emtaylor – American Disasters

April 9, 2014December 16, 2020

The Rigorous Spirit of Science

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I chose to read the first chapter of Typhoid Mary, “The Rigorous Spirit of Science: The Triumph of Bacteriology,” in addition to the introduction, for a myriad of reasons. Firstly, I hate picking up a book mid-way through, and having to figure out for myself what went on in the previous chapters. More importantly for my research, this chapter dealt with the larger ideas and views of disease in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. While this predates my research on the Spanish Influenza, it provides vital information about the state of public health infrastructure leading up to the pandemic.

The Rigorous Spirit, chapter one of Leavitt’s book, traces the development of science, bacteriology, and the way that disease was handled at the turn of the 20^th century. She outlines the development of the germ theory of disease and the way that it affected the way that public health was addressed in the US, notably by a shift away from physical duties (street cleaning, sewage systems) and to a system centered on laboratory research (trying to isolate and find cures for various diseases). She goes on to outline in broad terms the life of Mary Mallon, the so-called ‘Typhoid Mary’ of popular culture today.

Leavitt’s book opens much like Gina Kolata’s Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus that Caused it, a book a reviewed earlier in the semester for this class. This similar opening of both books encourages a discourse between them, which upon closer inspection are strikingly similar: they focus on a medical disaster and society’s attempt to contain and explain it. What other links can we draw between these two disasters, less then 15 years apart, and what can we learn from these links?

AJ’s post is thought provoking. Looking at the items offered for sale at the auction, I can’t help but think about the people behind them, and the tragedy that made a piece of wood worth $100,000. We can find out so much about the Titanic passengers from these items, and this value is lost when they are put in private collections, away from public view.

April 7, 2014December 16, 2020

Research Update: Long Term Effects of the Spanish Influenza

I am examining the long term effects of the Spanish Flu. My research is progressing quite nicely, although I have not had quite as much time to devote to it as I like. I have found some great narrative histories to complement the plethora of primary source documents on influenza archive.org. However, I haven’t found many scholarly secondary sources.

March 24, 2014December 16, 2020

Too Prepared?

In class on Tuesday, March 18, we discussed the reactions of the Weather Bureau, taking a primarily critical view of the organization’s actions. Erik Larson’s view undoubtedly heavily influenced out take on the culpability of the organization and their potential to have prevented many deaths. I agreed with our assessment of the situation, blaming the nascent organization that was trying to save face for their inaction.

However, in reading a source for my independent research project, Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus that Caused It, I came across an event that interestingly mirrored that of the 1900 Galveston Hurricane. In 1976, a flu season occurred that reflected many of the same patterns of the deadly 1918 Influenza that killed around 50 million people worldwide. The Centers for Disease Control and the US government jumped into action, commencing a nationwide vaccination campaign to protect the entire country. This is exactly what the Weather Bureau did not do, looking at a potential threat and acting upon it to protect the population. This is the criticism that I gave the Weather Bureau, but the Swine Flu Scare of 1976 turned out very differently than expected. Millions were spent and millions were vaccinated, but the expected pandemic never came. The federal government came under intense criticism for jumping the gun, so to speak, and the CDC lost credibility. This is what the Weather Bureau was preventing by not forecasting a storm, and what the leadership was trying to prevent in banning the use of the words ‘hurricane’ and ‘tornado.’ While I’m not excusing the failure of the Weather Bureau, I think the 1976 Swine Flu Scare serves as a helpful counterpoint to our critiques, explaining, although not excusing, the actions of the Weather Bureau in the 1900 Galveston Hurricane.

This argument contradicts that of Jean, although she does make a convincing argument. Planning is key in disaster awareness and management. However, can you ‘cry wolf’ one too many times, leaving the population exposed when a disaster is indeed imminent? I don’t know how to fix the problem, but it is exemplified by the two exemplars portrayed in Isaac’s Storm and Flu.

