Bondspeople who fled from slavery during and after the Civil War did not expect that their flight toward freedom would lead to sickness; disease; suffering; and death. But the war produced the largest biological crisis of the nineteenth century; and as historian Jim Downs reveals in this groundbreaking volume; it had deadly consequences for hundreds of thousands of freed people.In Sick from Freedom; Downs recovers the untold story of one of the bitterest ironies in American history--that the emancipation of the slaves; seen as one of the great turning points in U.S. history; had devastating consequences for innumerable freed people. Drawing on massive new research into the records of the Medical Division of the Freedmen's Bureau-a nascent national health system that cared for more than one million freed slaves-he shows how the collapse of the plantation economy released a plague of lethal diseases. With emancipation; African Americans seized the chance to move; migrating as never before. But in their journey to freedom; they also encountered yellow fever; smallpox; cholera; dysentery; malnutrition; and exposure. To address this crisis; the Medical Division hired more than 120 physicians; establishing some forty underfinanced and understaffed hospitals scattered throughout the South; largely in response to medical emergencies. Downs shows that the goal of the Medical Division was to promote a healthy workforce; an aim which often excluded a wide range of freedpeople; including women; the elderly; the physically disabled; and children. Downs concludes by tracing how the Reconstruction policy was then implemented in the American West; where it was disastrously applied to Native Americans. The widespread medical calamity sparked by emancipation is an overlooked episode of the Civil War and its aftermath; poignantly revealed in Sick from Freedom.
#2914886 in Books Summerhouse Pr 1997-03Ingredients: Example IngredientsOriginal language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.00 x 6.00 x .50l; #File Name: 188771409X159 pages
Review
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. A Good Source Book on the Confederate Home FrontBy John Jeffery RabbThis is an excellent source for information on life on the Confederate home front from 1861-1865. If you know how to look at it; the information that you can derive from it is vast and useful. My main nit-picks are that often times the many newspapers that the book attributes each of the articles in many cases do not list the city of issue. Or it will list them perhaps in the very first entry for that paper and unless you've made a written list; it's easy to forget where it came from. Very important when trying to determine regional variations. But that is a minor issue and should not by any means discourage one from getting this book.1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. A giftBy roiI bought this for my daughter; her coments are " Daddy I love it! I have been looking for a copy for years!" Thank you so much for making my daughter smile!5 of 5 people found the following review helpful. Fascinating history opens window into Civil War lifeBy Bill PeschelThis compilation of contemporary Civil War advice for home and farm is an excellent source of information on how the South "made do" during those hard times.While Mary Elizabeth Massey's "Ersatz in the Confederacy;" republished in the last few years by the University of South Carolina Press; is a worthwhile history of home life during those times; "The Confederate Housewife" goes further by quoting the exact recipes and nuggets of advice that appeared in newspapers and periodicals like "Field and Fireside;" "Southern Cultivator" and "Clarke's Confederate Household Almanac."Reading these pages is like going back in time; when advice is needed to restore tainted meat ("take it out of the pickle. Wash so as to cleanse it of the offensive pickle . . . As you re-pack your pieces; it would be well to rub each piece with salt."); get rid of mosquitoes ("put a couple of generous pieces of beef on plates near your bed at night; and you will sleep untroubled by these pests.") or dealing with bloated cattle ("a dose of thoroughwort with a little tansey will afford immediately relief.")If nothing else; it will make you grateful for indoor plumbing; air conditioning and refrigerators.
