How cancer crossed the color line

Author/Creator:

Wailoo, Keith

Publication/Creation:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2011

Format:

Book

More Details

Additional/Related Title Information

Full Title:

How cancer crossed the color line / Keith Wailoo

Subjects/Genre

Subjects:

Cancer--United States
Cancer in women--United States
Minorities--Health and hygiene--United States
Neoplasms--history
Black or African American
Health Education--history
History, 20th Century
Neoplasms--ethnology
Neoplasms--prevention & control
Women's Health
United States

Description/Summary

Table of Contents:

Introduction: health awareness and the color line -- White plague -- Primitive's progress -- The feminine mystique of self-examination -- How the other half dies -- Between progress and protest -- The new politics of old differences -- Conclusion: the color of cancer.

Bibliography:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [185]-235) and index.

Summary:

"Examining a century of twists and turns in anti-cancer campaigns, this path-breaking study shows how American cancer awareness, prevention, treatment, and survival have been refracted through the lens of race. As cancer went from being a white woman's nemesis to a "democratic disease" to a fearsome threat in communities of color, experts and the lay public interpreted these trends as lessons about women, men, and the color line. Drawing on film and fiction, on medical and epidemiological evidence, and on patients' accounts, Keith Wailoo tracks cancer's transformation--how theories of risk evolved with changes in women's roles and African-American and new immigrant migration trends, with the growth of federal cancer surveillance, economic depression and world war, and with diagnostic advances, racial protest, and contemporary health activism. A pioneering study of health communication in America, the book skillfully documents how race and gender became central motifs in the birth of cancer awareness, how patterns and perceptions changed, and how the "war on cancer" continues to be waged along the color line"--Provided by publisher.

Language:

English

Physical Type/Description:

251 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Additional Identifiers

Catalog ID (MMSID):

990017072340302486

ISBN:

9780195170177 (hardcover : alk. paper)
0195170172 (hardcover : alk. paper)

OCLC Number:

612188381

Barcode:

010002517194
070000136909