March 11, 2014December 16, 2020

Outbreaks of Typhoid Fever in Davidson, NC: A Case Study for the Treatment of Disease during the Gilded Age

Disease is a particularly potent subset of disaster as it is a silent killer that has not historically been well understood. Due to the mystery surrounding its’ spread, it has incited folklore for centuries. I propose to examine Typhoid Fever in the town of Davidson as a case study for the spread of disease in Gilded Age America. Typhoid, the common name for Salmonella typhi, is a waterborne disease that can cause high fever, rash, and gastrointestinal problems.[1] I will study outbreaks of Typhoid Fever in Davidson, NC from the foundation of the college in 1832 until 1920, when Typhoid Fever vaccinations were more common, thus reducing the morbidity and mortality of the disease.[2] In comparing the treatment of patients and possible outbreaks in a small town setting with those in national data, I will attempt to better understand the way that Americans in this time period viewed disease. More specifically, I will examine the folklore surrounding Typhoid, in Davidson and on the national scale, in order to better understand the views that were held by lay contemporaries of a disease that was not yet commonly understood. I intend to study the folklore surrounding the spread of Typhoid as well as its’ treatment, in addition to the relationship between the prevalence of these ideas in popular literature and their correlation with local and national outbreaks.

I will use resources from the Davidson College Archives as well as information on the disease in other locals within the same period. One particularly interesting source that I have located is a pamphlet published in 1916 entitled “Typhoid Fever and How to Avoid it.” I intend to use this source to gain valuable insight into the commonly held beliefs surrounding the disease, as laid out in a self-help type format, a form that became prevalent during the Gilded Age. I will also examine our class text, Typhoid Mary, to examine one case study of Typhoid in New York at the turn of the century. I intend to use this second case study to examine the treatment of patients and asymptomatic carriers. I will use the literature from the Davidson area to form a case study on the myths surrounding the presumed prevention and treatment of Typhoid Fever during the Gilded Age.

[1] “Typhoid Fever,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, last modified May 14, 2013, http://www.cdc.gov/nczved/divisions/dfbmd/diseases/typhoid_fever/.

[2] “Typhoid Fever History,” News Medical, http://www.news-medical.net/health/Typhoid-Fever-History.aspx

March 10, 2014December 16, 2020

Memory of Disaster

As Dr. Shrout mentioned in class the other day, David McCullough has been critiqued by historians for not being a ‘real’ or ‘serious’ historian. This critique extends beyond McCullough and to the entire sub-genre of narrative histories. However, I argue that this is a genre that is needed to expose large sections of the population to more in depth analyses and accounts of past events.

As a history major, I am thrilled by the idea of reading scholarly accounts of events. However, I know that not every Davidson student shares this opinion, much less the general population. I argue that narrative histories serve to bring history to a broader audience than would otherwise be exposed to it.

In reading the news in the last few days, I have come across extensive coverage of Flight MH370. Disappeared early Saturday morning with well over 200 people on board, I raise the question of how this disaster will be remembered. The Johnstown Flood, which took over 2,000 lives, has faded from popular memory. However, the Chicago Fire killed only a few hundred, but has remained ingrained in our national memory. How will this international disaster be remembered in the different countries?

Price focuses on the responsibly for the disaster-how the diffusion of responsibly at the South Fork Hunting Club was at least partially to blame for the events that followed. I inquire how the lack of a clear responsible party will affect the way that MH370 will be remembered. As discussed in class, much of the legacy of Johnstown was that it set the precedent that the upper class had a responsibility for the lower classes. How will MH370 change perceptions or practices? If it fails to have widespread policy or opinion, will it be destined to be as forgotten as the Peshtigo Fire?

February 17, 2014December 16, 2020

The Power of Hardship to Unite

Chapters three and four of New Spirits present an interesting, although stereotypical account of the Gilded Age, examining ‘work’ and ‘money.’ The overall impression that these chapters present is one of hardship for the masses, from brakemen to cowboys. This impression coincides with the traditional reading of the Gilded Age as a time of corruption and big money, which directly contradicts Charles W. Calhoun’s call for a reexamination and reevaluation of the true legacy of the Gilded Age in his piece, “Moving Beyond Stereotypes of the Gilded Age”. Interestingly, this is a reading that Rebecca Edwards, the author of New Spirits, also calls for in her introduction. However, the way in which the chapters on work and money are presented adhere to the reading that she previously criticized.

For another class this week, I read primary source accounts of women’s lives in Germany during the 1920’s. What struck me was how much this reading echoed the New Spirits reading, providing key insight into daily life in the factory. Although Edwards repeatedly mentions the greater working conditions that Europeans faced in comparison to their American counterparts, the primary source accounts that I read told of hard work, long hours, and little pay. The comparison that I have made between early twentieth century Germany and America argue for similarities that unite beyond boarders and oceans, that unite people in the human experience.

