The disease of fear and the fear of disease: Cholera and yellow fever in the Mississippi Valle

This dissertation is a case study of how the citizens living in St. Louis, Memphis, and New Orleans changed their social norms and behaviors when faced with the fear of disease between 1848 and 1880. Cholera and yellow fever are chosen for this study because they were the two most deadly and feared diseases to strike America in the nineteenth century. Both diseases appeared without warning, killed thousand of people rapidly, and baffled doctors for decades as to the diseases' transmission. In the likelihood that a new mysterious disease appears throughout the United States, the study of past behavior of the nineteenth-century citizens should shed some light on any possible future societal behavior modifications of American citizens if they are faced with a similar unknown threat. This dissertation combines the sociological and psychological theories on fear and society in order to clarify the concept of the disease of fear and explore it as a cultural expression. Through the use of these theories, readers will be able to understand the emotional agony suffered by the nineteenth-century residents and relate it to a possible current threat. The chapter on the 1849 cholera epidemic in St. Louis examines the overthrow of the local government and the quarantining of immigrants on an island in the middle of the Mississippi River. A discussion on race, disease, and the integration of the Memphis police force highlights the chapter on the 1878 yellow fever epidemic in Memphis. The chapter on New Orleans, which is also on the 1878 yellow fever epidemic, discusses the barricade of the city by the surrounding communities and the fear faced by the area residents who stopped at nothing to keep yellow fever out of their cities and towns. The epilogue concludes this project with an examination of the response and preparedness plan in 2007 by the United State Federal Government.