Michael Willrich
Auteur van Pox: An American History
Werken van Michael Willrich
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The Democratic Experiment: New Directions in American Political History (2003) — Medewerker — 30 exemplaren
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- Michael Willrich has been a member of the Brandeis faculty since 1999. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on American political and legal history (from the colonial period to the present), crime and punishment, social politics and the origins of the welfare state, the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, and the literature of American history.
Educated at Yale and the University of Chicago, his scholarship centers on the social, legal, and political history of the United States since the Civil War. He is especially interested in how ordinary Americans experienced, tangled with, and shaped the increasingly powerful interventionist state that emerged with the rise of a new urban-industrial society around the turn of the twentieth century.
Willrich's first book, CITY OF COURTS: SOCIALIZING JUSTICE IN PROGRESSIVE ERA CHICAGO, traced the rise of radical new ideas about the social causes of crime in modern industrial cities and the new institutions of law and liberal governance that those ideas helped bring into being.
His second book, POX: AN AMERICAN HISTORY tells the story of the great wave of smallpox epidemics that struck America and its overseas territories around the turn of the twentieth century, spurring the growth of modern public health authority, and engendering widespread social and legal opposition to the government policy of compulsory vaccination.
At present, Willrich is working on a book-length project on anarchists' encounters with law and the state in early twentieth-century America. He is also working on two other projects: a political history of sports in the United States, and a post-frontier history of Americans who have strived to live "off the grid."
Willrich’s scholarship has been supported by fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Newberry Library, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the Mandel Center for the Humanities, and the American Council of Learned Societies. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, The New Republic, The Washington Monthly, Washington City Paper, and Mother Jones.
http://www.brandeis.edu/facultyguide/...
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"Pox: An American History" went above and beyond my expectations. The REAL disease in this book is racism, having direct effects on the spread and vaccination of smallpox.
The author begins with Middlesboro, KY. In 1897 smallpox invaded the American South. Unvaccinated black people were the most vulnerable, living in close proximity to each other due to segregation, and malnourished without regular access to medical care. They were viewed as "irresponsible" for catching the disease. Middleboro quarantined its black population but not the white (same situation as the Chinese in San Francisco). Black sufferers starve and die due to local white beauracracy fighting over who should pay for their care. As black people flee due to localist neglect, it spreads to other states. Finally the federal government is forced to step in, but it is a debacle. Cut to the Span-Amer War, and the peak of American imperialism and expansionism. Smallpox became epidemic in each of the 3 major theatres of the war and all involved virulent, deadly smallpox. Vaccine supplies did not survive long in the heat. Azel Ames creates the first vaccine farm in Puerto Rico but it becomes a military operation through and through. Increasing federal control in the name of public health. Then there's the American invasion of the Philippines. Maj. Frank Burns, the leader of the board of health in Manila, begins relying on local physicians to create a spy system for the U.S. military. Racism is rife, blending health surveillance with espionage to counteract the Filipino independence movement. Understandably Filipinos associated the vaccinators with the foreign army they served.
Finally the author covers the changes in the American legal system that we see today. Anti-vaxxers (majority white) will refuse vaccination due to medical beliefs, religious tenants or argue parental rights or notions of personal liberty.… (meer)
The author begins with Middlesboro, KY. In 1897 smallpox invaded the American South. Unvaccinated black people were the most vulnerable, living in close proximity to each other due to segregation, and malnourished without regular access to medical care. They were viewed as "irresponsible" for catching the disease. Middleboro quarantined its black population but not the white (same situation as the Chinese in San Francisco). Black sufferers starve and die due to local white beauracracy fighting over who should pay for their care. As black people flee due to localist neglect, it spreads to other states. Finally the federal government is forced to step in, but it is a debacle. Cut to the Span-Amer War, and the peak of American imperialism and expansionism. Smallpox became epidemic in each of the 3 major theatres of the war and all involved virulent, deadly smallpox. Vaccine supplies did not survive long in the heat. Azel Ames creates the first vaccine farm in Puerto Rico but it becomes a military operation through and through. Increasing federal control in the name of public health. Then there's the American invasion of the Philippines. Maj. Frank Burns, the leader of the board of health in Manila, begins relying on local physicians to create a spy system for the U.S. military. Racism is rife, blending health surveillance with espionage to counteract the Filipino independence movement. Understandably Filipinos associated the vaccinators with the foreign army they served.
Finally the author covers the changes in the American legal system that we see today. Anti-vaxxers (majority white) will refuse vaccination due to medical beliefs, religious tenants or argue parental rights or notions of personal liberty.… (meer)
When did the current controversy about vaccines really start? According to Willrich’s history, the controversy about vaccines started all the way back with Jenner’s discovery of vaccination. Although smallpox once killed thousands of people each year in America, vaccination against smallpox was still controversial. A small fraction of people had adverse reactions, including death.
