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During the Revolutionary War, according to military historians, approximately 90% of deaths among soldiers were the result of the spread of smallpox. As a result, Washington decided to mandate the vaccination of the troops – a process more dangerous and complicated in that era than our public vaccination campaigns today.

In this letter, Thomas Jefferson describes how the yellow fever is harming countless people, even those in the government, yet no one seems to know what can be done. Alexander Hamilton is ill, others are sick or dying, and Jefferson writes about avoiding the appearance of “panic” for the public.

This primary source reflects the incredible help that African Americans provided during Philadelphia’s yellow fever epidemic of 1793. Those who helped recount speaking with the mayor about what could be done and working with the government of the city in order to help those in need. Later in the document, the writers recount that they asked for pay for their many services given during this time of illness and need, yet some citizens turned against them.

The federal government left Philadelphia in 1793 to avoid the yellow fever epidemic; the federal  government’s response to the health concern was to leave the city. This letter is from Secretary of War Henry Knox and relates to the government weighing whether or not it was safe for them to go back to Philadelphia (students may need to be reminded that before Washington, DC, the federal government met in Philadelphia).

Known as the Shattuck Report and done with the Massachusetts Sanitary Commission in 1850, this was the first in-depth look at public health. It focused on health and living conditions in Boston but had far-reaching impacts in bringing public health to the forefront of important national issues. According to many, this was the first attempt to get a public health code in place in a major American city. Shattuck’s report came at a time when the government was doing little to help immigrants arriving to the US, low-wage workers were living in unsanitary conditions, the working poor received almost no government help, and healthcare was nearly nonexistent for those living in poverty. The report revealed the need for public health codes and government intervention; according to LSU Biotech Law, “This report is one of the fundamental documents in public health in the United States. It is the first systematic use of birth and death records and other demographic data to describe the health of a population. Its recommendations became the foundation of the sanitation movement in the United States. . . “ This report also outlines technology as a necessity for government intervention in public health, mentioning everything from sanitation systems to sanitation laws.

This book outlines health advice for soldiers; it was published by the federal government under the US Sanitary Commission during the Civil War, at a time when the Union Army needed government assistance to keep soldiers healthy. The work also discusses everything from diet to sanitation.

This photograph shows a Union Civil War hospital in June 1862. This photograph could be used in conjunction with the “Rules for the preserving the health of the soldier” (the primary source listed above) to showcase some of the measures taken for the health of soldiers.

This four-page August 19, 1864 letter is from African American surgeon Dr. John H. Rapier, Jr.  In the letter, Dr. Rapier recounts being paid by the US government for his medical services. This primary source shows the important role of African American medical practitioners in the Civil War, and makes reference to Frederick Douglass being summoned by the President and meeting with Dr. Rapier thereafter.

These photographs are from the Marine Hospital at Staten Island, New York, where the Hygienic Laboratory was established in 1887. The tents are for people with tuberculosis; Joseph James Kinyoun was the Assistant Surgeon at this location and urged isolation as a way to combat tuberculosis. According to the NIH, this Marine Hospital “marked the beginning of the National Institutes of Health and laid the groundwork for government-supported scientific research in the United States”. A major purpose of this location was to look for diseases among immigrants arriving from Europe, at a time when anti-immigrant beliefs were already a problem in the US.

This 1907 photograph shows immigrants being examined at Ellis Island. The US government required medical examinations upon arrival in the US. It could be important to point out public perceptions of immigrants at this time in American history, and how anti-immigrant beliefs were influencing government decisions about medicine and health.

In terms of government public health initiatives over time, local governments are an important part of that history. This primary source is from Birmingham, Alabama’s School Board minutes from December 1918, in which the possibility of closing schools due to the flu epidemic. The document explains that doctors of the Committee of Health have been consulted on the issue as well. This could be a useful primary source for studying local government decisions in public health issues.

This 1919 newspaper article has the headline “Swat the Flu is Slogan for 1919 Campaign Against Dread Destroyer that Looms Again: Measure Approved in Both Houses of Congress Would Appropriate $5,000,000 for Investigation of Epidemic Which Swept Over America in 1918, Costing Thousands of Lives”. The article details government actions regarding public health during the 1918-1919 flu epidemic.

This 1955 primary source is about the US government’s Polio Vaccine Assistance Act and the US government’s public health efforts to fight polio. This two-page document explains how states will receive money for vaccination programs and distribute the vaccine, among other details. Notice the first page calls this a “new advance in preventive medicine”.

