Sanitary Map of the Town of Leeds
- Title:
- Sanitary Map of the Town of Leeds
- Alternate Title:
- Sanitary Map of the Town of Leeds
- Collection:
- Persuasive Maps: PJ Mode Collection
- Creator:
- Baker, Robert
- Other Creators:
- Sly, Stephen (engraver/printer); Her Majesty's Stationery Office
- Date:
- 1842
- Posted Date:
- 2017-04-14
- ID Number:
- 2167.01
- Collection Number:
- 8548
- File Name:
- PJM_2167_01.jpg
- Style/Period:
- 1800 - 1869
- Subject:
- Disaster/Health/Environment
Poverty/Prostitution/Crime - Measurement:
- 18 x 29 (centimeters, height x width)
- Notes:
- This map of Leeds, and the companion map of Bethnal Green (ID #2167.02), are at the heart of Edwin Chadwick's landmark study demonstrating the correlation between poverty and disease, "Report on the Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population of Great Britain." Delaney 2012, 125-28. See generally Vaughan 2018, 27-30. "By the inspection of a map of Leeds, which Mr. Baker has prepared at my request, to show the localities of epidemic diseases, it will be perceived that they similarly fall on the uncleansed and close [sic] streets and wards occupied by the labouring classes; and that the track of the cholera is nearly identical with the tract of fever. It will also be observed that in the badly cleansed and badly drained wards to the right of the map, the proportional mortality is nearly double that which prevails in the better conditioned districts to the left." Chadwick, p. 160. (Dr. Robert Baker was a Leeds surgeon who had studied the cholera epidemic in that city.)
Chadwick's remarkable work contained detailed documentation and facts not only regarding the problems, but explicit regulatory, legislative and engineering proposals for reform, with specific details, costs and benefits. "As a piece of pure legislative and social protest rhetoric," Chadwick's Report was "superb," "a turning point in sanitary reform." It "awakened middle-class and upper-class sensibilities to the ghastly environment of Britain's urban poor" and "appealed to their humanitarian instincts to make an investment in cleaning up the cities and thus improve the sanitary and economic condition of the laboring poor." Williamson 1990, 281.
For further information on the Collector’s Notes and a Feedback/Contact Link, see https://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/content/about-collection-personal-statement and https://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/content/feedback-and-contact - Source:
- Chadwick, Edwin. 1842. "Report on the Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population of Great Britain." In Report to Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Home Department, from the Poor Law Commissioners, on an Inquiry into the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain. London: W. Clowes and Sons.
- Cite As:
- P.J. Mode collection of persuasive cartography, #8548. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.
- Repository:
- Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library
- Archival Collection:
- P.J. Mode collection of persuasive cartography
- Format:
- Image
- Rights:
- For important information about copyright and use, see http://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/copyright.