Abstract
Epidemic disease and the strain it places upon communities is the source of crucial insight into the structures and intricacies of community life. This assessment of the course of the 1889 Negaunee typhoid fever epidemic uncovers a variety of perspectives on the treatment and mitigation of the disease between August and November of 1889 in a diverse and densely-populated Iron Range town. These perspectives, presented primarily in the contemporary medical literature and the pages of The Weekly Mining Journal newspaper, illustrate a complex state of contention and conflict between Negaunee area residents and state health authorities. Investigation of community responses to the disease itself, epidemiological efforts by the State Board of Health and other entities, and the actions of local medical professionals complicates the story of typhoid in Negaunee, and raises important questions about the constraints of English-language reporting in uniquely multicultural communities, and the negligence of public health infrastructure and antagonization of “outsiders” in Negaunee, Michigan, in the late nineteenth century.
Recommended Citation
Brink, Sam
(2023)
"The Water Question: Coverage, Conflict, and Confusion in Negaunee during the Typhoid Fever Epidemic of 1889,"
Upper Country: A Journal of the Lake Superior Region: Vol. 11, Article 2.
Available at:
https://commons.nmu.edu/upper_country/vol11/iss1/2
