The Board of Health, later known as the Metropolitan Board of Health began after the
American Civil War on February 18, 1865, when the first
Report of the Council of Hygiene and Public Health of the
Citizens' Association of New York (known as ''Citizen's Association Report on the Sanitary Condition of the City'') was written: The board's formation was in part a response to the
New York City draft riots, the council would state: Poor
sanitation and filthy streets threatened both the physical health of the public as well as the economic welfare of the developing metropolis in the mid nineteenth century. The sanitation of the city went under city politics. Most of city sewage and welfare in New York City was headed by
Tammany Hall. In 1863 Tammany Hall nominated City Street Inspector
Francis I. A. Boole for mayor. Reformists discovered that street cleaning was deeply embedded in
corruption. Workers were paid by Tammany Hall below minimum wage and forced to sign contracts that gave up half of their paycheck to Boole. After the release of the
Citizens Association Report in late 1865, the new board began to manage New York City's worst environmental problems. The Board of Health in New York, inspected at least 500
factories in the area and demanded that the factory owners decrease the amount of toxic air they released which they say was becoming a major health risk as well as the dirty tenements that contained new immigrants into the area. A
Health official in 1866 wrote of the tenements in a 300-page document, entitled
Inspection of Tenement living: The Board of Health helped encourage scientists and doctors to help cure diseases as well as join reformers in bringing attention to tenement law and work laws. By 1915 many of the powers originally possessed by the health department as to
tenement houses had been transferred to the tenement-house department, which was charged with enforcing the
tenement-house law in all flats and apartments. ==See also==