Biopower, racism, and yellow fever

ABSTRACT

Protection includes access to pharmacies and health-care services, information, resources, people, and goods that can shape one's life or lead to one's death. The 1793 yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia was thought by some, including physician and signer of the US Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Rush, to originate from rotten coffee grounds left in the port. Long known as the “stranger's disease” due to misguided perceptions that only visitors and outsiders harboured yellow fever and brought it to New Orleans and other places, Olivarius takes a different approach in arguing that only the so-called acclimated were bestowed with vestiges of power in the form of local capital, networking opportunities, recognition from local credit houses and businesses, and status. While some public officials attempted to mitigate the potential impact of voting in the election by calling for increased access to mail-in ballots and more accessible and safer polling places, for instance, others hoped the impacts of COVID-19 might suppress “unwanted” voters from participating in the election.