Map of Boston : showing health districts and undrained and filled land

Map of Boston

Item Information

Title:
Map of Boston : showing health districts and undrained and filled land
Description:
In 1874, the State Board of Health of Massachusetts divided the Commonwealth into “health districts,” areas assigned to physicians tasked with documenting the locations of prevalent diseases. This map denotes these health districts, along with the polluted marshlands and low-lying ground believed to spread diseases such as consumption, cholera, and malaria. If dark, damp, low land promoted illness, health reformers thought, then the opposite must hold true. In the years to come, Bostonians would increasingly seek out “breathing-places”: well-lit, dry, green spaces, where they might take in the fresh air for their health.
Contributor:
Heliotype Printing Co
Date:
[ca. 1870–1879]
Format:
Maps/Atlases
Location:
Boston Public Library
Norman B. Leventhal Map Center
Collection (local):
Norman B. Leventhal Map Center Collection
Subjects:
Public health--Massachusetts--Boston--Maps
Boston (Mass.)--Maps
Places:
Suffolk (county) > Boston
Extent:
1 map : col. ; 60 x 52 cm.
Permalink:
https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/3f463966q
Terms of Use:
No known copyright restrictions.
No known restrictions on use.
Publisher:
Boston, Mass : Heliotype
Scale:
Scale not given
Language:
English
Notes:
Relief shown by hachures.
Distance measured radially from City Hall.
Notes (exhibitions):
Exhibited: "Breathing Room: Mapping Boston's Green Spaces" organized by the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library, 2018.
Identifier:
06_01_001170
Call #:
G3764.B6 1870 .M37