[Yellow Fever Concert]
1878 Concert Program To Benefit Yellow Fever Victims
Single sheet 5" x 8" Mechanics Hall, Worcester, MA program from a Grand Volunteer Concert benefit for "Sufferers From Yellow Fever." 1878 was a critical year for yellow fever when scarcely a town or city in the South was unaffected.In 1878, about 20,000 people died in a widespread epidemic in the Mississippi River Valley. That year, Memphis had an unusually large amount of rain, which led to an increase in the mosquito population and the result was a huge epidemic of yellow fever. The steamship John D. Porter took people fleeing Memphis northward in hopes of escaping the disease, but passengers were not allowed to disembark due to concerns of spreading yellow fever and the ship roamed the Mississippi River for the next two months before unloading her passengers. (11197)
Program, unsigned Culture, Ethnicity & Gender