Obviously, this scared people. It especially scared those who were in oppressed groups, like blacks in the American South. This book tells their story in a greater narrative of how science and popular belief tried – again and again – to reconcile to each other.
The resolution of Willrich’s tale lies with the Supreme Court case of Jacobson v. Massachusetts in 1905. In the final chapter, he masterfully brings out the drama and nuance of this case. (If this book consisted of just that very chapter, it would be worth reading.) In the decision, SCOTUS upheld the rights of states to force vaccination, but in tension, it also upheld the right for people with real beliefs (not just “obstinacy”) to decline forced vaccination.
This book is worth reading for those with medical or historical interests. It also provides a worthy pericope into popular American history. In contemporary culture where science can sometimes become overbearing, this story reminds us that “scientific triumphalism” and “antiscientific denialism” are really two sides of the same coin.
… (meer)
Obviously, this scared people. It especially scared those who were in oppressed groups, like blacks in the American South. This book tells their story in a greater narrative of how science and popular belief tried – again and again – to reconcile to each other.
The resolution of Willrich’s tale lies with the Supreme Court case of Jacobson v. Massachusetts in 1905. In the final chapter, he masterfully brings out the drama and nuance of this case. (If this book consisted of just that very chapter, it would be worth reading.) In the decision, SCOTUS upheld the rights of states to force vaccination, but in tension, it also upheld the right for people with real beliefs (not just “obstinacy”) to decline forced vaccination.
This book is worth reading for those with medical or historical interests. It also provides a worthy pericope into popular American history. In contemporary culture where science can sometimes become overbearing, this story reminds us that “scientific triumphalism” and “antiscientific denialism” are really two sides of the same coin.
… (meer)
Using smallpox vaccination as a case study, Willrich explores the broader progressive era movement in America (late 19th to early 20th century): the shift from liberty as an ideal specific to individuals to the gradual adoption of the idea of a social liberty (in an increasingly urbanized and interconnected society, the good of the many can trump the sovereignty of the individual).
Decades have elapsed since the last variola major outbreak (significantly more deadly form of the smallpox virus), leaving the general population largely unvaccinated and unaware/unconcerned with its particular horrors. Fledgling health departments across the country have identified the reappearance of the disease and issue mandatory vaccination orders to curb its devastation. Unsurprisingly, there's a strong class divide in enforcement: the rich/influential are taken at their word that they've been recently vaccinated while the poor/immigrant/black populace is vaccinated by a growing police force if they neglect to volunteer. Contributing to the populace's increased resistance to vaccination: the majority of the cases during this time period are variola minor (significantly less deadly, although no less contagious, than its major counterpart), the impurity of the vaccine (local/state governments have NO quality control over the vaccines they mandate upon their citizens resulting in horrific side effects/death from opportunist assholes, most notably the Camden tetanus/lockjaw deaths - primarily affecting children), the lack of compensation/recourse for missed work/injury due to vaccination side effects, and the authorities' insistence that vaccination is indisputably safe. Medical professionals point to countries like Germany and Sweden where smallpox vaccination is near universal and their consequent success at having eliminated the devastating disease. Also to domestic cases where large-scale vaccination efforts successfully halt growing epidemics.
Anti-vaccinationists use their growing platform to decry the vast increase of police force/reach into their communities and the growing intrusion of government into their homes/bodies (as many public schools mandate vaccination of their pupils/staff or bar entry). The federal government is also gaining power via the greater good health argument requiring vaccination as a prerequisite for entry to the nation and launching wide-scale vaccination campaigns in its military holdings (i.e. the Philippines). Compulsory vaccination is often equated with war, officials have the right to defend their borders and protect their people against an insurgent (disease). Several state supreme courts uphold compulsory vaccination laws/edicts during outbreaks, yet recognize and prohibit excessive police force and allow for exceptions for unfit children. Eventually the federal supreme court rules in Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905) that compulsory vaccination is legal, but limits excessive police force and requires that exceptions be made for both adults and children that are unfit to undergo the procedure. Setting a standard in the argument of individual v. social liberty:
"There is, of course, a sphere within which the individual may assert the supremacy of his own will and rightfully dispute the authority of any human government, especially of any free government existing under a written constitution. But it is equally true that in every well-ordered society charged with the duty of conserving the safety of its members the rights of the individual in respect of his liberty may at times, under the pressure of great dangers, be subjected to such restraint, to be enforced by reasonable regulations, as the safety of the general public may demand." (Justice Harlan writing for the majority)
Via compulsory vaccination, smallpox is eventually eradicated in the United States and throughout most of the world. The author cautions that scientific health advancements need to be tempered with education programs and intelligent/compassionate enactment in order to prevent the blunders of the past. Vaccination in theory is a powerful weapon against debilitating, contagious disease - its execution by fallible humanity wants improvement.
