Historic Health: ‘Plague in Gotham! Cholera in 19th Century NYC.’

by Liz on April 16th, 2008

“…one may take a walk up & down Broadway & scare meet a soul.”

Almost impossible to imagine these days but apparently that was the way it was back in 1832 when New York City was in the middle of a cholera epidemic.

By the time it had ended, over 3000 people had died out a population of 250,000. A dreadful time. And the worst of it - the medical profession didn’t know what caused it. It seemed to be a mystery.

Those who could afford to escaped the city. The New York Evening Post reported

“The roads, in all directions, were lined with well-filled stagecoaches, livery coaches, private vehicles, and equestrians, all panic-struck, fleeing the city, as we may suppose the inhabitants of Pompeii fled when the red lava showered down upon their houses.”

The poor, of course could not flee. Livinig in the most overcrowded areas with extremely poor sanitation and hygiene practices, they were looked down on by other New Yorkers. Letters and journals kept by more affluent city residents indicated just how much the epidemic was considered the fault of the poor. One respected civic leader wrote that the epidemic was

“…almost exclusively confined to the lower classes of intemperate dissolute & filthy people” and that “…those sickened must be cured or die off & being chiefly of the very scum of the city, the quicker [their] dispatch the sooner the malady will ease.”

Eventually, the 1832 epidemic subsided. But another one followed in 1849 with a death toll of 5071 out of a population of 500,000.

You can learn more about the cholera epidemic at the ‘Plague in Gotham! Cholera in Nineteenth-Century New York’ exhibition now showing in New York City. Arranged by the New York Historical Society, the exhibit features art, maps, death tallies, and other artifacts that give an amazingly detailed look at the vulnerabilities of life and society when epidemics strike.

The exhibition runs until June 28th 2008 and is located at the Henry Luce III Center for the Study of American Culture at the New York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West, New York.

And for people like me who won’t be in New York during this time, The New York Times has a brilliant online slide show so we can see what we’ll be missing and the New York Historical Society has put up a blog and VODcast for the duration of the exhibit.

If anyone get a chance to go, let us know what it’s like…

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