Exhibiting Health

"Today, at a time when the visual seems to dominate in education and entertainment, Koslow demonstrates that the visual has a long, powerful history in the realm of public health. Koslow skillfully draws the reader into a very compelling story, indeed a page-turner, while weaving in significant analysis." -- Susan L. Smith * author of Toxic Exposures *
"Jennifer Koslow draws attention to the overlooked history of public health exhibitions, demonstrating the fascinating role of railways, models, dioramas, and performances in delivering health advice to hundreds of thousands of Americans. As Exhibiting Health shows, in the first half of the twentieth century, even without proof of their impact on the health of individuals, such activities played a key role in promoting the value of public health programs and expertise." -- Manon Parry * author of Broadcasting Birth Control: Mass Media and Family Planning *
New Books Network - New Books in Medicine interview with Jennifer Lisa Koslow
https://newbooksnetwork.com/jennifer-lisa-koslow-exhibiting-health-public-health-displays-in-the-progressive-era-rutgers-up-2020/ * New Books Network - New Books in Medicine *
"The strength of Koslow’s book remains on the close focus on individual exhibitions in the ways they were reviewed, physically constructed, dispersed and received. Her careful research using primary resources in state libraries, archives and institutional collections enables a much richer and detailed narrative of these specific exhibition events in fleshing out important details missing in more generalised accounts. It is a book well worth the attention of historians, social scientists and the health community." * Social History of Medicine *
"Introduces readers to a short-lived but vibrant aspect of progressive reform: the public health exhibit [and] reveals that reformers truly believed in the power of the public health exhibit: the passion with which they constructed exhibitions, the personal and philanthropic investments they made, and their ongoing 'faith in the value of the visual' all bear witness to their general conviction that such displays improved American lives."  * Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era *

“The strength of Koslow’s book remains on the close focus on individual exhibitions in the ways they were reviewed, physically constructed, dispersed and received. Her careful research using primary resources in state libraries, archives and institutional collections enables a much richer and detailed narrative of these specific exhibition events in fleshing out important details missing in more generalized accounts. It is a book well worth the attention of historians, social scientists and the health community.”

-- Julie K. Brown * Social History of Medicine *