Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793

The Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 killed an estimated 2,000 people in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania—roughly 10% of the population. [cite web | title=Yellow Fever Attacks Philadelphia, 1793 | work=EyeWitness to History|url=http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/yellowfever.htm|accessdate=2008-10-04] At the time, the port city was the largest in the United States, as well as the seat of U.S. government (prior to establishment of the District of Columbia).

Philadelphia had recently seen the arrival of political refugees from the Caribbean. The summer that year was especially hot and dry, leaving many stagnant water areas as ideal breeding grounds for mosquitoes. The yellow fever outbreak began in July and continued through November, when cold weather finally eliminated the breeding ground for mosquitoes, although the connection had not yet then been established.

Background

Thousands of Philadelphians, including prominent government officials like George Washington and Alexander Hamilton fled the national capital. Washington took up residence in the Deshler-Morris House in nearby Germantown.

Benjamin Rush, the city's leading physician and a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence, had been an eyewitness to the 1762 yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia. [ [http://www.archives.upenn.edu/histy/features/1700s/people/rush_benj.html Benjamin Rush (1746-1813), University of Pennsylvania Archives ] ] Rush advocated the bloodletting of patients to combat the disease, but the treatment was controversial. Stephen Girard also helped supervise a hospital established at Bush Hill, a mansion just outside Philadelphia. Though many high-ranking people of Philadelphia fled, a few officials stayed. Mayor Matthew Clarkson as well as the mayor's committee tried to hold the city together as the death toll mounted.cite web | title=The Death of "Yellow Jack" (Angelo, M) | work=JEFFline Forum | url=http://jeffline.tju.edu/Education/forum/02/02/articles/yellow.html | accessdate=2006-04-18]

Matthew Carey published a fast-selling chronicle of the yellow fever crisis, "A short account of the Malignant Fever, Lately Prevalent in Philadelphia", which went through four editions. Carey wrote that African Americans took advantage of the tragedy to extort money from sick white people in exchange for assistance. This notion was based on no reliable information. Prominent African American leaders Richard Allen and Absalom Jones had in fact rallied their church community to assist victims and paid for the expenses out of their own pockets. Allen and Jones subsequently wrote a pamphlet, "Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People, During the Late Awful Calamity in Philadelphia", which detailed the contributions of the African Americans during the epidemic and questioned Carey's assessment of the situation since he had fled the city along with most other wealthy white people. [cite web|url=http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/bookres.fcgi/history/pdf_jones.pdf|author=Jones and Richard|title=A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People…] [cite book | author = Laurie Halse Anderson | title = Fever 1793 | edition = | publisher = Aladdin | year = 2002 | id = ISBN 0-689-84891-9 ] Many of the victims were buried in mass graves in what was then Southeast Square. [ [http://www.nationalbook.org/nba2003_jmurphy.html An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 by Jim Murphy] ]

ee also

*"Fever 1793", a historical novel about the epidemics
*Philadelphia Lazaretto, built in 1799 in response to the 1793 epidemic

External links

* [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/fever/map/index.html PBS "American Experience" program website]
* [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3h460.html PBS "Africans in America" program website] , containing primary sources mentioned in this article

References