However, yellow fever was not simply a disease found in `uncultivated' swamplands. In actuality, the fever had been impacting the U.S. and other American locales for quite some time. For example, George Dunham, in his travel journal, documents Brazil's struggle with yellow fever in the 1850s. Dunham tried to nurse numerous individuals through the disease, even stating in reference to his friend, I shall take care of him for as long as I can for I have been with him all the time so far and now I think there is no use in trying to run away from it I shall be as careful as I can of myself and try to escape (Wed. May 25, 1853).
Dunham repeatedly emphasized his feelings of helplessness in the face of the fever, a sentiment echoed in other infected locales across the globe. An activity could ask students to analyze the impact of the fever across the globe, using the `Our Americas' Archive Partnership10, including the following modules: Environmental History in the Classroom: Yellow Fever as a Case Study11, The Experience of the Foreign in 19th-Century U.S. Travel Literature12, and National and Imperial Power in 19th-Century U.S. Travel Fiction13.
Bibliography
- Greene, Julie. The Canal Builders: Making America's Empire at the Panama Canal. New York: Penguin Press, 2009.
- Hays, J. N. Epidemics and Pandemics: Their Impacts on Human History. Santa Barbara: ABC Clio, 2005.
- Missal, Alexander. Seaway to the Future: American Social Visions and the Construction of the Panama Canal. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2008.
- Oldstone, Michael. Viruses, Plagues, and History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
- Parker, Matthew. Panama Fever: The Battle to Build the Canal. London: Hutchinson, 2007.
- Sánchez, Peter M. Panama Lost? U.S. Hegemony, Democracy, and the Canal. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2007.
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