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A pair of horses are unable to pull an overcrowded streetcar in New York City, shown in Harper's Weekly on Sept. 21, 1872.

A Virus Crippled U.S. Cities 150 Years Ago. It Didn’t Infect Humans.

The Great Epizootic, an equine flu in 1872-1873, infected most U.S. horses. Streetcars and mail delivery stopped across the country while fires raged.
by Jodie Tillman via Retropolis on February 12, 2023
Illustrated 18th century man with hands on him

The Fever That Struck New York

The front lines of a terrible epidemic, through the eyes of a young doctor profoundly touched by tragedy.
by Carolyn Eastman via Smithsonian on February 26, 2021
Lithograph depicting John Eliot standing in the light and preaching to the a group of solemn, reflective American Indians sitting on the ground

How Plague Reshaped Colonial New England Before the Mayflower Even Arrived

Power, plague and Christianity were closely intertwined in 17th-century New England.
by Matthew Patrick Rowley via The Conversation on November 13, 2020

Signs and Wonders

Reading the literature of past plagues and suddenly seeing our present reflected in a mirror.
by Francine Prose via Lapham’s Quarterly on September 14, 2020
Exhibit

Epidemic Proportions

How Americans have understood epidemics, from the Columbian Exchange to COVID-19.
Fauci speaking at a White House podium with Trump glaring behind him
partner

Trump’s Campaign Against Fauci Ignores the Proven Path for Defeating Pandemics

When medicine and journalism defeated cholera.
by David T. Z. Mindich via Made By History on July 22, 2020
The USS Constitution glides through Boston Harbor.
partner

Early Americans Knew Better Than President Trump How To Prioritize Health

A public uprising forced Boston to prioritize fighting smallpox over the economy in 1792.
by Andrew Wehrman via Made By History on July 17, 2020
Illustration of body being loaded on to a cart

Pandemic Syllabus

Disease has never been merely a biological phenomenon. Instead, all illnesses—including COVID-19—are social problems for humans to solve.
by David S. Barnes, Merlin Chowkwanyun, Kavita Sivaramakrishnan via Public Books on July 13, 2020
Still from a 1950s animated WHO film featuring a drawing of the globe and an hourglass pointing toward Egypt.

Of Plagues and Papers: COVID-19, the Media, and the Construction of American Disease History

The different ways news media approaches pandemic reporting.
by Abigail Shelton via Clio and the Contemporary on May 1, 2020
Illustration of six books on the topic of pandemics

COVID-19 and the Outbreak Narrative

Outbreak narratives from past diseases can be influential in the way we think about the COVID pandemic.
by Priscilla Wald, Kym Weed via Southern Cultures on April 2, 2020

What Our Contagion Fables Are Really About

In the literature of pestilence, the greatest threat isn’t the loss of human life but the loss of what makes us human.
by Jill Lepore via The New Yorker on March 23, 2020
Virus seen through a microscope.

How Pandemics Change History

The historian Frank M. Snowden discusses the politics of restricting travel during epidemics and more.
by Frank M. Snowden, Isaac Chotiner via The New Yorker on March 3, 2020

How Mosquitoes Changed Everything

They slaughtered our ancestors and derailed our history. And they’re not finished with us yet.
by Brooke Jarvis via The New Yorker on July 29, 2019
original

The Greatest American Historian You've Never Heard Of

An appreciation of Alfred Crosby, who coined the term "Columbian exchange."
by Benjamin Breen on April 12, 2018
Sign reading "Is your child vaccinated?"
partner

Contagion

How prior generations of Americans responded to the threat of infectious disease.
via BackStory on February 19, 2016
The media fueled fears of a parrot-fever pandemic; then the story went into reverse. Illustration by Laurent Cilluffo.

The Spread

Jill Lepore on disease outbreaks of pandemic proportions, media scares, and the parrot-fever panic of 1930.
by Jill Lepore via The New Yorker on May 25, 2009
A man in a field of white flags representing Los Angeles residents who died of COVID-19.

How Did We Fare on COVID-19?

To restore public trust and prepare for the next pandemic, we need a reckoning with the U.S. experience—what worked, and what didn’t.
by Frances Lee, Stephen Macedo via Boston Review on June 19, 2025
Syringe drawing liquid from a vial.

