The threat from Havana: Southern Public Health, yellow fever, and the U.S. intervention in the Cuban struggle for independence, 1878-1898

Journal of Southern History

Volumn 72, Issue 3, 2006, Pages 541-568

  Espinosa, Mariola ^a  

^a SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 60949948747     PISSN: 00224642     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/27649148     Document Type: Article

References (90)

1. See for example John Duffy, Sword of Pestilence: The New Orleans Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1853 (Baton Rouge, 1966)
2. Khaled J. Bloom, The Mississippi Valley's Great Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1878 (Baton Rouge, 1993)
3. and Jo Ann Carrigan, The Saffron Scourge: A History of Yellow Fever in Louisiana, 1796-1905 (Lafayette, La., 1994). I would like to thank Lou Pérez Jr., Jim Hevia, Lars Schoultz, John Chasteen, Judy Farquhar, Kathryn Burns, D. Gorton, Jane Adams, Fred Solt, and the Journal of Southern History reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article
4. James B. Speer Jr., "Pestilence and Progress: Health Reform in Galveston and Houston During the Nineteenth Century," Houston Review: History and Culture of the Gulf Coast, 2 (Fall 1980), 120-33
5. Margaret Warner, "Local Control versus National Interest: The Debate over Southern Public Health, 1878-1884," Journal of Southern History, 50 (August 1984), 407-28
6. John H. Ellis, Yellow Fever and Public Health in the New South (Lexington, Ky., 1992)
7. Margaret Humphreys, Yellow Fever and the South (New Brunswick, N.J., 1992)
8. Jo Ann Carrigan, "Privilege, Prejudice, and the Strangers' Disease in Nineteenth-Century New Orleans," Journal of Southern History, 36 (November 1970), 568-78
9. Edward J. Blum, "The Crucible of Disease: Trauma, Memory, and National Reconciliation during the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1878," Journal of Southern History, 69 (November 2003), 791-820
10. Frank Freidel, The Splendid Little War (Boston, 1958)
11. Allan Keller, The Spanish-American War: A Compact History (New York, 1969)
12. and David F. Trask, The War with Spain in 1898 (New York, 1981)
13. Louis A. Pérez Jr., The War of 1898: The United States and Cuba in History and Historiography (Chapel Hill, 1998)
14. These include Philip S. Foner, The Spanish-Cuban-American War and the Birth of American Imperialism, 1895-1902 (2 vols.; New York, 1972)
15. Jules R. Benjamin, The United States and Cuba: Hegemony and Dependent Development, 1880-1934 (Pittsburgh, 1977)
16. Benjamin, The United States and the Origins of the Cuban Revolution: An Empire of Liberty in an Age of National Liberation (Princeton, 1990)
17. Louis A. Pérez Jr., Cuba and the United States: Ties of Singular Intimacy (Athens, Ga., 1990)
18. and Pérez, War of 1898
19. "Declared It Yellow Fever," New Orleans Daily Picayune, September 7, 1897, pp. 1-2
20. "Uncle Sam's Boys Abandon Jackson Barracks Because of the Fever Scare," ibid., September 14, 1897, p. 11
21. "Soldiers Were the First to Flee: Regiment of United States Artillery Comes Here Today," Atlanta Constitution, September 14, 1897, p. 1
22. "Refugees Flock Here for Safety: Trains From Infected Districts Are Crowded With Them," ibid., September 16, 1897, p. 3
23. "Mint in New Orleans Shut Off: The Government Unable to Ship Coin Wanted Elsewhere," New York Times, September 16, 1897, p. 1
24. See also "The Mayor Stands Firm," ibid., September 25, 1897, pp. 1-2
25. "Quarantine's Farewell: The Frosts Everywhere Remove All Cause for Fear," ibid., November 5, 1897, p. 1
26. "The Daily Report," ibid., November 6, 1897, p. 10
27. "The Daily Record," ibid., November 7, 1897, p. 11