Cannot handle the level of interesting this compendium holds and pathways I now have to explore.… (meer)
Decades have elapsed since the last variola major outbreak (significantly more deadly form of the smallpox virus), leaving the general population largely unvaccinated and unaware/unconcerned with its particular horrors. Fledgling health departments across the country have identified the reappearance of the disease and issue mandatory vaccination orders to curb its devastation. Unsurprisingly, there's a strong class divide in enforcement: the rich/influential are taken at their word that they've been recently vaccinated while the poor/immigrant/black populace is vaccinated by a growing police force if they neglect to volunteer. Contributing to the populace's increased resistance to vaccination: the majority of the cases during this time period are variola minor (significantly less deadly, although no less contagious, than its major counterpart), the impurity of the vaccine (local/state governments have NO quality control over the vaccines they mandate upon their citizens resulting in horrific side effects/death from opportunist assholes, most notably the Camden tetanus/lockjaw deaths - primarily affecting children), the lack of compensation/recourse for missed work/injury due to vaccination side effects, and the authorities' insistence that vaccination is indisputably safe. Medical professionals point to countries like Germany and Sweden where smallpox vaccination is near universal and their consequent success at having eliminated the devastating disease. Also to domestic cases where large-scale vaccination efforts successfully halt growing epidemics.
Anti-vaccinationists use their growing platform to decry the vast increase of police force/reach into their communities and the growing intrusion of government into their homes/bodies (as many public schools mandate vaccination of their pupils/staff or bar entry). The federal government is also gaining power via the greater good health argument requiring vaccination as a prerequisite for entry to the nation and launching wide-scale vaccination campaigns in its military holdings (i.e. the Philippines). Compulsory vaccination is often equated with war, officials have the right to defend their borders and protect their people against an insurgent (disease). Several state supreme courts uphold compulsory vaccination laws/edicts during outbreaks, yet recognize and prohibit excessive police force and allow for exceptions for unfit children. Eventually the federal supreme court rules in Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905) that compulsory vaccination is legal, but limits excessive police force and requires that exceptions be made for both adults and children that are unfit to undergo the procedure. Setting a standard in the argument of individual v. social liberty:
"There is, of course, a sphere within which the individual may assert the supremacy of his own will and rightfully dispute the authority of any human government, especially of any free government existing under a written constitution. But it is equally true that in every well-ordered society charged with the duty of conserving the safety of its members the rights of the individual in respect of his liberty may at times, under the pressure of great dangers, be subjected to such restraint, to be enforced by reasonable regulations, as the safety of the general public may demand." (Justice Harlan writing for the majority)
Via compulsory vaccination, smallpox is eventually eradicated in the United States and throughout most of the world. The author cautions that scientific health advancements need to be tempered with education programs and intelligent/compassionate enactment in order to prevent the blunders of the past. Vaccination in theory is a powerful weapon against debilitating, contagious disease - its execution by fallible humanity wants improvement.
Cannot handle the level of interesting this compendium holds and pathways I now have to explore.… (meer)
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Even having taught sections on this period, including many of the people and events, I learned a lot about the details of the legal arguments as well as a little more nuance to how some of the anarchists of the time viewed their realistic goals.
For those primarily interested in history, this is an excellent look at the period and how the government could emphasize the very rights they thoroughly undermined. Sound like current events? Well, many of the legal approaches developed during this time to try to counter government overreach, and just plain un-American abuses masquerading as national security, have become part of both civil rights policy as well as foundational concepts for our current struggles against the powers that be, especially those that tried (and failed) to illegally maintain power.
Those with an interest in radical movements will gain both a wonderful historical perspective as well as see how such movements can succeed and fail, often concurrently when they have a scattershot approach. This also highlights how, in any movement, there will be nuanced differences between how the activists themselves understand their ideology. Action first? More philosophical with well-considered (or, arguably, over-considered) action taken? Violent or nonviolent? Is there a time to switch from one to another? What intermediate goals can and should be targeted? Or do you believe total and complete change, for the positive, can happen instantaneously? Is that even remotely realistic?
Highly recommended for readers of history, civil liberty movements, and legal history. Written in a very accessible manner, you don't need to be an expert in any field to get a lot out of this book.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.… (meer)