POX: An American History

Historian Michael Willrich discusses his book POX: An American History (The Penguin Press; March 31, 2011), which offers a gripping chronicle of how the nation’s continent-wide fight against smallpox in the early 1900s launched one of the most important civil liberties struggles of the twentieth century. Willrich explores the intersection of public health initiatives and private medical decisions as well as the polarizing debate about the morality, ethics, safety, and effectiveness of vaccines.

In POX: An American History, Willrich suggests that many of the questions first raised by the Progressive-era antivaccination movement are still with us today as we consider the federal government’s role in ensuring access to health care: How far should the government go to protect us? What happens when the interests of public health collide with religious beliefs and personal conscience?

Willrich explores the government’s response to the deadly smallpox epidemic at the dawn of the activist progressive era and during a moment of great optimism about modern medicine. The measures enacted to contain the disease―quarantines, pesthouses, and “virus squads”―sparked a wave of popular resistance among Americans who perceived them as a threat to their health and to their rights.

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