This 1955 White House press release details President Eisenhower’s honoring Jonas Salk with a “citation for his extraordinary achievement” in developing a polio vaccine. Eisenhower, in this press release, details the massive efforts the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis has taken to work towards a polio vaccine. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s own struggle with polio, and the gratitude of America as a whole, are also discussed.

This Library of Congress 14 minute and 35 second video is from 1955 and details the efforts made to fight polio. From the NBC Television Collection, this primary source allows students to watch a primary source video that details items such as how vaccines are made, including the safety of vaccines. The description reads: “HEW Secretary Oveta Culp Hobby and Surgeon General Leonard Scheele talk about the Salk polio vaccine and assuage concerns about its safety”. (HEW is “Health, Education, and Welfare”.)

Following the lynching murder of her fifteen-year-old son, Emmett Till,, Mamie TIll Mobley insisted on an open casket at his funeral; according to Time magazine, “When Till’s mother Mamie came to identify her son, she told the funeral director, ‘Let the people see what I’ve seen.’” The graphic images of his beaten body captured the attention of people across the United States, and the photo’s publication in Jet magazine is widely considered a galvanizing moment for the Civil Rights Era.

The March on Washington, 1963 By 1963 the Civil Rights Movement had grown substantially. They had support for both the black and white communities, as well as many celebrities. The purpose of this march was to gain national support for legislation in Congress. One of the most famous moments of the march was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s “I Have a Dream” speech. Originally proposed in 1941 as the “March for Jobs and Freedom” by A. Philip Randolph, photographs of the March became – and remain – some of the most iconic images of the Civil Rights Movement.

Any number of images from the Civil Rights era would benefit a unit on freedom of speech, but this particular image does a few things: (1) it marks the occasion immediately before Martin Luther King’s assassination; (2) it provides an image of a single text used over and over, in contrast to the image above with multiple demands; and (3) it juxtaposes protesters exercising their first amendment rights with National Guard troops wielding weapons.

Aware of the platform provided by international television coverage of the Olympics, medal-winning U.S. track athletes John Carlos and Tommie Smith chose to raise a fist during their medal ceremony to protest racial inequality in the country they were representing, at the very moment the Star Spangled Banner was playing.

The 1970s Women’s Strike was organized by feminist author Betty Friedan, to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which prevented women from being denied the vote “on the basis of sex.” As reported by Time, “Friedan’s original idea for Aug. 26 was a national work stoppage, in which women would cease cooking and cleaning in order to draw attention to the unequal distribution of domestic labor, an issue she discussed in her 1963 bestseller The Feminine Mystique. It isn’t clear how many women truly went on ‘strike’ that day, but the march served as a powerful symbolic gesture. Participants held signs with slogans like ‘Don’t Iron While the Strike is Hot’ and ‘Don’t Cook Dinner – Starve a Rat Today.’”

Vietnam War Protests The Vietnam protest movement represented a growing anti-war movement in the United States in the late 1960s to early 1970s. Protestors spanned the racial spectrum and employed varying methods to end the war in Vietnam, started by the United States.

In many cases, anti-war protests combined with efforts to turn attention to domestic issues. As described in the Mapping American Social Movements Project of the University of Washington, “Chicanos in Los Angeles formed alliances with other oppressed people who identified with the Third World Left and were committed to toppling U.S. imperialism and fighting racism…. The Chicano Moratorium antiwar protests of 1970 and 1971…reflected the vibrant collaboration between African Americans, Japanese Americans, American Indians, and white antiwar activists that had developed in Southern California.”

The Civil Rights Movement for Black equality inspired many other movements, including a national push for disability rights. The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 prohibited discrimination on the basis of disability and protected equal access for people with disabilities in areas including public services, employment, and education.

The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) states: "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex." First proposed as an Amendment to the Constitution in 1923, Congress finally passed the ERA in 1972. The senate vote was overwhelming: 84 to 8. The Amendment then went to state legislatures for approval, requiring 38 for ratification. 22 states ratified in that first year, and 8 more in 1973. But then a grassroots opposition movement made significant inroads. 35 states eventually approved it by 1977, but the passage of the Amendment then stalled and the deadline expired in 1982.

