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Analytical Review of
Quarantine! : East European Jewish immigrants and the New York
City epidemics of 1892
by Laurie Gail Prober
http://www.haverford.edu/biology/edwards/disease/reviews/proberR.html
Howard Markel's Quarantine! examines the typhus fever
and cholera epidemics that struck New York City in early and
late 1892, respectively. Because typhus fever was traced to a
boat load of Russian Jewish immigrants, Jews from throughout
Eastern Europe were stigmatized. Only months after typhus fever
struck the city, the cholera epidemic began. While the second
disease appeared more widespread, the Eastern European Jews were
once again blamed. A history of the political, health,
immigration, and discrimination issues of the year, the book is
aimed at a broad audience from high-schoolers to adults. The
book, divided into three sections-the typhus fever epidemic, the
cholera epidemic, and the politics of quarantine, examines the
events and feelings of the time in day-to-day detail and draws
on a variety of sources including renown American newspapers and
official accounts as well as Yiddish American Press and
immigrants' diaries and letters.
The first third of Quarantine! details the typhus
fever outbreak. Markel explains how the Russian Jews were
required to live in the "Pale of Settlement," a twenty-five
province area in Eastern Russian. While these Jews were
physically separated from most of Russia, they were also
socially isolated. Because they had a different culture and
religion, the Jews were against by the Gentiles. Exiled from
their homeland by Czar Alexander III, they began to immigrate to
Odessa, Constantinople, and Smyrna, which in turn expelled them
again. One third of the Jews boarded the steamship Massilia for
America with the aid of the Hirsch Fund. After a horrible
twenty-eight day voyage to New York, the immigrants were quickly
passed through medical inspections and sent to boarding houses
in the Jewish Quarter of New York.
On February 11, 1892 an outbreak of typhus fever was reported
in one of the boarding houses in which some the Russian Jewish
passengers of the Massilia were living. A dragnet of all of the
boarding houses was ordered by Chief Inspector of the New York
City Health Department. The search eventually extended to cover
all of the other areas in the city which these immigrants, and
later other poor Russian Jews, visited. The Jews were placed
under quarantine first in boarding houses and then to the city
lazaretto on an island. Because of the varying degrees of
discrimination between the groups, the Italians from the
Massilia were rarely quarantined and when they were, the
Italians were sent to different facilities and were released
within one day.
Markel thoroughly explains the quarantining of the Jews in
physically as well as the discrimination they faced, and the
psychological results of their terror. Quarantine!
attempts to convey to beliefs behind the discrimination of the
Massilia and other Eastern European Jews. He relays the politics
behind the events, explaining how various officials obtained
their positions as well as the different sides of the quarantine
debate. For example, Markel examines the how some officials
rose, not because of their qualifications, but because of the
political pull of their family.
The second section of Quarantine! relates the events
of the cholera epidemic that followed only months after typhus
fever struck New York. "The era's most highly feared epidemic
disease" (Markel, 87) was marked with severe diarrhea, ripping
out the lining of one's intestines, dehydration, and finally
death. The East European Jews had continued to immigrate to the
United States in large numbers. Discrimination, fueled
politically, economically, and socially, heightened when
Americans learned that some of these immigrants were fleeing
areas in which cholera was prevalent. Hamburg was one of the
main ports from which the Jews left Europe. In August Hamburg
officials finally admitted that their city was entrenched in a
deadly cholera outbreak. For days after the cholera epidemic was
publicly announced, ships continued to leave port for, among
other locations, America. As these ships sailed into New York,
discrimination continued. The passengers were placed under
horrible unsanitary quarantine conditions. As more ships rolled
into port, the steerage passengers went to a dreadful quarantine
island that had little in the way of disease control and did not
even have enough rooms for all of the immigrant. The first class
passengers, on the other hand, were sent to a hotel in a remote,
but not isolated, area of the city. While these passengers
received most of the press coverage, their conditions were
elegant compared to the poor immigrants. Markel details the
American response as more ships enter New York city, forcing
some passengers to be quarantined on their ship for weeks since
there was no other place left to house them. Many Americans
called for a complete halt in immigration. President Harrison
tried to imposed a 20 day quarantine order for ships. The theory
was that shipping companies, for economic reasons, would need to
halt trips to American or would only allow first class
passengers who would be able to bypass the quarantine.
The third section of Quarantine! examines the attempt
to impose a restriction on immigration as a way to prevent
cholera in America. Markel reviews the debate over President
Benjamin Harrison's 20 day quarantine plan. Some people believed
that improved medical examinations and history of passengers
before and after they crossed the Atlantic along with increased
sanitation of the ships was in order instead of the long
isolation period, but the President continued to demand
quarantines. Even doctors were split as to the best course of
action and Markel outlines the spectrum of opinions using
important men in the medical field as examples. As the debated
continued, Congress become involved. Often spurred by bigotry
and stereotypes, anti-immigration views called for a restriction
of Jewish immigration. In the end the National Quarantine Act of
1893 was passed. Creating a national system of quarantine, while
still allowing state-run quarantines, the act also set up
national standards for the medical examination of immigrants and
all cargo. The act also had a clause that allowed the president
the power to temporarily suspend "'in whole or in part, the
introduction of persons and property from such countries or
places as [the president] shall designate and for such a period
of time as he may deem necessary'" (Markel, 176) in the case of
an emergency, which includes the possibility of an impeding
"'loathsome' contagious epidemic disease" (Markel, 176); no
president has ever instituted this power.
In Quarantine! Markel examines the two epidemics that
struck New York in 1892. In great detail he relates the
responses of the different sides to the scourge. While Markel
does touch on the medical aspects of the diseases, he does so
from a historical perspective. Most of the book examines the
discrimination that occurred as a result the diseases, as the
East European Jews were blamed. Markel also explains how this
bigotry was not solely due to the fear of disease but also had
hidden economic, political, and social roots.
Markel, H. (1997) Quarantine! : East European Jewish
immigrants and the New York City epidemics of 1892.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xvi, 262 p.: ill.
maps.
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