Although contemporaries were unable to see or unwilling to act on similar experiences beyond international boarders, the power of hardship and shared experience to unite is prevalent within the United States, in the Gilded Age and today. Edwards talks about the mutual benefit associations that workers formed (67), as well as taverns as “informal working man’s clubs” (92). This can be extended to the booster vision of the Chicago fire, and their attempts to portray the fire as a uniting event. While it may have been exaggerated, there is usually some truth in every story. The shared traumatic event of the fire brought together the city, at least to some extent. To extend this to the present day, I will focus on the example that Nate brought up in class the other day about the snow storm that crippled Atlanta: while it was a hardship on everyone involved, the people pulled together and helped out. The power of shared experience to unite is strong, and has been traditionally under estimated.

I agree whole-heartedly with Nate’s point that “primary sources give us a perceptive account of historical events,” and I think the example that I have brought up on the similarities that were highlighted in the primary sources nicely illustrates this point.

February 10, 2014December 16, 2020

The Peshtigo Fire: The Forgotten Stepsister of the Chicago Fire

Peter Pernin’s The Great Peshtigo Fire: An Eyewitness Account is a valuable source for what could be considered the ugly stepsister of the Great Chicago Fire. Had this disaster occurred at any other time, it would have garnered extensive national attention, but because of the media frenzy over the Chicago Fire, it was forgotten by contemporaries as well as historians. While the Bales hypothesis is fascinating and worthy of farther study, it shines an interesting light on the Peshtigo fire. Almost everyone knows the myth about Mrs. O’Leary and her cow starting the Chicago Fire, but the Peshtigo fire is much more unknown, although it took more lives and caused about the same about of property damage. An online source even goes so far as to call it the “forgotten fire.” How did this truly devastating fire that destroyed everything in its’ path begin? Was it the dry summer or the carelessness of locals, as Pernin describes? The lack of contemporary criminal investigation, such as the one that occurred in Chicago, shows the radically different treatment of the two disasters. In this, we see the different ways that disaster is perceived and portrayed due to its location in an urban or rural area. Although the Peshtigo fire took more lives, the Chicago fire impacted more lives directly, and was therefore given the priority in contemporary and historical analysis.

I would like to make a comparison that could be helpful to Eli’s argument: Bales’ ‘investigation’ seemed more like a CSI-type drama than a reliable historical account. While the medium that he is presenting his work must be considered, it does not excuse what feels like amateur detective work. Contrary to Eli’s further point on the irrationality of the townspeople’s actions in dealing with the looter, I find the irrationality in their behavior to be perfectly normal. The psychological effects of such a traumatic event must have been devastating, making rational thought and action impossible. Pernin himself acknowledges that he was incapable of caring for his flock due to the trauma.

February 5, 2014December 16, 2020

Nature as a Counterpoint to Cronon

In the introduction to Nature’s Metropolis, William Cronon paints a picture of his childhood and the opposition of rural and urban that he claims to falsely have considered to be polar opposites, unconnected and fundamentally opposing. I connected strongly with his childhood view, having also felt a persistent pull towards the undeveloped since my own childhood. For myself, as for Cronon, nature was pure and innocent, and the city was sophisticated, modern, and morally ambiguous. In arguing the inexorable relationship between rural and urban, he discounts this view, adopting instead a combination of Von Thunen’s Central Place Theory and Fredrick Jackson Turner’s Frontier Thesis. While his argument is convincing, it is fundamentally Marxist. For Cronon, commerce and economics drive development. I take issue with this simplified view of society, questioning the existence of nature preserves and National Parks, entities devoted to pleasure and exploration, in a world driven by commerce. I see this government imitative as proof that there are other forces at work in development. However, it is even more strongly present in the private sphere-the quest for a rural getaway that has existed for as long as there have been densely populated areas in America, as exemplified in the construction of the Biltmore House by the Vanderbilt’s in the late 1800’s. The forested mountains that we see from overlooks such as Caesar’s Head (a childhood favorite) result from more than government preservation. As a whole, we seem to recognize the innate value in the natural, and it is evidenced in the forests that still clothe our mountains. However, that value is far from commercial, and if economics drove all development, the mountains would have been developed long ago. Therefore, I argue that the continued existence of large quantities of forestland in the American Southeast act as a counterpoint to Cronon’s assertion that economics are the fundamental driver of development.

I would like to add to Catherine’s point about the Davidson College Ecological Preserve. It is indeed second growth forest, and she questions how natural it is because of this. However, if you take a look around at this new growth forest, you see so many other physical signs of human tampering. You see the wide swath cleared last year for the gas lines, still bare from the destruction. You see the abandoned house, a favorite of students for midnight jaunts. You see the goats, an introduction into the Davidson woods, but their presence indicates an effort to correct another invasive species gone wild, Kudzu. The list goes on, from the boathouse to the power line. In this wild place, the wildest that Davidson has to offer, we are never far from man’s influence. This raises the question, also raised by Cronon in his introduction, what is wilderness? Does it exist in this modern age? I don’t know the answer, but as a nature lover, I am glad that the question can still be asked today.

