IV
CAMPAIGNING WITH MOTOR VEHICLES
Traveling motion picture shows, dealing with health and other subjects, traveling dispensaries and tours demonstrating uses of trucks and thus advertising trucks themselves, are the chief educational uses of motor vehicles reported in response to an inquiry widely sent out.
Motion Picture Tours
Of these, the traveling motion picture show seems to have been longest in the field. Many state health departments and state tuberculosis associations have been and still are conducting a part of their educational work by this means. Recently the Red Cross has carried the story of its overseas work into remote rural districts in a certain section of the country by means of a truck equipped with pictures and machine. A returned overseas worker travels with the truck and gives talks about past achievements and future plans. An organization interested in promoting the use of commercial and industrial films has a number of well equipped trucks which are sent to city parks as well as country districts to give open-air entertainments.
A Typical Motion Picture Motor Tour
The North Carolina State Board of Health has used a health car equipped with electric lighting plant, motion picture machine and accessories, together with a large selection of health and comic films, all in charge of a lecturer and machinist. This car was sent out in response to invitations to give health entertainments in co-operation with local committees, the latter sharing the expense.
The plan was to give substantially the same program in a different place in the county each day during one week. Each of these places then received a return visit during each of two succeeding weeks with a complete change of program. A single program usually consisted of five or six reels of motion pictures, including three health films and scenic and comedy films. A victrola was carried with the car to provide a preliminary musical program and a musical accompaniment with the comic films. While the health films were being shown, the lecturer made running comments. Free health literature was on display at a convenient place to be given out in response to requests. The programs were given in the school house, church hall or outdoors. Where special illumination was needed strings of incandescent lights were provided.
The staff carried with them a complete camping, cooking, and sleeping outfit.[4] Their schedule usually included two programs a day and 12 visits to as many places during a week.
Traveling Dispensaries
The use of motor trucks for dispensaries or clinics seems to be increasing rapidly. A number of traveling tuberculosis, dental, child welfare, and baby clinics are reported from many parts of the country, not only for rural districts but for large cities. Some of these dispensaries on wheels are intended chiefly to provide service, that is, to examine people, rather than for the purpose of publicity or education. In this case the truck is simply a convenient method of extending clinical work to districts that have no dispensaries, or to the homes of patients who cannot or will not go to the dispensary. But even where service is the main purpose, these trucks are of value educationally, particularly in this early stage of their use when their novelty attracts attention to the clinics. Other traveling dispensaries are intended chiefly to demonstrate to the community the need of establishing, permanently, some such service as the dispensary gives during its brief stop-over.
Cleveland Children’s Year Special
A traveling truck dispensary was adopted as a feature of the Children’s Year by the Children’s Year Committee of the Cleveland Council of Defense. Mr. J. Dean Halliday, Director of the Bureau of Health Education of the Cleveland Department of Health, who planned the construction of the truck and directed its use later, had charge of a similar campaign for the American Red Cross Tuberculosis Commission in Italy.
The type used both in Cleveland and in Italy[5] as shown in several illustrations (see cuts opposite pages 28 and 30) has side tents, which, when set up, provide fair-sized rooms. The tent on the left was used as a waiting and dressing room for the mothers who brought babies for examination; that on the right as lecture and exhibit room. Here posters and model outfits for the baby were displayed and literature was given away. The body proper built on the carriage of a large army truck was fitted out as a model dispensary with examining tables, scales, measuring stands, desk, cabinet for supplies, electric lights, and hot and cold water. The equipment included a screen and motion picture machine which could be set up on top of the truck for evening programs. In Cleveland the truck was driven by members of a volunteer women’s motor corps organization, uniformed for the purpose and carried a physician, a nurse, and a sanitary patrolman, all assigned from the Health Department.
Truck with Extension Devices
The usefulness of this truck for demonstrations and exhibitions is more than doubled by the tents which are strapped to the sides of the truck in travel and set up at each stopping place, and by the motion picture apparatus which is set up on the roof. See page 28.
The tour included sections of the city known as “death places” because of their high infant mortality rates. As the crowd gathered the physician in charge gave a short talk on the object of Children’s Year. While he was thus engaged the district nurse circulated through the crowd and, picking out a likely mother and child, persuaded her to step forward with her child when the physician called for babies to be examined. It was found necessary to do this in order to get the remainder of the mothers to fall in line quickly. The physician examined the child and, if normal, it was quickly weighed and measured and the regular Children’s Year forms filled out, one for the committee’s record and a duplicate for the mother. The mother was advised to report at regular intervals to the city’s nearest prophylactic dispensary where she would receive instructions as to how to keep her baby well. For the sake of its effect, she was given a card signed by the mayor, stating that she was entitled to this service and urging her to avail herself of it. She then passed on to the tent containing exhibits where child hygiene and other posters were displayed and educational pamphlets distributed. The exhibits and literature were usually presided over by the uniformed motor corps driver, although on some occasions an extra nurse was carried for the purpose. In an average afternoon, from twenty-five to thirty babies would be examined.
