as I stated last night, I just read a book that, while decently written, ultimately felt like it wasn't as explanatory as it thought it was. also, this is a long post and I apologize in advance (but also if you're interested in the kind of thing I think about a lot, even if you don't want to opine, give this a read).
The book: Clean Living Movements: American Cycles of Health Reform, Ruth Clifford Engs, 2000
The thesis: Great Awakenings (in the religious sense) occur every 80-100 years in the United States. The three Great Awakenings the author discusses (Jacksonian, usually known as the Second [1830-1860], progressive [1890-1920], millennial [1970-20xx]) have all been accompanied by health-reform surges she terms "Clean Living Movements".
During the reform stage, activists have agitated to change behaviors—what historian John Burnham (1993) has called "bad habits"—that have been perceived as negatively harming the individual or society. During the cycle's ebb, popular changes or reforms that "make sense," such as personal hygiene, have become institutionalized. On the other hand, a backlash has often occurred against unpopular or restrictive reforms, such as Prohibition. Tangential to health-reform surges have been undertones of nativism, feminism, and eugenics. (2)
Now, to be clear: this book isn't really trying to say it's doing much other than documenting the three Clean Living Movements, including similarities in both topics and overall movement contour. However, I personally believe that regarding these movements as stemming essentially from religious impulses (literally, "These health-reform movements, like the Great Awakenings that spawn them, have come in approximately eighty-year cycles." (2, emphasis added)) flattens how much we can explore about the actual dynamics of these Clean Living Movements and their chosen foci. Per the introduction,
James Q. Wilson (1980, 29-30) has argued that Great Awakenings occur at times when the prevailing set of moral understandings seem inadequate to address human behavior. Traditional patterns of family life are challenged by new opportunities available to youth, and customary standards of community are flouted by rising levels of urban violence and public disorder. Often there is a sudden enlarged youthful segment of the population that defies conventional morality and exhibits a growing sense of alienation from existing institutions. An acute sense of personal stress makes individuals receptive to new religious appeals that address the political and social upheavals that created this stress. When the religious revival becomes a generalized and powerfully felt cultural critique, an awakening is underway. (2)
This is fine and good! I agree that those are things that lead to Great Awakenings. However, I think there is a very compelling case to be made that religious revival and Clean Living Movements are parallel processes, each addressing in their own ways the cultural stress that created them.
Last thing before I get to the questions for you: I want to make sure you understand the kinds of things we're talking about when we say Clean Living Movements. I'm taking Engs's comparison framework because I do genuinely think it's an interesting and valuable way to think about these movements.
| First (1830-1860) | Second (1880-1920) | Third (1970+) |
|---|---|---|
| Temperance, Tobacco, Women's rights | Prohibition, Cigarettes, Suffrage | Drunk Driving, Smoke-Free Environments, Equal Rights Amendment |
| Christian Physiology, Diet (think Graham and Kellogg) | Physical Culture, Pure Food and Drugs legislation | Fitness, "Wellness" |
| Lamarckian Inheritance and Phrenology | Eugenics and Birth Control | Genetic Sequencing and Abortion |
| Cholera and Sanitation | Tuberculosis and Public Health | AIDS |
Questions Time
listen I am so sorry these sound like textbook-chapter comprehension questions but I swear this is all me
- Either based on what I've outlined here or your own reasoning, do you find the argument that specifically religious awakenings give people a moral drive to reform other areas of themselves/broader culture compelling?
- Are there other explanations that you also find compelling or would want to explore? I would love any and all theorycrafting here honestly—I know what I think and what my academic impulses tell me, but I want to know about you and how you think these pieces fit together.
- In the introduction, Engs states that she views nativism and eugenics as tangential but related to these Clean Living Movements. Do you agree? Are they actually tangential, or are they intrinsic? What are the vibes you get when you think about Clean Living, whatever that means to you?
- Engs wrote this before ~The Internet~ really took off as a major cultural influence. Do you have any thoughts on how the pace of internet culture might affect the timeline of these reform cycles? Do you think the Millennial reform cycle has ended and we're in a fourth wave, it's a long tail on Millennial, something else? This is something that's really interesting to me right now.
- Are there any other things you might want to bring up around American diet or health culture, especially in a broader context of what it might tell us about culture and society overall? I'm always interested in hearing about what other people are interested in.
(End note: I am, of course, happy to provide the citations in the quotations on request, it just didn't feel super relevant to what I'm trying to communicate here.)