Vaccine Rejection is as Old as Vaccines Themselves

How and why ideas like germ theory are pursued, accepted or ignored, and how human habits of the mind can make it difficult to ask the right questions.
by Nicoletta Lanese, Thomas Levenson via Live Science on April 29, 2025
Military patients in an emergency hospital at Camp Funston, Kansas, 1918.

How the Industrialization and Militarism of the Early 1900s Helped Spread the Spanish Influenza

The public and private battles waged across Europe and the United States during the 1918 flu pandemic.
by Edna Bonhomme via Literary Hub on March 24, 2025
A painting of a Staten Island harbor filled with boats, captioned "View of the Marine Hospital and Quarantine Grounds, Staten Island, New York."

Quarantine Scenes in Staten Island History

Staten Island's long battle against quarantine restrictions, from yellow fever to COVID-19.
by Carlos A. Santiago via The Gotham Center on March 19, 2025
Gloved hand holding COVID-19-shaped dandelion

Did the Year 2020 Change Us Forever?

The COVID-19 pandemic affected us in millions of ways. But it evades the meanings we want it to bear.
by Adam Gopnik via The New Yorker on February 19, 2024
Chickens and eggs.

The Unending Quest To Build A Better Chicken

Maybe what we need is not just a new form of poultry farming but a complete revolution in how we relate to meat.
by Boyce Upholt via Noema on December 19, 2023
Painting of the english surgeon Edward Jenner inoculating a child.

How Far Back Were Africans Inoculating Against Smallpox? Really Far Back.

When I looked at the archives, I found a history hidden in plain sight.
by Elise A. Mitchell via Slate on September 4, 2023
A group of people standing outdoors wearing masks over their mouths. This was probably during the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918. One of the women has a sign in front of her reading 'Wear a mask or go to jail."

Wear a Mask or Go to Jail

What the history of the 1918 Flu Pandemic can help us understand about today's public health measures.
by E. Thomas Ewing, Jessica Brabble, Ariel Ludwig via Nursing Clio on August 2, 2023
A young Black boy pictured mid-flip, while his peers look on. In the background are a row of houses, one of which abandoned with the windows punched out.

What We Meant When We Said 'Crackhead'

“I’ve learned, through hundreds of interviews and years of research, is that what crack really did was expose every vulnerability of society.”
by Donovan X. Ramsey via The Atlantic on July 11, 2023
A flower.

A Structural History of American Public Health Narratives

Rereading Priscilla Wald’s "Contagious" and Nancy Tomes’ "Gospel of Germs" amidst a 21st-century pandemic.
by Amy Mackin via Assay Journal on March 25, 2023
Edward Jenner (1749-1823) vaccinating against smallpox.

At the Start of the Spread

The march toward revolution in America coincided with a smallpox epidemic. True freedom now meant freedom from disease as well.
by Mark G. Spencer via The Wall Street Journal on January 4, 2023
The edifice of the Lazaretto, Philadelphia's old quarantine station.

The Philadelphia Lazaretto

Quarantine at the Lazaretto met many migrants when they arrived in 19th-century Philadelphia.
by David S. Barnes via Perspectives on History on December 8, 2022
On August 8, 2022, activists protest the lack of monkeypox vaccine and treatment access outside the San Francisco Federal Building.

What the AIDS Crisis Can Teach Us About Monkeypox

Harm reduction strategies, like those pioneered by queer men of color, have the best chance of stopping this disease.
by Joshua Gutterman Tranen via Boston Review on October 3, 2022
Little girl preparing for a polio vaccine.

We Didn't Vanquish Polio. What Does That Mean for Covid-19?

The world is still reeling from the pandemic, but another scourge we thought we’d eliminated has reemerged.
by Patrick Cockburn via The Nation on September 19, 2022
Newspaper lithograph of people fleeing the yellow fever epidemic on a boat in Mississippi.

The Sick Society

The story of a regional ruling class that struck a devil’s bargain with disease, going beyond negligence to cultivate semi-annual yellow fever epidemics.
by Malcolm Harris, Kathryn Olivarius via n+1 on September 2, 2022
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