Description:
Students of a "fresh air school" attend to their studies in this photograph published in the Enquirer and News on March 13, 1977. Fresh-air schools, known also as open-air schools, were designed to prevent and combat the widespread rise of tuberculosis and became popular throughout the state and nation. The schools were built on the concept that fresh air contributed to improved health. Students attending the schools were provided with blankets and felt boots to keep warm. In February 1914, Willard Library hosted speaker Josephine Goss of Grand Rapids, known as the "mother of modern health school," to extol the benefits of these open-air schools. The classroom photographed was in a building next to the former Lincoln School on West Van Buren Street. The school opened in 1914, largely through the efforts of Drs. John Harvey Kellogg, Arthur S. Kimball, Samuel Gorsline and Henry Harvey.