28. "Local Gossip of the Fever: A Great Many Families Get Out of the Town," Jackson Daily Clarion-Ledger, September 14, 1897, p. 1
29. "To the Citizens of Jackssn [sic]," ibid., September 15, 1897, p. 8
30. "Around and About Town: Many More People Are Leaving the City," Jackson Daily Bulletin, September 16, 1897, p. 1
31. "Quarantine Established," Houston Daily Post, September 7, 1897, p. 3
32. "A Death at Beaumont," Galveston Daily News, September 23, 1897, p. 1
33. "The Beaumont Death," ibid., September 24, 1897, p. 1
34. "Houston Trains Off," ibid., September 28, 1897, p. 1
35. "Train Held Up at Rayne, LA: The Special with the Louisiana Doctors Not Allowed to Pass the Town," ibid., September 30, 1897, p. 2
36. See also "Experience of Dr. Guiteras: Never Saw More Fright Than in Rural Sections of Louisiana," ibid., October 1, 1897, p. 1
37. "Steamship Lines Suspend," ibid., October 12, 1897, p. 1
38. "Trade Paralyzed," New York Herald, October 12, 1897, p. 1
39. United States Marine-Hospital Service, Annual Report of the Supervising Surgeon-General of the Marine-Hospital Service of the United States for the Fiscal Year 1897 (Washington, D.C., 1899), 599, 621
40. "Refugees Reaching the City: One Hundred and Fifty Came in at 2 O'Clock This Morning," ibid., September 15, 1897, p. 1
41. "Will Inspect All Incoming Trains: Board of Health Holds Another Important Meeting," ibid., September 16, 1897, p. 3
42. "City's Gates Open to the Refugees: Atlanta Will Welcome All Who Come From Fever Districts," ibid., September 15, 1897, p. 1
43. "Decatur Won't Take Chances: Alabama Town Doubles Guard to Watch Incoming Trains," ibid., September 15, 1897, p. 1
44. "Will Shut Out Yellow Jack: Wilmington, N.C., Quarantines," ibid., September 16, 1897, p. 3
45. See also "Once Hated Town Now Their Home: People of Montgomery Flee To This City for Refuge," ibid., October 20, 1897, p. 3
46. Edmond Souchon, "True Origin of the Epidemic of Yellow Fever," Journal of the American Medical Association, 35 (August 4, 1900), 309
47. J. H. White, "True Origin of the Epidemic of 1897," New York, January 29, 1898, in United States Marine-Hospital Service, Annual Report of the Supervising Surgeon-General of the Marine-Hospital Service of the United States for the Fiscal Year 1898 (Washington, D.C., 1899), 536-39
48. J[ohn] M. Woodworth. "A Brief Review of the Organization and Purpose of the Yellow Fever Commission," Public Health Reports and Papers Presented at the Meetings of the American Public Health Association, 4 (November 1878), 167-68
49. Stanford E. Chaillé, "Report to the United States National Board of Health on Yellow Fever in Havana and Cuba," in House Executive Document, 40 Cong., 3 Sess., No. 8: Annual Report of the National Board of Health, 1880 (Washington, D.C., 1882), 72-73
50. "The Late Yellow Fever Epidemic," New York Times, November 30, 1878, p. 8
51. Two hundred million dollars was approximately 2.3 percent of the U.S. gross national product in 1878. See Nathan S. Balke and Robert J. Gordon, "The Estimation of Prewar Gross National Product: Methodology and New Evidence," Journal of Political Economy, 97 (February 1989), 84
52. For more recent accounts of the events of 1878 see Ellis, Yellow Fever and Public Health in the New South, esp. pp. 56-57
53. Humphreys, Yellow Fever and the South
54. and Bloom, Mississippi Valley's Great Yellow Fever Epidemic
55. Chaillé, "Report to the United States National Board of Health on Yellow Fever in Havana and Cuba," 73
56. On the development of southern quarantine measures in the 1880s, see Humphreys, Yellow Fever and the South, 113-30, 136
57. George M. Sternberg, Report on the Etiology and Prevention of Yellow Fever (Washington, D.C., 1890)
58. "Spanish Troops III in Cuba," New York Times, April 4, 1895, p. 5
