AMERICAN CRUCIBLE

Kelley acknowledges the unrecognized heroes and explores the legacy of the Memphis yellow fever epidemic of 1878.

As yellow fever ravaged Memphis in 1878, killing more than 5,000 of the city’s 50,000 residents and leaving 14,000 survivors with chronic health issues, the disease, writes the author, pitted “the uniquely American spirit of rugged individualism” against “the collective endeavor of unity.” This tension between self-preservation and courageous service to community is the revelatory lens through which the book views post-Reconstruction Memphis and American society into the present. Told mostly through a series of biographical vignettes of nurses, soldiers, victims, doctors, and others involved, the book grounds its anecdotal approach in important historical context. Memphis itself, for Kelley, symbolizes the contradictions of the New South, standing as “a jewel…of prosperity and progress,” while remaining a place of “palpable” racial tension and discrimination. Indeed, one of the most poignant stories from the book centers on a Black militia who protected the city’s food rations and infrastructure despite “their outdated weapons and the risks of infection,” while white militias, such as the Chickasaw Guards, left the city to raise relief funds from afar. The book also provides a fascinating look at the history of health care in America, noting that, despite being at the cusp of 20th century innovation, medicine in the 1870s was a “fledgling profession” with hospitals serving as “more convalescent refuges” of last resort than “sterile, well-ordered” primary care facilities. As the author of multiple history books, Kelley is a skilled researcher, and he balances his accessible narrative with solid primary and secondary source research cataloged in a 10-page bibliography. The strength of the book lies in its juxtaposition of “individual survival and collective responsibility,” themes that remain relevant to contemporary society in the wake of COVID-19. The text’s engaging prose is accompanied by a wealth of historic photos, portraits, maps, and other visual aids.

A poignant, timely history of a 19th-century epidemic.