An American Plague (2003) by Jim Murphy is an award-winning young adult non-fiction book. The subject is the yellow fever epidemic that devastated Philadelphia during the summer and fall of 1793. I knew very little about this historic event, and Jim Murphy does a fine job of telling us what happened, the personalities involved, and what life was like in Philadelphia in the 1790s.
Yellow fever was a gruesome way to die, and no one knew how you caught it or how you cured it. Thousands of people left Philadelphia. But Jim Murphy is more interested in telling the stories of the people who stayed. The poor who couldn’t leave and the people who had the wealth to leave but remained to help
Brave men such as Dr. Benjamin Rush, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, who continued treating patients while sick himself. Matthew Clarkson the Mayor of Philadelphia who tried to cobble together with a skeleton crew a city government that could restore some order. Jim Murphy tells us the moving story of the Free African Society whose members went into people’s homes acting as nurses and caregivers. We learn about Stephen Girard, Peter Helm and Jean Devèze who stayed in Philadelphia and transformed Bush Hill Hospital into a place of hope and recovery.
An American Plague is written in a very accessible way with no confusing medical jargon. Though aimed at young adults, it works very well for adult readers too. Life was not easy in the 1790s and Jim Murphy makes that era come alive. His book is well worth your time.
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