Project Questions

1. Where do the various accounts of the yellow fever agree, and where do they differ? Which differences do you find more significant: the factual disagreements about what happened or the interpretive arguments about what those events meant?
2. Several of the featured authors supplement their own experiences with bits of rumor and hearsay. How much credibility do the authors attach to these stories, and what does this reveal about the availability and circulation of information in the early national period?
3. Central Question: What do the varied public responses to the yellow fever crisis reveal about the existing cultural and political tensions in the early American republic?