Explores the history of vaccine development and the rise of antivaccination societies in late-nineteenth-century America.

Explores the history of vaccine development and the rise of antivaccination societies in late-nineteenth-century America.


Most people today celebrate vaccination as a great achievement, yet many nineteenth-century Americans opposed it, so much in fact that states had to make vaccination compulsory. In response, antivaccination societies formed all over the United States, lobbying state legislatures and bringing lawsuits to abolish these laws. One such lawsuit ultimately arrived at the United States Supreme Court, which upheld the laws in a landmark decision,
Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905). In this study, Karen Walloch examines the history of vaccine development in the United States, the laws put in place enjoining the practice, and the popular reaction against them. Walloch finds that at theend of the nineteenth century Americans had good reason to fear vaccination. Vaccines simply did not live up to claims made for their safety and effectiveness. They induced pain, disability, and grim or even fatal infections. Inthis critical history of the antivaccine movement and of
Jacobson v. Massachusetts in particular, Walloch locates the beginnings of a legacy of doubt about vaccination -- one that affected legislation in all fifty states and is still very much alive today.



Karen Walloch is a historian who teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Introduction

Vaccination in the Nineteenth-Century America

Problems with Vaccination in the Nineteenth Century

The 1901-2 Smallpox Epidemic in Boston and Cambridge

The Hazards of Vaccination in 1901-2

Massachusetts Antivaccinationists

Immanuel Pfeiffer versus the Boston Board of Health

The 1902 Campaign to Amend the Compulsory Vaccination Laws

Criminal Prosecution of the Antivaccinationists


Jacobson v. Massuchusetts

Conclusion

Appendix A: Boston Health Department Vaccinations, 1872-1900

Appendix B: Voting Records for Samuel Durgin's Vaccination Bill before the Massachusetts State Senate

Notes

Bibliography

Index