Tuesday, December 1 - Elizabeth Fenn, Pulitzer-Prize winner and Distinguished Professor, University of Colorado, Boulder
Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82
Time: 7:00 pm to 8:00 pm
Pricing: VFPA Members: $8.00
Non-Members: $12.00
Sponsored by the Sherrin H. and Bruce A. Baky Foundation
Talk Description:
When the American Revolution began, a horrifying smallpox epidemic swept across the Americas. This continent-wide epidemic of variola affected the outcome of the American War for Independence and had far-reaching consequences for the lives of everyone in North America.
A series of cascading public-health crises began in 1775, with American soldiers camped outside Boston. Smallpox devastated the Continental Army, fracturing the American troops at Québec and running through the ranks of soldiers outside Boston. The disease ravaged the population of runaway slaves who sought protection with the British Army in Virginia.
In the winter of 1777-1778, during the Valley Forge encampment, Washington struggled with the decision to inoculate his troops—the first largescale state-sponsored campaign of its kind. By 1779, the epidemic began to spread along the east coast and into the interior of North America. The Creeks and Cherokees of Georgia, Spanish colonials in Mexico City, pueblos in Alto California, and Native American communities along the Pacific Coast were all affected by this Continent-wide human tragedy.
Speaker Biography:
Elizabeth Fenn is a Distinguished Professor of Early American and Native American History at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She earned her B.A. at Duke University and her Ph.D. at Yale. Fenn famously traded wrenches for writing, leaving behind her eight-year career as an auto mechanic to complete her Ph.D.—the dissertation that formed the basis for Pox Americana.
Fenn received the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in History for her study on Mandan Indian history from 1100 to 1845: Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People (Hill & Wang, 2014). For her work, Fenn received the 2019 Public Scholar Award from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Her current research interests lie in “the Indigenous history of the early West, especially before 1848.” Fenn’s latest study is a microhistory focused on Sacagawea—using her life story to illuminate the wider history of the northern plains and Rockies.
Moderator Biography:
Robert D. Hicks, PhD is Senior Consulting Scholar and William Maul Measey Chair for the History of Medicine of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia. For over a decade he served as director of the Mütter Museum and Historical Medical Library at the College. He holds a doctorate in history from the University of Exeter, United Kingdom, and degrees in anthropology and archaeology from the University of Arizona. His most recent book, Civil War Medicine: A Surgeon’s Experience, appeared in 2019 by Indiana University Press.
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