Book contents
- America’s French Orphans
- America’s French Orphans
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Note on the Text
- Select Biographies of Those Involved in Providing Relief to France’s Orphans
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Rescuing and Sheltering
- Chapter 2 Mobilizing Support for France’s Fatherless Children
- Chapter 3 Defending the Future of France
- Chapter 4 Writing in Wartime
- Chapter 5 Peace, Remobilization, and Memorialization
- Chapter 6 Rebuilding Devastated France
- Conclusion
- Appendices
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 3 - Defending the Future of France
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2024
- America’s French Orphans
- America’s French Orphans
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Note on the Text
- Select Biographies of Those Involved in Providing Relief to France’s Orphans
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Rescuing and Sheltering
- Chapter 2 Mobilizing Support for France’s Fatherless Children
- Chapter 3 Defending the Future of France
- Chapter 4 Writing in Wartime
- Chapter 5 Peace, Remobilization, and Memorialization
- Chapter 6 Rebuilding Devastated France
- Conclusion
- Appendices
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Ensuring the future of France – its children – meant fighting on multiple dimensions. One set of enemies included infectious diseases, especially tuberculosis and the influenza pandemic; the other set comprises illnesses and infant mortality attendant to poverty and malnutrition. Thousands of volunteers from the United States fought these battles with treatment and prevention strategies. They toured the Franco-American colonies, organized large antiepidemic campaigns, and produced leaflets providing practical advice on managing the care of babies and children during wartime. With the help of the Children’s Bureau of the American Red Cross, the American Commission for the Prevention of Tuberculosis in France, and the Rockefeller Foundation’s International Health Division, thousands of leaflets were distributed to the Franco-American colonies of the CFAPCF, fatherless children supported through the FCFS, as well as to schools and mothers across France. With the spread of tuberculosis in 1917 and the 1918 influenza pandemic, American medical experts realized that a sanitary ironclad was needed to block the spread of contagious diseases to the United States: to protect France was to protect the United States.
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- America's French OrphansMobilization, Humanitarianism, and the Protection of France, 1914–1921, pp. 85 - 117Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024