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[00:02] [Large scale war industry activites may bring real health problems or emergencies
to any community.]
[00:09] [This film is designed to show how one such emergency was met in New York state.]
[00:17] Ten thousand acres in the heart of Seneca County were taken over by the federal
government for the construction of a great ordinance depot.
[00:25] Word went out that contractors needed eight or nine thousand workmen.
[00:30] Seneca is not a populous county.
[00:32] Outside of the villages of Waterloo, which is the county seat, and Seneca Falls,
[00:37] the latest population figures give the rest of the county about 14,000 persons,
[00:42] so seekers for work came from various parts of New York and from other states.
[00:50] The center of attraction was the employment office, which was set up in the former Grange
Hall in the little village of Kendaya.
[01:03] The normal population of Kendaya was 15 persons.
[01:07] There was a store and a church, a school, the Grange Hall, and three or four
houses.
[01:16] Upon this village with 15 inhabitants descended some 300 men, women, and children
who sought temporary homes near the employment office.
[01:31] And hundreds came seeking employment who didn’t know where they would live.
[01:40] At once health problems arose, too big for local health officials, or complicated
by the absence of local health boards.
[01:48] So the state health department came to help.
[01:51] Here is the district sanitary engineer looking over the handiest well in the village.
[01:56] It is obviously bad, so the pump is discarded, the well inspected, and thoroughly
chlorinated for protection if the water should be used.
[02:21] It is covered and posted with a warning sign.
[02:25] [Sign: Danger. Do Not Drink This Water]
[02:33] The next day the district state health officer and engineer find the porch of a deserted
house is fast disappearing to make firewood for cooking breakfast.
[02:44] The cover has been removed from the well and various means have been devised to
get the water up from the well.
[03:04] This in spite of the close proximity of a filthy privy.
[03:14] However, a test shows that, in spite of themselves, these migrant workers have
been protected.
[03:20] Even if they drink the water, they will not be made ill, however unpleasant it
may taste.
[03:27] Not a single well was found safe originally.
[03:29] But after improvements to the well in front of the schoolhouse, it yielded safe,
though sometimes scant, water.
[03:46] Behind the employment office was a single, dilapidated insanitary privy used
by men and women alike.
[03:53] Within easy swarming distance flies found the only restaurant, so called,
[03:59] a straw-carpeted tent with an old two-burner oil stove.
[04:17] Of course the privy was closed and generously treated with chlorate of lime.
[04:30] A new privy was set up exclusively for women, with a locked key available to
women only, and new fly-proof screened privies for men were constructed.
[04:52] In the old schoolhouse was set up an immunization and child health clinic, in
and from which worked the state nurses and doctors.
[05:14] The nurse visits a family living in an old school bus.
[05:22] Children are brought to the clinic for vaccination and immunization.
[05:31] Another nurse shows a mother how to protect whatever water she may have been able
to get.
[05:53] But good water must be made available, so the state trucks safe water into the war
project area.
[06:01] The truck was originally used to transport health education materials, but now it carries
containers of safe water, which are set up at convenient locations.
[06:29] All over the entire area, health problems are to be met.
[06:33] Here is a squatter’s camp on nearby Seneca Lake, where are repeated all of the
sanitary problems
[06:38] except that of water - cold water - for bathing.
[06:48] An enterprising individual in the nearby village of Ovid has rented the old
schoolhouse and offers rooms for rent.
[06:56] [Sign: Rooms for men]
[07:00] They are small, but clean.
[07:15] They have new comfortable beds.
[07:27] Some of the beds are arranged in dormitories.
[07:35] Boarding houses spring up everywhere.
[07:38] This one, at the corners of Kendaya, accommodates from 12 to 26 persons at a time.
[07:44] But the problem of sanitation is just the same here as it is in a tent or trailer
colony.
[08:07] And the old wells must be protected.
[08:27] The folks must have safe water.
[08:33] Yes, war industry activities make local health problems, which must be met promptly.
[08:42] The district state health officers seem to be the logical ones who organize the
solution of these problems.
[08:48] He and his office went into hide to find the answers.
[08:51] No need to go into all the details of the negotiation.
[08:55] Suffice that by fall plans have been developed, approved, and put into operation
[08:59] whereby the Seneca County Fairgrounds at Waterloo became the site of a modern trailer
camp.
[09:04] Trailers, furnished by the Farm Security Administration, were gathered from various
parts of the country and set up on the Waterloo fairgrounds.
[09:11] Supplemented by private trailers, a trailer city soon took form and, fortunately
for the workers and their families,
[09:17] was ready for occupancy well before the first snow fell.
[09:21] With the trailer city organized,
[09:23] now fell upon the district health office the task of handling the countless
details connected with the mass movement of occupants.
[09:29] Evacuation notices had to be made out and served, and the whole administrative
machinery set up for the miniature city.
[09:36] On a cheerless, cold, rainy day, the Waterloo trailer city was formally dedicated,
[09:42] with appropriate speeches by representatives of the Farm Security Administration, the United
States Army,
[09:48] the State Department of Health, and the local civil administration.
[09:56] Residents of the community took an active interest.
[09:59] For example, the American Legion had a prominent part in the dedication.
[10:03] The chill winds, forerunner of the wintry days so close at hand,
[10:06] could not fail to make every worker present thankful for being able to leave the
inadequate protection of billowing canvas for the cozy
[10:13] shelter of well-made trailers arranged in orderly lighted streets and avenues, comfortable
inside, cozy by day, adequate by night.
[10:23] Warm with real cooking facilities.
[10:26] Good refrigeration and plenty of cupboard space.
[10:31] Sanitary requirements were supplied in central buildings -- laundry tubs, sinks,
toilets with modern running water.
[10:46] Even shower baths, with good hot water.
[10:51] A far cry from what these folks found when they descended by thousands on the tiny,
unprepared communities.
[10:57] And, outside the trailer city, nothing was neglected to provide adequate health protection.
[11:02] Inspection of wells continued everywhere workers gathered to live.
[11:06] Modest private capital set up new sanitary restaurants, which were the object
of constant inspection and supervision.
[11:12] Health lessons were quickly learned and restaurant proprietors cooperated by installing
some of the most efficient, modern equipment.
[11:28] Even the youngsters kept the spirit and junior police did really efficient work.
[11:33] Trailers did more than simply shelter workers and their families.
[11:36] Here’s one that served as a splendid child health clinic.
[11:45] Well-youngsters were kept well by frequent physical examinations -- and protected
by vaccination.
[11:55] Buildings, too, in other parts of the territory were utilized for inoculation
and general clinics.
[12:00] Everywhere, the state’s public health nurses helped in protecting the health, welfare,
and happiness of these workers and their families.
[12:07] As a symbol of how one community handled the health problems brought to it by the great
war activity,
[12:12] glance back at this discarded school bus, shared on successive nights by three
families who slept in their automobiles on the other nights.
[12:22] And then glance at the community day-nursery conducted in the trailer city at Waterloo.
[12:31] Each day, one mother would care for the youngsters of the others, while their
mothers went about their necessary work.
[12:41] Yes, war industry activities do create real health problems, but they can be, and
are, being met.
[12:47] [The End]