Irish Fever
A lecture by Meredith B. Linn (Bard Graduate Center)

During the Irish Potato Famine of the nineteenth century, about one million people perished from starvation and disease while more than two million fled Ireland in fear and desperation, with some 850,000 landing in New York City. Many found themselves impoverished, taking dangerous jobs, and battling miserable living conditions in an unfamiliar urban landscape. In her new book, Irish Fever: An Archaeology of Illness, Injury, and Healing in New York City, 1845–1875, Meredith B. Linn explores three kinds of afflictions—typhus fever, tuberculosis, and work-related injuries—that disproportionately affected Irish immigrants, tracing how existing medical ideas and technologies intersected with American prejudices to further conspire against this once culturally distinct group. In this talk, she will draw upon extensive archaeological remains, folklore records, and historical documents to present what she terms a “visceral historical archaeology”—a perspective rooted in historical archaeology and medical anthropology—to illuminate the experiences of these newcomers, and the history of American reception of immigrants more broadly.

October 30 at 6pm
38 West 86th Street, BGC Lecture Hall