Although city nurses were constantly carrying on routine work in the districts visited, many cases of contagion and sore eyes were found by the traveling outfit which had been missed entirely by the regular nurses. After the truck had visited a given section the nurses in charge of the district dispensary were instructed to make a note of attendance. Records showed a considerable increase in visitors, a number of whom brought with them the cards received at the traveling dispensary or they said that they had been referred to the dispensary after a preliminary examination on the truck.
Motor Truck Clinics in Italy
In Italy seven trucks were used with practically the same equipment as in Cleveland, and three more were equipped for dental work. They were operated from certain centers in the region where the American Red Cross Tuberculosis Commission worked in co-operation with Italian tuberculosis organizations. From these centers the trucks radiated on one-day trips to neighboring villages and towns carrying posters, printed matter, and a crew consisting of an Italian physician, lecturer, nurse, and driver.
A Government Child Welfare Special
A big, gray automobile truck, known as the “Child Welfare Special,” has recently been put into the field by the Children’s Bureau of the United States Department of Labor to test the usefulness of the automobile in carrying the message of better babies into rural communities.
Interior of Child Welfare Special of the Federal Children’s Bureau
For detailed description see page 31.
The Children’s Bureau has provided the following description of the truck and its tour:
The truck is modeled very closely upon the dispensary truck used by the Chicago Tuberculosis Institute. The body of the car is constructed of wood, painted white on the inside and battleship gray on the outside. The words, “Child Welfare Special” are lettered in blue and white on each side of the car. The truck is roomy enough for a conference room and two dressing rooms. The conference room is nine and a half feet long, six feet wide, and six feet four inches high in the center. This room has four windows on each side, high enough to be out of reach of prying eyes, yet admitting sufficient light for daytime examinations. The driver’s cab, which is entirely enclosed in glass, can be reached from the conference room by a sliding door; with the shades drawn it forms one dressing room. The open-end gates of the car, provided with double folding doors and heavy curtains that fit into grooves, form a second dressing room. When a mother enters one of the rooms, she has the exclusive use of it until the child has been undressed, examined, and dressed again.
Most of the equipment of the truck is built in. A 15-gallon water tank, tucked away over the driver’s cab, is connected by faucet with a stationary washstand in the conference room, which in turn is connected with a drain to the outside. The examining table and the linen lockers are built over the wheel housing, an arrangement that saves space and improves the appearance of the car. A scale for babies and older children is carried in an especially built trunk. There is enough storage space for 2,000 publications, a full set of exhibit material, a balopticon with several boxes of slides, two rolls of moving picture film, several dozen charts for lecture purposes, cot, bedding, and cooking utensils for three persons, a large supply of sheets and muslin squares, and all the other equipment necessary for conducting a children’s health conference.
Two systems of lighting, one for a 110-volt current that can be taken from a nearby public building, and the other for a six-volt current taken from the truck’s own batteries, furnish excellent illumination for night work. Two electric heaters have recently been installed for use on cool days. Weather strips have been put on the cab to keep out wind and rain, and a tarpaulin made to fit over the rear doors keeps out the dust.
Arrangements have been made for the staff to sleep on the Special—the doctor on an army cot in the conference room, the nurse on a similar cot in the rear dressing room, and the chauffeur on the driver’s seat, which was constructed to serve as a bed.
A nearby public room in a school or church is usually obtained for an exhibit and waiting room, and here, at opportune moments, the doctor and nurse give brief talks to waiting mothers, using the exhibit material as a means of illustration.
The first test of the efficiency of the Special is whether it serves its purpose. In the main the Special has proved a success from a mechanical point of view. The dressing rooms are adequate, and the conference room has proved itself remarkably convenient in spite of its small space. There are features that would be changed, however, if another truck were to be built. A more powerful engine is desirable. In spite of efforts to keep its weight down, the car when completely loaded tips the scale at 8,000 pounds. It does not seem advisable to reduce materially this weight as the body must be made to withstand the jar of travel and uncertain weather. The thirty-five horse power engine, supplemented by the extra pulling power provided by pneumatic tires, is adequate for most road conditions, but sandy, steep hills are negotiated with some difficulty. A heavier engine, one and a half or two-ton unit, would easily care for this load and at the same time carry enough reserve for any bad spots that are encountered. Mechanical adjustments made recently, however, have given greater power.
Because of its size the Special does not travel well over muddy roads. The height of the car could be reduced by five or six inches and still permit easy walking within the car. This would very considerably reduce the sway and the danger of skidding.
