Reports of high morbidity rates in the South hit newspapers across the nation.
Date: 1921
Furious at the coverage in the North, the Montgomery Advertiser disputes a report that states that women in Ohio are 50% healthier than typical Southern women. The Advertiser offers a racist interpretation of the study, saying that it took into account the total population, including ‘‘the Negroes who since the war have become an unhealthy race,’’ and requests a comparison between the mortality rates of Northern and Southern whites, convinced that ‘‘southern white people will get the best of it.’’