59. "Safeguards Against Yellow Fever," ibid., April 4, 1895, p. 16
60. See also "Precautions Against a Yellow Fever Epidemic," New York Daily Tribune, May 19, 1895, p. 4
61. Walter Wyman to the Secretary of the Treasury, June 21, 1897
62. W. B. Howell, Treasury Department, to John W. Linck, Special Agent, June 25, 1897
63. and W. B. Howell, Treasury Department, to Commanding Officer U.S.S. Forward, July 21, 1897
64. for mention of patrolling other states see Walter Wyman to A. H. Glennan, June 22, 1897
65. United States Marine-Hospital Service, Annual Report of the Supervising Surgeon-General of the Marine-Hospital Service of the United States for the Fiscal Year 1895, pp. 384-439
66. Walter Wyman to the Secretary of the Treasury, December 4, 1895, in United States Marine-Hospital Service, Annual Report of the Supervising Surgeon-General of the Marine-Hospital Service of the United States for the Fiscal Year 1896 (Washington, D.C., 1896), 387
67. "Yellow Fever Aids the Rebels," New York Times, June 6, 1896, p. 5
68. See, for example, "Scourged by Disease," ibid., July 21, 1896, p. 5
69. "Yellow Fever in Cuba," New York Daily Tribune, August 26, 1896, p. 1
70. and "Yellow Fever and Smallpox in Cuba," ibid., September 1, 1896, p. 2
71. W. H. Brunner, Assistant Sanitary Inspector, USMHS, to Walter Wyman, Surgeon General, July 6, 1897, Central File, 1897-1923, Records of the Public Health Service, Record Group 90, National Archives at College Park
72. United States Marine-Hospital Service, Annual Report of the Supervising Surgeon-General of the Marine-Hospital Service of the United States for the Fiscal Year 1896, p. 378
73. United States Marine-Hospital Service, Annual Report of the Supervising Surgeon-General of the Marine-Hospital Service of the United States for the Fiscal Year 1897, p. 428
74. United States Marine-Hospital Service, Annual Report of the Supervising Surgeon-General of the Marine-Hospital Service of the United States for the Fiscal Year 1898, p. 584
75. Souchon, "True Origin of the Epidemic of Yellow Fever," 309
76. and "The South and Its Invader," ibid., September 11, 1897, p. 6
77. "The Yellow Fever Outbreak," New York Daily Tribune, September 8, 1897, p. 6
78. Walter Wyman to the Secretary of the Treasury, Marine Hospital Service, August 30, 1897, in "Letters Addressed to the Secretary of the Treasury, Recommending an Investigation by Officers of the Marine-Hospital Service Into the Cause of Yellow Fever, with Special Reference to the Reported Discovery of the Yellow Fever Germ by Professor Sanarelli," in United States Marine-Hospital Service, Report of Commission of Medical Officers Detailed by Authority of the President to Investigate the Cause of Yellow Fever (Washington, D.C., 1899), 3
79. "Report of P.A. Surg. H. D. Geddings," November 1, 1898, ibid., 590-93
80. Untitled editorial, New York Times, July 16, 1884, p. 4
81. Quoted in Joseph E. Wisan, The Cuban Crisis as Reflected in the New York Press, 1895-1898 (1934; reprint, New York, 1965), 213
82. "The Yellow Invader," New York Journal, September 8, 1897, p. 6
83. "Will Ask Congress to Aid Cuba: Senator Call of Florida Will Push the Matter This Winter," Chicago Daily Tribune, September 14, 1895, p. 5
84. Cong. Record, 54 Cong., 1 Sess., 3575 (April 4, 1896)
85. Cong. Record, 56 Cong., 2 Sess., 3370 (March 1, 1901)
86. See also Woodford to Sherman, October 4, 1897, and October 5, 1897, ibid., 573, 576
87. Woodford to Sherman, September 13, 1897, ibid., 562-65
88. See also Woodford to Sherman, October 4, 1897, and October 5, 1897, ibid., 576, 579
89. "Dr. Hamilton and Fever," New York Times, May 5, 1898, p. 12
90. Article V, Platt Amendment, The Statutes at Large of the United States . . ., vol. XXXI (Washington, D.C., 1901), 898