| A Slight Epidemic: The Government Cover-Up of Black Plague in Los Angeles: What Happened and Why It Matters Contributor(s): Last, First (Author) |
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ISBN: 1563438852 ISBN-13: 9781563438851 Publisher: Silver Lake Publishing OUR PRICE: $17.96 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: February 2015 Annotation: When government officials have to deal with major public health dangers, they often take excessive--even totalitarian--measures. This book takes the first detailed look at the hushed-up story of the 1924 Los Angeles bubonic plague outbreak. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - History | United States - State & Local - West (ak, Ca, Co, Hi, Id, Mt, Nv, Ut, Wy) - Medical | Infectious Diseases - Medical | History |
| Dewey: 362.196 |
| Physical Information: 0.52" H x 6.13" W x 8.95" (0.79 lbs) 212 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - 1920's - Locality - Los Angeles-Long Beach, CA - Cultural Region - Southern California - Geographic Orientation - California - Cultural Region - West Coast - Ethnic Orientation - Chicano |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Even the most well-meaning government controls can be more damaging than any disease. When Los Angeles and the State of California reacted to an outbreak of bubonic plague in a Hispanic neighborhood in 1924 government officials acted ruthlessly--on only partial information--to contain the outbreak and keep news of it quiet. As a result, many people died, a vibrant neighborhood was wiped out -- the whole experience now a lost episode in American history. Here is the first detailed look at the Macy Street Bubonic Plague Story. A lively working-class neighborhood near downtown Los Angeles, Macy Street was close to today's Chinatown. Then, during several weeks in November and December, death ravaged the District. The family of a woman who ran a busy boarding house got sick. At first, neighbors and extended family nursed the family with traditional treatments. But, when others started getting sick, they called in City officials. Identifying the fever as Bubonic Plague, City officials panicked. To keep word of the disease silent, they set up a military perimeter around the entire Macy Street District and cast the outbreak as a Mexican problem. It was effective, in a few weeks, the outbreak ran its course and within a few months, the Macy Street District was a ghost town, burned and bulldozed to erase any memory of the event. |