Winner of the Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award from the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights. This book examines the environmental, political, and economic forces that contributed to the poor health and substandard medical care of poor people in the US South, including the Black population and those working in mills. The author draws on a massive amount of hitherto untapped published and unpublished material, including interviews with the people involved, from Georgia and the Carolinas. A History of Neglect  represents a thoroughly researched indictment of the failure of the southern medical, economic, and political establishment to respond to the suffering of the poor.