Death In Yellow Part 2 (Ep19)
EPISODE 19: DEATH IN YELLOW, PART 2. In 1793, the U.S. capital Philadelphia was struck by a terrible yellow fever epidemic, one that caused President George Washington and Congress to flee the City, which ultimately lost 10% of its population to the disease. In our last episode, we met three notable Philadelphians of the Early American period. Most famous among them was Dr. Benjamin Rush, signer of the Declaration of Independence, physician to America’s founding fathers, and one of the most prominent physicians at the time – if not the most prominent. He was a professor at America’s first medical school, on staff at America’s first hospital, and a practicing physician in a large clinical practice. The two other men, the Reverends Absalom Jones and Richard Allen, were formerly enslaved African Americans born in Delaware. They were free men, prominent preachers, and founders of the Free African Society, a mutual aid organization for free-born and emancipated Blacks. The lives of the three men intersected in the abolitionist cause, but they would overlap further at one of the most critical points in the history of the newly independent United States. This episode will cover the outbreak of the epidemic and how each of the three men responded to the crisis.
Timestamps for major events/discussions
[02:51] – The Great Walkout
[04:32] – August 1793: Yellow Fever breaks out
[06:14] – The Mayor swings into action as the fever spreads
[15:19] – Exodus from the City, and those who remained
[19:41] – Different doctors, different approaches to treatment
[22:40] – The Reverends Jones and Allen offer help to the citizens
[28:30] – 100 Philadelphians dying every day
[29:23] – Matthew Carey’s account of the epidemic – instant history
[34:23] – Carey slanders the Black Good Samaritans
[36:37] – Jones and Allen defend the Black community
[44:47] – The end of the epidemic
[46:17] – Rush, Jones, and Allen after the epidemic
[50:57] – Books to read
[51:53] – A preview: Renaming Allens Lane
An early rendering of the original design for Pennsylvania Hospital -- America's first hospital, opened in 1756
Books to read: Sources for this episode include
• Rush: Revolution, Madness and the Visionary Doctor Who Became a Founding Father by Stephen Fried, Crown Publishing, 2018
• The pamphlet A Short Account of the Malignant Fever Lately Prevalent in Philadelphia by Matthew Carey, 1793.
• The pamphlet A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People, During the Late Awful Calamity in Philadelphia, in the year 1793: And a Refutation of Some Censures Thrown upon then in some late Publications by Absalom Jones and Richard Allen, 1794.
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