1.What is historical fiction?
It is a story set in the past which often contains a real setting and historical characters. Although, the main characters tend to be fictional.
2. What three elements do authors of historical fiction have to research carefully to make the book authentic?
Setting, plot and characters
3. Information about William Penn and Philadelphia
- Wanted to design a city that wasn’t crowded like London with wider streets, larger land plots, five main squares, and he wanted each family to have a family garden.
- He situated Philadelphia between two rivers, the Schuylkill and Delaware.
- People of many faiths came to Philadelphia since the Quakers promoted religious tolerance.
- The Quakers had high morals.
- There was some slavery although the first antislavery society was founded by Quakers.
- The city of Philadelphia became the nation’s largest city.
- It was the first capital and Congress met there.
4. What was opened in 1799 in the hopes of preventing yellow fever from returning to Philadelphia?
- The Lazaretto Quarantine Station that screened passenger vessels entering Philadelphia until 1895.
5 and 6. Information about Jean Pierre Blanchard
- Jean Pierre Blanchard, a French aeronaut, attempted the first aerial launch in the United States on January 9, 1793.
- He took off from the Walnut Street prison in a yellow balloon.
- He placed a notice in the Federal Gazette announcing his departure and advising people not to follow him.
- President George Washington gave him a passport before his flight. The passport was to request that he be given safe passage wherever he traveled.
- He landed in New Jersey in a field 46 minutes after his departure. He had traveled about 15 miles.
- Dr. Benjamin Rush wrote about seeing the balloon flight.
- His efforts to take another flight were ended because of the yellow fever epidemic.
7. The Diseased City: Information about Stephen Girard and the epidemic
- Many people believed that the fever was spread by poor morals within the city.
- The summer of 1793 was unusually hot and Philadelphia was crowded, dirty and hot.
- Santo Domingan refugees who were fleeing their island arrived in Philadelphia.
- Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, thought the illnesses that he was seeing were from yellow fever. He told people to “quit the city.”
- Philadelphia at this time was the nation’s largest city, national capitol and the Pennsylvania state capital. The fever was a national problem. The national government disbanded during this time. Even Alexander Hamilton was treated as an outcast.
- Stephen Girard stayed behind along with others like Reverend Richard Allen and Absalom Jones from the Free African Society.
- Stephen Girard, a Frenchman, was then the richest man in the country. He took over a mansion for the sick at Bush Hill and hired Dr. Deveze, a Santo Domingan refugee, as the lead physician. He utilized the French treatments – clean, comfortable patients.
- Doctors couldn’t agree on the causes of yellow fever but one theory was noxious fumes from blocked sewers or rotten cargo on the waterfront. They also thought the disease was brought by refugees.
- We now know that yellow fever is transmitted by a certain female mosquito and that the heat and standing pools of water contributed.
8. Theories about the Fever
- Dr. Rush initially said that it was yellow fever caused by unsanitary conditions.
- Foreigners from the West Indies and Caribbean were blamed.
- Doctors couldn’t settle on the same treatment – some said bleeding and purging and others said tea and cold baths.
- People avoided each other on the street.
- Some family members were thrown into the street and even children were abandoned.
- Members of the Free African Society, because they were thought to be immune to yellow fever, stepped in to help.
- The city started to break down and the burial grounds were nearly full.
- There was a frost at the end of October. Estimated 5, 000 deaths ( 10%)
9. Information about the Free African Society
- Was a mutual aid society formed by Reverend Richard Allen and Absalom Jones. It was meant to provide guidance to newly freed people.
- It was a leading black organization that provide assistance to the sick, widowed and orphaned people of Philadelphia who were black. But, they helped anyone during the yellow fever epidemic.
10.11. 12. 13. 14. What causes the large infestation of mosquitoes in 1793?
What group of people arrived that influenced the development of yellow fever?
How was yellow fever spread?
Why is it called yellow fever?
What ended the epidemic?
- Philadelphia was America’s largest city and the summer was unusually hot and dry. Water levels were down and mosquitoes thrived.
- Refugees from the Caribbean Islands brough Yellow Fever.
- It was spread by mosquitoes that bit an infected victim and then a healthy one.
- It is called yellow fever because of the symptoms which include jaundice (yellow skin and eyes).
- The frost ended the epidemic because the mosquito population died.
15. What is Bush Hill?
- Bush Hill was a mansion used as a hospital for yellow fever patients. Stephen Girard cleaned up the mansion and hired doctors who used the French method – rest, fresh air, clean, fluids.
- The French methods were the best way to treat the disease and many patients recovered.
16. What is a hornbook?
- A hornbook was a wooden board with a handle that had lesson sheets attached to them. They were used to teach children to read.
17. What is the name of the burial ground for the yellow fever victims?
- Potter’s Field is the name of the burial ground.
18. What is a coffeehouse? What takes place in coffee houses that is important to the community?
- A coffeehouse became a regular meeting place for society, meetings and other social functions.