A report from the physician in charge of the Special says:
The Special has the distinct advantage of at once gripping public interest. This may seem spectacular from the professional standpoint, but it gets results. It is believed that the ground can be covered better by the Special than in any other way, that its improved equipment will make for more satisfactory results than any method tried to date, and that its usefulness is directly in proportion to the ability of the physician in charge to make the public realize that she is merely demonstrating the need of periodic examinations and a method of providing opportunity for such examinations. She must bear in mind that the examinations she gives are merely an incident and not the object of the Special—that her most important function is to stimulate and aid in the organization of permanent follow-up work by the community.
Speaking Tours by Automobile or Motorcycle
One of the simplest and frequently a very effective form of traveling campaign is the speaking tour of which examples are numerous and familiar. Suffrage, prohibition, and many other causes have been promoted by traveling speakers in conspicuously painted or decorated automobiles. The speakers may carry with them all sorts of attention-getting devices, from a supply of leaflets to distribute, to a set of properties that would rival the stock of the old-time patent medicine man.
A Motorcycle Knight of Health
The following picturesque description of “A Modern Knight Errant, Carrying Health Gospel at Fifty Miles an Hour on A Motor Cycle,” is taken from an article by Samuel Hopkins Adams, about the work of the Wisconsin Anti-Tuberculosis Association[6]:
The “Flying Squadron of Health”
Seven o’clock of a June evening in the lake country to the north. Supper is over. The mail has come jolting down by stage from the nearest railroad point, fourteen miles distant, and has been distributed from the post office which is also the general store and the council-house of the locality. The population, gathered in from a considerable radius, is talking a little politics, chewing a little tobacco, speculating a bit on the likelihood of rain, and yawning itself into readiness for home and bed. Far up the dusty road there is an approaching commotion, perceptible both to ear and eye. Presently the center of it materializes in the form of a motorcycle bearing a man and a pack. The cycle pop-pops itself into a stationary phase. The man dismounts, gives a pleasant “good evening” to the gossiping group, appraises the immediate lay of the land with a practiced eye, unstraps a pack or two, and in an incredibly short time has a light silk tent up in a chosen spot by the road-way, a cooking kit laid out, a Dutch oven set, and the “makings” of a fire gathered near it.
Now, here is romance for the young of the hamlet, Gypsying a la mode! Knight-errantry at fifty miles an hour! The news runs amuck in the locality and in no time there is a growing gathering. Questions begin to fly; to each the newcomer has his brief but courteous answer, all the time busy with his preparations for spending the night in the open. Presently he unfolds carefully a case containing placards, setting them up one by one against the stone fence. Conjecture, by this time, is at the point of explosion.
“What are you sellin’, Mister?” comes the direct question.
“Nothing,” answers the stranger, setting up still another placard, and stepping back to estimate the effect.
“Got a show?”
“Why, yes! in a way.”
“Givin’ out samples?”
“Not exactly.”
“Patent medicine feller, I guess,” surmises one. “Seen a couple of ’em over to Humphrey’s last fall.” “Naw,” controverts another, “He’s sellin’ pictures, can’t ye see?” “Ain’t goin’ to preach, be ye, young man?” queries a third.
“That too, in a way,” says the motorist.
Curiosity is now at its height. The crowd couldn’t be driven away by a thunder shower. The newcomer has nursed the situation until he has an absorbed attentiveness when he addresses the people in direct and simple words, explains why he is there, and talks to them about the peril of consumption and the ready-to-hand methods of guarding against it, using the charts which he has set up to fortify his telling points. It is done with a very conversational, homely and personal touch, so that the audience is encouraged to ask questions about the individual symptoms, the danger of “catching” the disease, the chances of cure for this or that friend, what hospital will take old Mrs. Tinkley, bedridden now for six weeks, and so on through the roster of health and sickness topics which make up so large a part of the immediate interests of countryfolk.
When the talk is over the visitor asks for the telephone, calls up a town perhaps fifty or sixty miles away, and those who are near enough to cock an ear hopefully (which includes as many as can crowd into the store) hear something like this:
“Siddallville? Hello! That you, Mr. Conway? Yes. Werle.... I’ll be there to-morrow night to speak.... No; I’ve got everything.... What’s that? No; no cost. All you have to provide is the hall and the audience. I’ll furnish the rest.... Yes; seven-thirty to-morrow. Good-bye!”
In the morning all that remains at the cross-roads to tell of the visitation is a little heap of ashes, some queer marks in the dust where the heavy-studded tires have passed—and a germinating seed of education. The gospel has come to Shucktown.
Wisconsin has since tried something believed to be even better than the “modern knight.” Finding that the motion pictures were a much greater attraction than stereopticon slides, and having a four-reel health film to show, the Wisconsin Anti-Tuberculosis Association gave up its motorcycle and substituted a motion picture truck which is better fitted to transport the necessary machinery for its traveling campaign work.
