany her. Fffty-two
cities in the United States have al
ready hired her. She calls her visits,
Sanitary Surveys" When a city de-
sires her services it calls upon her
as a professional municipal expert,
and places the keys of the munich
pality at her disposal. She personally
investigates the city's resources, and
everything that concerns community
life. She stirs up public opinion, and
in this manner makes her work. eff
fective. The following extract from
the article gives some idea of the re-
suits of her work:
1.-The practical results of Mrs.
Cranes surveys all over America pre-
sent a sum total of improvement that
is inspiring. Sometimes she has APP
peared as a prophet of warning. In
1910 Mrs. Crane told Erie, Pa, that
it ran the danger of a terrible cpl
demic unless it purified it's water sup
ply: in 1911 Erie had one hundred
and three deaths from typhoid, untold
suffering, and a municipal expense of
twelve thousand dollars. At Sea
Breeze, Florida, a great hotel was
condemned for lack of fire escapes
and proper fire protection: the hotel
burned to the ground two weeks later,
and the guests barely escaped with
their lives, some by jumping from the
windows. A Rochester, New York,
school building, the twin of one con-
demned by Mrs. Crane, was also burn
ed before that active city could put
through various improvements upon
which it had determined after her
visit. At Harrodsburg, Kentucky,
where an angry official sued Mrs.
Crane but afterward found his case
quashed, the contract system of car
ing for the poor was abandoned and
a new almshouse built. A tubercu-
losis sanitarium rose at Paducah,
Kentucky, and at Valley City, North
Dakota, a beautiful new infirmary re-
places the old poorhouse. At Albert
Lea, Minnesota, the citizens boast a
new municipal hospital; at Big Rapids,
MlcnlSan, a Tine new aDattOlr. AL
Rochester, Minnesota, the father of a
child in one of the public schools
altered a whole classroom to demon
strate Mrs. Cranes system of scientific
lighting, while at Mankato, Minnesota,
the bakeries and market places went
through a thorough cleaning and
securing to get upon the white list
suggested by Mrs. Crane.
'Of equal if not greater value are
the general results. In some twenty
cities which Mrs. Crane has surveyed,
permanent civic leagues have been
begun, under various names, to work
at various tasks. During the year
after her survey of Kentucky that
state secured more advanced health
legislation than in all its past history,
including an appropriation of thirty
thousand dollars annually for a state
meteorological laboratory, an annual
school for county and city health Of
ficials, and a law forbidding the inn
portation of any but tuberculin tested
cattle. Her Minnesota report, a vol
ume of two hundred and forty pages,
is being used by women's clubs as a