Abstract
In this article I focus on the nexus of urbanization, the environment and public health that was exposed by the 1912 bubonic plague epidemic in San Juan, Puerto Rico. I utilize the concept of “urban health penalty,” developed by demographic historians of the industrial revolution in Europe, to account for the declining health of the working class in cities. While in Europe poor health among the urban poor was associated with industrialization, I argue that in San Juan chaotic, unplanned urbanization reflected the effects of colonialism. I further examine how the epidemic exacerbated the class and racial divisions that contributed to the disastrous living conditions, and speculate as to whether the environmental neglect of the neighborhood by authorities was due to the fact that it was home to many poor people of African descent. I also highlight the varying understandings of the causes and appropriate responses to plague.
Highlights
En este artículo me centro en el nexo de la urbanización, el medio ambiente y la salud pública que fue expuesto por la epidemia de peste bubónica de 1912 en San Juan, Puerto Rico
In this article I focus on the nexus of urbanization, the environment and public health that was exposed by the 1912 bubonic plague epidemic in San Juan, Puerto Rico
All but four of the cases were in the city of San Juan, and the largest geographical concentration was in Puerta de Tierra; the last case was reported on September 13
Summary
In this article I focus on the nexus of urbanization, the environment and public health that was exposed by the 1912 bubonic plague epidemic in San Juan, Puerto Rico. On June 19, 1912, colonial health authorities in San Juan, Puerto Rico, reluctantly admitted there were cases of bubonic plague in the city and that the disease was taking on epidemic proportions. In Europe this decline was associated with the industrial revolution and chaotic, unplanned urbanization, which included overcrowded, unsanitary housing, contaminated water, lack of sewage systems, and frequently tainted and inadequate food.2 These conditions almost perfectly describe the situation in Puerta de Tierra, there they still existed in the first decades of the twentieth century. People whose clothes or possessions were infested with fleas could spread the disease, but in many cases the people themselves were viewed as contagious or as part of the environmental danger
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