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How Yellow Fever Turned New Orleans Into The 'City Of The Dead'

Some years the virus would wipe out a tenth of the population, earning New Orleans the nickname "Necropolis."
by Leah Donnella via NPR on October 31, 2018

Colonialism Did Not Just Create Slavery: It Changed Geology

Researchers suggest effects of the Colonial Era can be detected in rocks or even air.
by Robin McKie via The Guardian on June 10, 2018

Examining 20th-Century America’s Obsession With Poor Posture

A new book explores the nation’s now-faded preoccupation with the 'epidemic' of hunched bodies.
by Katherine Unger Baillie via Penn Today on June 7, 2018

A History of the Jerks: Bodily Exercises and the Great Revival

A digital archive of first-person accounts from the turn of the 19th century chronicling an unusual display of religious ecstasy.
by Douglas Winiarski via University of Richmond on April 9, 2018
Exhibit

Epidemic Proportions

How Americans have understood epidemics, from the Columbian Exchange to COVID-19.

The Flu Pandemic of 1918, as Reported in 1918

The pandemic was the most lethal global disease outbreak since the Black Death. What were people thinking at the time?
by Matthew Wills via JSTOR Daily on January 15, 2018

The Last of the Iron Lungs

A visit with three of the last polio survivors in the U.S. who still depend on iron lungs.
by Jennings Brown via Gizmodo on November 20, 2017

How the Horrific 1918 Flu Spread Across America

The toll of history’s worst epidemic surpasses all the military deaths in World War I and World War II combined. And it may have begun in the United States.
by John M. Barry via Smithsonian on October 25, 2017

Ancient History of Lyme Disease in North America Revealed with Bacterial Genomes

It turns out that deforestation and suburbanization – not evolution – are to blame for the tick-borne epidemic.
by Elizabeth Ann Reitman via Yale School of Public Health on August 28, 2017

How Fast Food Chains Supersized Inequality

Fast food did not just find its way to low-income neighborhoods. It was brought there by the federal government.
by Max Holleran via The New Republic on August 2, 2017

The Cook who Became a Pariah

New York, 1907. Mary Mallon spreads infection, unaware that her name will one day become synonymous with typhoid.
by Anna Faherty via Wellcome Collection on June 29, 2017

Mapping a Demon Malady: Cholera Maps and Affect in 1832

Cholera maps chart the movement of the disease, and the terror that accompanied it.
by Sarah Schuetze via Commonplace on September 25, 2016
An 1878 illustration from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, depicting hungry citizens in Memphis.

The Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1878

A primary source set and teaching guide created by educators.
by Samantha Gibson via Digital Public Library of America on April 7, 2016
A child in an iron lung, used to treat polio patients, aided by a nurse, 1940s.

There is No Cure for Polio

A primary source set and teaching guide created by educators.
by Melissa Jacobs via Digital Public Library of America on April 7, 2016

The Confusing and At-Times Counterproductive 1980s Response to the AIDS Epidemic

A new exhibit looks at the posters sent out by non-profits and the government in response to the spread of AIDS.
by Natasha Geiling via Smithsonian on December 4, 2013
partner

How Suffering Shaped Emancipation

Jim Downs discusses the plight of freed slaves during the Civil War and Reconstruction.
by Jim Downs, Robin Lindley via HNN on August 6, 2012
partner

Who Invented Memorial Day?

As Americans enjoy the holiday weekend, does anyone know how Memorial Day originated?
by Jim Downs via HNN on May 28, 2012

How The 'Pox' Epidemic Changed Vaccination Rules

During the 1898-1904 pox epidemic, public health officials and policemen forced thousands of Americans to be vaccinated against their will.
by Fresh Air via NPR on April 5, 2011

“Destroyer and Teacher”: Managing the Masses During the 1918–1919 Influenza Pandemic

Revisiting the public health lessons learned during the 1918–1919 pandemic and reflecting on their relevance for the present.
by Nancy Tomes via PubMed Central on April 1, 2010

Pox on Your Narrative: Writing Disease Control into Cold War History

How does the global effort to eradicate smallpox fit into the history of U.S.-Soviet relations?
by Erez Manela via Diplomatic History on March 5, 2010

Political Construction of a Natural Disaster: The Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1853

The conversation around race after Hurricane Katrina echoed discourse from another New Orleans disaster 150 years before.
by Henry M. McKiven Jr. via Journal of American History on December 1, 2007

1491

Before it became the New World, the Western Hemisphere was an altogether more salubrious place to live at the time than, say, Europe.
by Charles C. Mann via The Atlantic on March 1, 2002
Book cover of "Squanto: A Native Odyssey" by Andrew Lipman.

Squanto: A Native Odyssey

A new biography tells a far more complex, nuanced, and, frankly, interesting historical episode than that depicted in the typical grade-school pageant.
by Lincoln Paine via A Sea Of Words on March 4, 2025
Magazine article entitled "Don't take immunity for granted!"
partner

When Good Housekeeping Meant Getting Vaccinated Against Polio

The pages of 1950s lifestyle magazines offer a glimpse of a time when childhood vaccines were anything but controversial.
by Katherine Churchill via HNN on February 19, 2025
A photograph of the massive AIDS memorial quilt with the Washington Monument in the background.

“I Am the Face of AIDS”

Ryan White helped challenge existing understandings of the AIDS epidemic. But his story also reinforced arbitrary divisions between the guilty and the innocent.
by Paul M. Renfro via Public Books on October 22, 2024
Donald Trump

Racism Against Haitians Didn’t Begin in Springfield, Ohio

In the early 19th century, US elites demonized the self-liberated slaves of the Haitian Revolution as dangerous practitioners of barbaric rituals.
by Ayendy Bonifacio via Jacobin on September 18, 2024
Roll of raffle tickets labeled "National Security Priority"

How Everything Became National Security

And national security became everything.
by Daniel W. Drezner via Foreign Affairs on August 12, 2024
Drawing of a woman nurse in a tent with two rows of sick patients in bed.

Listening to Women Nurses and Caretakers

A case study from the smallpox epidemic among North Carolina Moravians.
by Savannah Jane Flanagan via Nursing Clio on July 3, 2024
Three immigrants with chained hands and feet ascending staircase to a plane to be deported.

America’s Medicalized Borders: Past, Present, and Possible Future

Undoing the politics of fear will require us to reckon with the legacies of nativism that divert our attention from the greatest threats to our health.
by Carlos Martinez via Public Books on May 29, 2024
An advertisement from China for soup with brain meat.

In Defense of Eating Brains

While some in the West are squeamish, globally, it's more common than not.
by Andrew Coletti via Atlas Obscura on February 16, 2024
Cover of the book "When Crack Was King," and Donovan X. Ranmsey.

A History of the Crack Epidemic From Below

How documenting the history of the drug war is a “community project” and reflections on 1990s rap music's anti-crack hits.
by Donovan X. Ramsey, Naomi Elias via The Nation on August 4, 2023
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