katiesmom

1. Bibliography

Murphy, Jim. 2003. An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793. New York: Clarion. ISBN 0-395-77608-2

2. Plot summary

In the summer of 1793 a heat wave hit the city of Philadelphia. Bounded on two sides by the Delaware and Schuykill rivers the city, with it exposed sewers and street corner holes that collected all manner of human and animal waste, usually smelled quite unpleasant during the summer months. However, the excessive heat and the unusual number of dead animals left to rot in the streets and alleyways, combined to make the stench almost unbearable. Before long the human inhabitants began to die at an alarming rate also. and before cooler weather brought relief from the awful smell and sickness, approximately 5,000 of Philadelphia’s 51,000 inhabitants were dead.

3. Critical analysis

Jim Murphy author of more than 25 books and winner of the Newbery Honor, the Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Award, and the SCBWI Golden Kite Award has written another award winning book detailing the yellow fever epidemic in 1793 Philadelphia. From the first death of a young French sailor on August 3, 1793 until the disease was declared gone from the city in January 1794, the authenticity of Murphy’s words makes the reader feel the heat and smell the decay as we weave through the main streets and alleyways of Philadelphia seeing, smelling, and hearing the conditions that led to the disease gaining such force. “Dead fish and gooey vegetable matter were exposed and rotting…mosquitoes were everywhere…most streets in the city were unpaved and had no system of covered sewers…deep holes were dug at various street corners to collect runoff water and anything else that might be washed along. Dead animals were tossed in…where everything decayed and sent up noxious bubbles to foul the air” (Murphy, 1-2). Included are the thoughts of some of Philadelphia’s leading citizens such as George Washington, then President of the United States, who credited the timing of the plague with saving America from having to come to the aid of France during its revolution. Washington felt America could not afford to become embroiled in the problems of the French, but public sentiment ran highly in favor of aiding the French in their revolution because they had helped America gain freedom from the British. When the spread of yellow fever shut down government operations due to death and the flight of most of congress to other cities, Washington had the excuse he needed to remain neutral with the French (Murphy, 42). Murphy uses maps, newspaper article excerpts, alphabetized lists of the dead from a book by author and publisher Matthew Carey who lived through the plague, and engravings and pen and ink drawings illustrating life in Philadelphia during the late 18th century to demonstrate what life was like during that awful summer. Probably the most compelling illustration of the horrors of the plague is a pair of watercolors depicting a young man at the beginning of the illness; pale and weak; and near the end; obviously in pain and vomiting black bile (Murphy, 13-14). Murphy adds that even though the plague killed almost 10 percent of the population, physicians and politicians of the day never could agree on what actually caused the illness in the first place; never making the connection between the red bumps that “resembled moscheto bites” according to Dr. Benjamin Rush, prominent physician and signer of the Declaration of Independence, and the mosquitoes that swarmed the city that summer (Murphy, 15). Fortunately, improved sanitation was one of the results of the devastation of the 1793 plague mostly because “doctors agreed that foul smells were not healthy and might promote disease” (Murphy, 105).

4. Review excerpt:

Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA): “Superbly written…extremely accessible and readable. Represents nonfiction at its best.”

5. Connections

This book is an excellent addition when learning about viruses, early medicine, and early American history.

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