Plague, fear, and politics in San Francisco's Chinatown / Guenter B. Risse.

Format:

• Book

Author/Creator:

• Risse, Guenter B., 1932-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

• Plague--California--San Francisco--History.
• Asian--history.
• Plague.
• History.
• San Francisco.
• Plague--history.
• Disease Outbreaks--history.
• History, 20th Century.
• Prejudice.
• Socioeconomic Factors.
• California--San Francisco.

Medical Subjects:

• Asian--history.
• San Francisco.
• Plague--history.
• Disease Outbreaks--history.
• History, 20th Century.
• Prejudice.
• Socioeconomic Factors.

Physical Description:

xii, 371 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, [2012]

Summary:

Located at the intersection of powerful American ideologies-race and xenophobia, dread of disease, and modern sanitation-this study seeks to enhance our understanding of a singular episode in American public health history: the appearance and management of bubonic plague in San Francisco's Chinatown between 1900 and 1905. Following the California gold rush of 1849, Chinatown was repeatedly condemned for its filth and bad smells, which were believed to breed disease. For more than half a century, such discourse, heavily tinged with racial, prejudice and amplified by a sensational print media, found widespread acceptance. Playing on public anxiety regarding contagion, the periodic rants not only dehumanized an entire population but also motivated local authorities to employ muscular strategies of social isolation, control, and removal. Sanitary representations and the employment of stereotypes came to underpin political, economic, and cultural considerations designed to negatively portray Chinese in California, becoming a potent and permanent component of anti-Asian prejudice. Book jacket.

Contents:

• "The people of Tang" in San Francisco
• "Guarding life" and way of death
• Sanitation, microbes, and plague
• Officials, Mandarins, and the press
• Early scenes of terror : Chinatown, March to June 1900
• The siege continues : Chinatown, June to December 1900
• Secrecy : plague goes underground, 1901
• Rumors and realities : plague in California, 1902
• National threat, 1903
• Sanitarians claim victory, 1904 to 1905.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

• 9781421405100
• 9781421405537
• 1421405105
• 1421405539

OCLC:

747819372