Doctoral Dissertation Research: Risky Homes, Domestic Accidents, and Safety Work

事故每年造成2600万人非致命性伤害，在美国死亡原因中排名第三。国内事故占总数的一半以上。尽管物理危害对家庭生活至关重要，但历史学家通常将家庭事故的主题留给了社会学和公共卫生的研究人员。使用“安全工作”这个术语作为速记，这个项目揭示了专家和普通人是如何努力控制事故及其后果的。它绘制了从1900年到1980年的国内事故和安全工作的历史，分析了公共健康教育、自愿产品标准以及保险和消费电器市场如何以及为什么来描绘美国的风险管理。这项研究描述了企业和非营利组织如何为事故预防研究和政策建立有影响力的模型，并对不断变化的现实和风险和责任的文化含义提出了新的见解。尽管美国人已经变得更加意识到家庭风险，但预防伤害的负担继续沉重地落在公民消费者的身上。普通的男人和女人会购买“安全”的产品；安装和维修设备；查看最新的安全建议；以及执行许多其他任务，以保持他们的家庭平稳运行。该项目考虑了这种个性化的事故管理方法的历史局限性，并说明了以国家为中心的替代方案的好处，如严格的售前产品监管以及对儿童保育和家庭护理的补贴。与政策制定者和公共卫生从业者讨论这段历史有可能支持现有的消费者保护法，并扩大政府援助计划。这项研究借鉴了行业目录、广告、保险单、杂志、案例、产品安全测试、警告标签和其他来源，将国内事故解读为从风险预防到长期康复或残疾的更长时间序列的一部分。该项目分析了电击、烧伤、跌倒和窒息，以进行四种相关的干预。首先，它对安全工作的强调将研究家庭事故以及普通美国人的生活和劳动重新纳入研究范围。它与其说是命运或个人粗心大意的结果，不如说是过度工作和家庭空间复杂性的可预见副产品。其次，这个项目阐明了安全担忧是如何植根于保险和消费品市场的，这让家庭从营利性公司购买身体和精神安全。第三，工作本身被重新定义为包括了解常见危险和购买“安全”电器，将自我教育和消费纳入风险管理的劳动。最后，它展示了专家如何掩盖不同种族、经济和地理特征的社区之间的差异，使中产阶级白人郊区成为防止家庭事故的“一刀切”的模式解决方案。总体而言，该项目分析了美国人如何跟上新的安全做法和技术，以及他们为什么遵循或不遵循安全生活的现有社会处方。事故不仅表现为原因，而且还表现为家务劳动的结果，迫使利益相关者将家作为避难所的理想与其危险而艰苦的现实相协调。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Accidents account for 26 million nonfatal injuries each year and rank third among causes of death within the United States. Domestic accidents make up over half of these totals. Despite the centrality of physical hazards to domestic life, historians have generally left the subject of home accidents to researchers from sociology and public health. Using the term “safety work” as shorthand, this project reveals how experts and laypeople tried to control mishaps and their consequences over time. It charts the history of domestic accidents and safety work from 1900 to 1980, analyzing how and why public health education, voluntary product standards, and markets for insurance and consumer appliances came to delineate American risk management. This research describes how corporations and nonprofits established influential models for accident prevention research and policy and presents new insights into the changing realities and cultural meanings of risk and responsibility. Even as Americans have become more conscious of household risks, the burden of injury prevention continues to fall heavily on citizen-consumers. Ordinary men and women shop for “safe” products; install and repair equipment; review the latest safety advice; and perform many other tasks to keep their homes running smoothly. This project considers the historical limitations of this individualized approach to accident management and illustrates the benefits of state-centered alternatives like strict presale product regulation and subsidies for childcare and home nursing. Discussing this history with policymakers and public health practitioners has the potential to bolster existing consumer protection laws and to expand government aid programs. Drawing on trade catalogues, advertisements, insurance policies, magazines, case histories, product safety tests, warning labels, and other sources, this research interprets domestic accidents as part of a longer sequence of events from risk prevention to long-term recovery or disability. This project analyzes shocks, burns, falls, and choking to make four related interventions. First, its stress on safety work recenters the study of accidents on the home and the lives and labor of ordinary Americans. It represents mishaps less as results of fate or individual carelessness than as predictable byproducts of overwork and the complexity of domestic space. Second, this project clarifies how safety concerns became embedded within markets for insurance and consumer products, which left households to buy physical and mental security from for-profit corporations. Third, work itself is redefined to include learning about common hazards and shopping for “safe” appliances, factoring self-education and consumption into the labor of risk management. Finally, it shows how experts papered over differences between communities with distinct racial, economic, and geographical profiles to make middle-class white suburbia the “one-size-fits-all” model solution for home accident prevention. Overall, this project analyzes how Americans kept up with new safety practices and technologies and why they did or did not follow available social prescriptions for safe living. Accidents manifested not only as causes but also as effects of housework and compelled stakeholders to reconcile the ideal of the home-as-sanctuary with its risky and toilsome reality.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.