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A screencap from a news show reading "Outrage after video taken inside Florida supermarket goes viral" from MSNBC.

Misinformation, Vaccination, and “Medical Liberty” in the Age of COVID-19

Vaccination is of critical importance right now. History shows us that our problems are nothing new.
by Evan P. Sullivan via Nursing Clio on March 30, 2021
Nurse Harriet Curley takes the pulse of a patient at Sage Memorial Hospital on the Navajo Indian reservation in 1949. (AP)

How Native Americans Were Vaccinated Against Smallpox, Then Pushed Off Their Land

Nearly two centuries later, many tribes remain suspicious of the drive to get them vaccinated against the coronavirus.
by Dana Hedgpeth via Washington Post on March 28, 2021
Cotton Mather.

The Hellfire Preacher Who Promoted Inoculation

Three hundred years ago, Cotton Mather starred in a debate about treating smallpox that tore Boston apart.
by Livia Gershon via JSTOR Daily on March 7, 2021
Engraving of a vaccinated child.

An Eradication: Empire, Enslaved Children, and the Whitewashing of Vaccine History

Enslaved children were used in medical trials for early smallpox vaccines. They have been forgotten.
by Farren E. Yaro via Age of Revolutions on December 7, 2020
COVID-19 particles with the bill of rights written over them

The Forgotten Third Amendment Could Give Pandemic-Struck America a Way Forward

An overlooked corner of the Constitution hints at a right to be protected from infection.
by Alexander Zhang via The Atlantic on October 21, 2020
Physician administering a vaccine to a patient.
partner

Those Most At Risk Might Be Most Wary of a Coronavirus Vaccine

Racism in medicine, including through forced vaccinations, has created skepticism toward public health campaigns.
by Elizabeth Grennan Browning via Made By History on September 11, 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

The Epidemics America Got Wrong

Government inaction or delay have shaped the course of many infectious disease outbreaks in our country.
by Jim Downs via The Atlantic on March 22, 2020
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Coronavirus: Lessons From Past Epidemics

Dr. Larry Brilliant, who helped eradicate smallpox, says past epidemics can teach us to fight coronavirus.
via Retro Report on March 20, 2020

The Shortages May Be Worse Than the Disease

Over the centuries, societies have shown a long history of making the effects of epidemics worse and furthering their own destruction.
by Elise A. Mitchell via The Atlantic on March 11, 2020

Herd Immunity

Can the social contract be protected from a measles outbreak?
by Ann Neumann via The Baffler on October 7, 2019
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
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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
Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter address children at a Ghana hospital in 2007.

How Jimmy Carter's Global Health Efforts Elevated 'The Art of the Possible'

Former President Jimmy Carter, who died Sunday at age 100, gave visibility to devastating health problems that are often invisible.
by Helen Branswell via STAT on December 29, 2024

Infectious Diseases Killed Victorian Children at Alarming Rates. Novels Show the Fragility of Health

Between 40% and 50% of children didn’t live past 5 in the US during the 19th century. Authors documented the common but no less gutting grief of losing a child.
by Andrea Kaston Tange via The Conversation on December 11, 2024
Painting of Mercy Otis Warren by John Singleton Copley.

Mercy Otis Warren, America’s First Female Historian

At the prodding of John and Abigail Adams, Mercy Otis Warren took on a massive project: writing a comprehensive history of the Revolutionary War.
by Nancy Rubin Stuart via The Saturday Evening Post on March 18, 2024
Discolored painting of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Here Are 10 Shockingly Radical Things the Founding Fathers Said

The Founding Fathers made startlingly progressive statements that didn’t make it into popular history.
by Jon Schwarz via The Intercept on July 4, 2023
Artwork of Sacagawea, surrounded by yellow flowers.

Getting Sacagawea Right

New evidence suggests that Sacagawea had a longer life than most historians have believed — fifty-seven years longer.
by Thomas Powers via New York Review of Books on May 18, 2023

The Country That Could Not Mourn

The Covid-19 pandemic has shown just how hard it is for Americans to grieve.
by Sarah Jaffe via The New Republic on September 23, 2022
Painting of a Puritan family sitting around a table with books.

Read More Puritan Poetry

Coming to love Puritan poetry is an odd aesthetic journey. It's the sort of thing you expect people partial to bowties and gin gimlets to get involved with.
by Ed Simon via The Millions on February 4, 2022
A milk maid shows her cowpoxed hand to a physician, while a farmer or surgeon offers to a young man inoculation with cowpox that he has taken from a cow.

Whack-a-Mole

Vaccine skepticism and misinformation have persisted since the smallpox epidemics. With the internet, it's only gotten worse.
by Rivka Galchen via London Review of Books on January 27, 2022
Surgeon General Vivek Murphy, Texas Children's Hospital chief pathologist Jim Versalovic and first lady Jill Biden visit with kids before they receive their coronavirus vaccine shots on Nov. 14 in Houston.
partner

History Shows That Passing School Coronavirus Vaccine Mandates Could Require Exemptions

Enacting vaccination mandates demands political give and take.
by Elena Conis via Made By History on November 19, 2021
A protestor wearing syringes, protesting the vaccine mandate
partner

Doubters’ Push for Religious Exemptions from Coronavirus Vaccination May Not Work

With all organized religions supporting vaccination, states may question the sincerity of those claiming exemptions from getting vaccinated.
by Kira Ganga Kieffer via Made By History on September 20, 2021
Donald Trump and Greg Abbott on a stage.
partner

The GOP is Reviving the Old History of Blaming Outsiders for Disease

But the evidence never backed it up before, and it doesn’t support such claims today either.
by Jonathan Zimmerman via Made By History on August 15, 2021
Anti-vaccination pamphlets from the early 1900s

Vaccine Hesitancy in the 1920s

As Progressive Era reforms increased the power of government, organized opposition to vaccination campaigns took on a new life.
by James Colgrove, Matthew Wills via JSTOR Daily on July 28, 2021
Pedestrians wearing protective masks walk past diners eating outdoors in Brooklyn's Park Slope neighborhood last month.
partner

Revisiting a 19th Century Medical Idea Could Help Address Covid-19

When germ theory displaced the idea of "miasmas" we lost important knowledge about tackling airborne disease.
by Melanie A. Kiechle via Made By History on April 21, 2021
Vienna’s plague column; the AIDS quilt; Mexico City’s Memorial to Victims of Violence; Berlin’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

How Will We Remember This?

A COVID memorial will have to commemorate shame and failure as well as grief and bravery.
by Justin Davidson via Curbed on March 15, 2021
A painted picture of someone receiving a vaccine

History Shows Americans Have Always Been Wary of Vaccines

Even so, many diseases have been tamed. Will Covid-19 be next?
by Alicia Ault via Smithsonian on January 26, 2021
Children receiving a vaccine.

Throughout History, Mass Vaccine Rollouts Have Been Beset by Problems

As the country scrambles to distribute COVID-19 vaccines, the process has been hindered by many of the same issues that impeded other mass vaccination rollouts.
by Dugan Arnett via Boston Globe on January 10, 2021
A gravestone.

Cicely Was Young, Black and Enslaved – Her Death Has Lessons That Resonate in Today's Pandemic

US monuments and memorials have overlooked frontline workers and people of color affected by past epidemics. Will we repeat history?
by Nicole S. Maskiell via The Conversation on December 2, 2020
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