Pox by Michael Willrich

THE PENGUIN PRESS
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    Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
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    First published in 2011 by The Penguin Press,
a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
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Copyright © Michael Willrich, 2011
    All rights reserved
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    LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA
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    Willrich, Michael.
    Pox : an American history / Michael Willrich.
    p. ; cm.—(Penguin history of American life)
    Includes bibliographical references and index.
    eISBN : 978-1-101-47622-2
    1. Smallpox—Epidemiology—United States. 2. Smallpox—History—United States. 3. Epidemics—United States—19th Century—History. 4. Epidemics—United States—20th Century—History. I. Title. II. Series: Penguin history of American life.
    [DNLM: 1. Smallpox—epidemiology—United States. 2. Smallpox—history—United States. 3. Disease Outbreaks—United States. 4. History, 19th Century—United States. 5. History, 20th Century—United States. WC 590] RA644.S6W.5’210973—dc22 2010034544
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For Wendy

Acknowledgments
    Generous fellowships and grants underwrote this project. The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard gave me a full year to do the initial research and furnished a marvelous setting in which to do it. I am immensely grateful to Radcliffe, to the brilliantly diverting Fellows Class of 2004–5, and especially to Drew Faust and Judy Vichniac for the gift of that year. I am also deeply grateful to the American Council of Learned Societies for the Charles E. Ryskamp Fellowship (named for a warm and generous scholar no longer with us), which bought me a full year of writing time and other support. Brandeis University provided a semester of leave time on each end of this project, as well as smaller grants to cover costs, for all of which I give thanks.
    I owe a special debt to four exemplary historians who wrote in support of my fellowship applications: my mentor Kathy Conzen, Tom Haskell, Jackie Jones, and Laura Kalman. I hope this book repays your confidence in some small way.
    Along the way, I presented pieces from the project to workshops and audiences at the American Society for Legal History, Boston College, Boston University, Brandeis University, Canisius