In these photos, women who fought both for and against the Amendment’s passage are pictured protesting. In the top photograph, American attorney and conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly, founder of STOP-ERA, leads a protest against the Amendment. In the bottom photograph, women dressed in white – evoking suffragists of the past – protest in favor of the Amendment in Washington, DC on August 26, 1977 – the same date of the Women’s Strike seven years earlier (also included in this Spotlight Kit).

Dolores Huerta Lettuce Boycott Poster: Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez fought together for the rights and protections of the workers who picked fruits and vegetables in the fields and orchards, organizing a workers’ union and boycotts to gain attention and create economic pressure for the cause. Huerta led a successful lettuce and grape boycott, first in California and later on a national scale, that paved the way for migrant labor protection laws.

In the earliest years of the emergency of AIDS as a public health crisis, the American Government’s response was limited in terms of both resources dedicated to fighting the disease and public discussion of the disease, its victims, and public health strategies for prevention. Activists coined the phrase “silence=death” in 1987 to help raise awareness and spur the government to devote greater resources and attention.

After the financial crisis of 2008, a CNBC commentator, Rick Santelli, argued against President Obama’s mortgage relief policies and evoked the Revolutionary War-era Tea Party in calling for a protest against them. The “Tea Party Movement” took hold among some conservative and libertarian circles, leading to rallies and political campaigns arguing against federal taxation and in favor of fiscal conservatism and a free market economy. Several rallies were held specifically on April 15th – Tax Day – 2009.

The planned construction of The Dakota Access Pipeline and resulting protests is a recent example of Native Americans and U.S. industry clashing. One side feared for the quality of their water and lands being abused. Proponents of the pipeline included union members and business, who viewed the pipeline’s development as essential to the growth of the economy.

As reported by the Los Angeles Times, the intersection of disability rights and racial equity can be complicated for deaf members of the Black Lives Matter Movement: “The phrase begins with four fingers cut across the brow, followed by two thumbs drawn up like breath from navel to chest, ending with a fierce tug with two hands down from the chin into fists toward the heart.

Black. Life. Cherish. This is how Harold Foxx and many other black deaf Angelenos sign ‘Black Lives Matter,’ though it is by no means a universal translation. .. It is a reminder of an ongoing struggle for equity, representation and authenticity in ASL, a language deeply scarred by racism and exclusion.”

On June 5, 2020, CNN reported: “Washington, DC is painting a message in giant, yellow letters down a busy DC street ahead of a planned protest this weekend: BLACK LIVES MATTER.

The massive banner-like project spans two blocks of 16th Street, a central axis that leads southward straight to the White House. Each of the 16 bold yellow letters spans the width of the two-lane street, creating an unmistakable visual easily spotted by aerial cameras and virtually anyone within a few blocks. The painters were contacted by Mayor Muriel Bowser and began work early Friday morning, the mayor’s office told CNN. Bowser has officially deemed the section of 16th Street bearing the mural ‘Black Lives Matter Plaza,’ complete with a new street sign.”

During the height of the Coronavirus pandemic, all levels of government – federal, state, and local – were required to respond to information emerging daily about what policies and practices would be safest for the public. In many places, including public spaces and schools, people were required to wear masks. Some people pushed back against these requirements, arguing that mandates were a violation of their individual rights.

While “Critical Race Theory” (CRT) is taught primarily in law schools, protests began in 2021 against the teaching of CRT at local school board meetings in many places across the country. Often, participants in these protests raised a range of concerns about how topics including, but not limited to, race are covered in school curricula. These protests became part of a larger “parents’ rights” movement, arguing that parents should have a greater say in determining what their children learn in school.

As reported by NBC News, “Last winter, as violent attacks against Asian elders began to spike, vividly painted portraits of Asian, Pacific Islander and Black people — flanked by vibrant florals and messages like ‘I am not your scapegoat’ — appeared on the walls of New York City's busiest subway and bus stops. Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya’s I Still Believe In Our City public art series, created in partnership with the New York City Commission on Human Rights, reminded millions of commuters of the humanity, diversity and beauty of Asian Americans at a time when many saw them as mere carriers of a deadly virus.”

As reported by the New York Times in March of 2022, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida signed House Bill 1557, “which supporters call the ‘Parental Rights in Education’ bill, but that opponents refer to as the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill.” Among the provisions of the bill, “Instruction on gender and sexuality would be constrained in all grades; schools would be required to notify parents when children receive mental, emotional or physical health services, unless educators believe there is a risk of ‘abuse, abandonment, or neglect’; and parents would have the right to opt their children out of counseling and health services.”