January 24, 2014December 16, 2020

Art as a Form of Protest: “Notepad” and it’s Invitation to Dissent

Matt Kenyon’s 2007 piece “Notepad” at first glimpse appears to be a stack of legal pads. However, he uses this mundane object to bring attention to the civilian deaths in the Iraqi war, printing the names of these loses, as well as the location and date, in microprint. The inclusion of this work in the State of Emergency art exhibition explores a different definition of disaster, one that is not natural but manmade. It also explores the purpose of art as a tool for social dissent.

The American invasion of Iraq in 2003 brought enormous suffering to the Iraqi people. It was a controversial decision at the time, and continues to be an emotionally charged issue for many Americans. In “Notepad,” Kenyon highlights this overlooked disaster that continues to claim many lives. The role of the media in bringing a disaster to the national conscience cannot be overstated. This is apparent in the deaths of Iraqi civilians: the media will headline the death of an American solider in Iraq, but then bury a small news bulletin about the large-scale civilian deaths in an interior page. This American-centric perspective of the Iraqi war minimizes the true cost of this war. By highlighting this, “Notepad” is a form of protest.

This piece of art grapples with the purpose of art as a tool for social dissident. As discussed in class, disasters serve to expose the fissures in society. “Notepad” brings to light an aspect of American society that the government would rather remain marginal. “Notepad” performs a different role from many other works depicting disaster; it is an act of protest against American policy. Additionally, this piece provokes active protest, in asking the gallery visitors to write letters to congressmen on the notepaper. This explores a different way of looking at disaster, in critiquing government response or responsibility, and pushing for policy change.

“Notepad” insinuates that through the act of acknowledging the dead, it allows them to recover the dignity lost in an anonymous death. This is an idea that is also seen in the American Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, DC as well as in Ai Weiwei’s Namelist, also presented in the State of Emergency gallery.

This piece is different from many of the other pieces on display in the State of Emergency gallery in that it deals with a different definition of a disaster, one that is not a natural disaster such as a hurricane or an earthquake. It portrays an act of war, and the civilian deaths that result from this war. In doing this, “Notepad” deals with a controversial subject, one that the American government wishes to minimize.

The way that disaster is portrayed in art is one way of looking at the myriad problems and changes that are produced during a disaster. “Notepad” addresses one aspect of the Iraqi war, the loss of dignity of the victims and its restoration through recognition and remembrance, and implies an American civic responsibility to respond to disaster. The way in which the victims are remembered is a crucial aspect of disaster study, as it can expose the political climate and act as a litmus test for national sentiment.

January 20, 2014December 16, 2020

Why Study the Gilded Age?

Calhoun argues that the Gilded Age is under-studied and misunderstood, a conclusion that my education has supported. Although I am but one student out of so many that learn about American history in our nation, I believed that I received a high caliber education. However, my AP US History teacher, like so many that Calhoun criticizes, stereotyped the Gilded Age as a period of “superficiality, pretense, and fraud.” We breezed through the period, moving on quickly to more ‘interesting’ topics such as the Progressive Era and World War One.

But why does this misunderstanding matter, a question that both Molly and Sarah have dealt with. For me, this question goes back to the question of why we are students of history: to better understand the present vis-à-vis the past. My AP US History teacher not only presented a flawed view of the Gilded Age, as seen by Calhoun, but also failed to make the connections that bring relevance to the topic. New Spirits makes this astonishingly clear, tracing the roots of our modern society back to this tumultuous period. The Gilded Age brought about changes that form the foundation of our society today, including the new morals and ways of life that guide our decisions. However, I see more than that, I see also the beginnings of debates that are key today, such as our national dependence on fossil fuel, the trials of commuters to the cities that are so often depicted in our mass media, and the role of that our government should play in private lives. These and many more key issues and aspects of our society today were either heavily impacted by the Gilded Age or find their origins in that period.

Dr. Shrout’s posting on the climate disasters of 2013 are particularly enlightening in view of the connections made in chapter two of New Spirits, of how the natural world influenced America’s development. This is examined on page 45 of Edwards’ work, going into depth on how weather patterns influenced the development of the Great Plains.