We know a lot about New York鈥檚 18th-century doctors, who left behind diaries and letters and accounts of their work. We know far less about front-line workers such as gravediggers, those who provided food and firewood to the poor, and nurses, who were often working-class women and men who played extraordinarily important roles during the yellow fever epidemics that slammed the city in the 1790s. This talk explores front-line workers and the mixed-race hospital staffs they formed to care for the ill during a period of great change and uncertainty in New York City.
Carolyn Eastman, Ph.D., Professor of History, Virginia Commonwealth University