Sick from Freedom: African-American Illness and Suffering during the Civil War and Reconstruction

279 Pages·2012·1.81 MB·English

by  Jim Downs

Sick from Freedom
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Sick from Freedom
African-American Illness and Suffering during
the Civil War and Reconstruction
JIM DOWNS

1
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Copyright © 2012 by Oxford University Press, Inc.
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.
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Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
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electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
is available
ISBN 978-0-19-975872-2
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
For all those who were emancipated but never made it to fr eedom
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction
3
1. Dying to Be Free: Th e Unexpected Medical Crises of War and
Emancipation
18
2. Th e Anatomy of Emancipation: Th e Creation of a Healthy Labor
Force
42
3. Freedmen’s Hospitals: Th e Medical Division of the Freedmen’s
Bureau
65
4. Reconstructing an Epidemic: Smallpox among Former Slaves,
1862–1868
95
5. Th e Healing Power of Labor: Dependent, Disabled, Orphaned,
Elderly, and Female Freed Slaves in the Postwar South
120
6. Narrating Illness: Freedpeople’s Health Claims at
Reconstruction’s End
146
Conclusion
162
Epilogue
171
Notes 1 79
Bibliography 2 37
Index 255
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Th is book has a long history that can be traced to the University of Pennsylvania
and the fateful semester when I opted to abandon my childhood dream of be-
coming an actor and instead decided to become an academic. My undergraduate
teachers inspired me in ways that I fi nd diffi cult to recount but made sense to a
21-year-old who believed that gett ing a PhD was the most exciting prospect in
the world. While the term “inspired” has become cliché in book acknowledg-
ments, I employ it here, if only to evoke its Latin origins, meaning “to breathe.”
And for that, I am truly indebted to my college teachers at Penn: Herman Bea-
vers, Nancy Bentley, Stephanie M. H. Camp, Ellie DiLapi, Drew Gilpin Faust,
David Fox, Robert Gregg, Farah Jasmine Griffi n, Dana Philips, Martin Orzeck,
and most adoringly the late Lynda Hart, whose deep passion and unwavering
commitment to ideas continues to enable me to breathe.
Because of my college professors’ advice, I did not rush into graduate school
but instead spent many years teaching at the middle school and secondary level.
In my fi nal years of teaching, I pursued an MA in American Studies at Columbia.
Th ere, I met an electrifying group of scholars, who helped me to focus my aca-
demic interests and encouraged me to pursue a degree in history. I am most
grateful to Ann Douglas, Eric Foner, Winston James, and Anne McClintock. Th e
summer aft er I completed my MA, I had the good fortune to earn an NEH fel-
lowship for teachers and work at the National Archives, where I fi rst was intro-
duced to the Freedmen’s Bureau. Leslie Rowland amazed me with her
encyclopedic knowledge of the period and the sources, and encouraged me to
continue to work with the records. Th e following year Jean Fagan Yellin hired me
as a research assistant for the Harriet Jacobs Papers, which provided the basis for
this project. Her ardent commitment to the study of the past made me believe in
the possibilities of archival research.
Two years later, I entered Columbia’s PhD program in history. Betsy Blackmar
and Alice Kessler-Harris taught me how to think and to write like a historian,
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