Carrying the Canning Kitchen to the Food Supply
An ingenious use of a truck as a first aid to canners is illustrated in the photograph opposite page 38. This canning truck, chiefly intended for service to those coming to see it, but also carrying its message of war service to many neighborhoods, was sent out by the Women’s Committee on Food Conservation of the Pittsburgh Food Administration. The purpose of the truck is well described in a dodger, as follows:
LET US HELP YOU
How—With our canning truck.
When—At any time you can use us.
Where—At your own home or any other convenient place for you.
Why—To save home products for home use and leave for the Government the output from commercial canneries for our soldiers. It is a sin today to waste surplus vegetables if they can be canned.
We Furnish—Canning equipment, a teacher, and five or six helpers, who carry their lunches with them to avoid extra work for you. They work from 9 to 4 o’clock.
You Furnish—Stove room, a wash boiler, the vegetables or fruits to be canned, and the jars.
Canning Squad and Portable Kitchen
Canning squad of the Allegheny County Council of National Defense, and their portable kitchen ready to help the farmers’ wives save their food products. See page 37.
Cost—It will cost you no money, but we will expect some fresh vegetables or one-fifth of the jars canned during the day. We furnish the jars for this share, which will later be used for some patriotic purpose.
The director of this enterprise reported that it was not unusual for the “crew” to can 80 or 100 quarts of vegetables or fruits in a day and that they were kept busy every day for six weeks.
“United States Official” Photo
A Transcontinental Truck Tour
Transcontinental train of the Motor Transport Corps, U. S. War Department. See page 39.
“Caravans” of Trucks
Since the war, much publicity has been obtained for the motor truck itself by what have been called motor truck development tours. Several such tours, each covering a number of states, have demonstrated to farming communities the use of the farm tractor, the advantages of the truck in carrying farm products to market, and various other uses of motor vehicles.
A spectacular transcontinental tour of a train of eighty motor vehicles was made during the summer of 1919 by the Motor Transport Corps of the War Department. The caravan, which spread out over three miles of road when in motion, included field kitchens, ambulances, repair trucks, and in fact every sort of motor vehicle used by the transport service in France. This trip was undertaken for both recruiting and educational purposes. The following account of its purposes and methods is supplied by a representative of the Motor Transport Corps:
The transcontinental trip has been undertaken both for military and educational purposes, as follows:
(1) An extended service test of the standardized principal types of army motors.
(2) The War Department’s contribution to the Good Roads movement for the purpose of developing through-route and transcontinental highways as military and economic assets.
(3) A demonstration of the practicability of long-distance motor post and commercial transportation.
(4) The collection of detailed data for use in connection with the technical training of the commissioned and enlisted personnel of the Motor Transport Corps.
(5) The procurement of recruits for the Motor Transport Corps.
(6) Studies in terrain observation for certain branches of the army, particularly the Field Artillery, Air Service and Engineer Corps.
(7) An exhibition to the general public, either through actual contact or resulting channels of publicity, of the development of the motor vehicle for military purposes.
The Lincoln Highway Association has co-operated with the Motor Transport Corps in advertising the passage of the train along the Lincoln Way, and through its subsidiary organizations it took a large part in making advance arrangements for the welcome to and the entertainment of the personnel of the convoy.
In addition, all the usual channels of publicity were employed in advertising the trip of the convoy, and an officer acting as advance publicity agent, preceded the train one or more days in order to give notice of its approach and to make final arrangements for its entertainment. A personal letter was written to the governor of each state and to the chief official of each town, village and city and to heads of civil and commercial organizations along the route, requesting their co-operation in making the trip a success. A recruiting officer with proper equipment accompanied the train and often went ahead to placard towns and arrange for meetings at which Motor Transport moving pictures were shown and the newly planned system of vocational training to be given in the Motor Transport Corps schools was explained. All the cargo trucks in the train carried signs describing the various phases of the Motor Transport Corps activities. The Associated Press and the Knights of Columbus had representatives with the train and there were also several freelance writers representing newspaper syndicates. All the war activity organizations, especially the War Camp Community Service, were advised of the passage of the train and did everything possible to make the men comfortable and to entertain them. As a result of all this publicity the passage of the train was marked by a continual succession of hearty greetings and hospitable entertainments. Each community, large or small, passed through did something to show its appreciation of the visit and its interest in the purposes of the trip. In many instances the entertainment program and street decorations were most elaborate.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] Not all of the touring campaigners have considered it an advantage to carry camping outfits. Some of them say that the work is so strenuous that they should have good beds at night and no responsibility for providing for their own comfort. On the other hand, in some districts camping may provide more comforts than rural hotels would.
[5] After making a study of the Cleveland trucks sent to Italy, the Chicago Tuberculosis Institute designed a lighter machine similar to that described on page 31.
[6] Health to Sell, Samuel Hopkins Adams, La Follette’s Magazine, December, 1914.