In this course, students will explore the American past through the careful examination of 8 epidemics and disease outbreaks between the colonial era and the present: smallpox, yellow fever, polio, typhoid fever, influenza, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and very recent outbreaks of SARS, Zika and coronavirus. Students will use these case studies to uncover the impact of these diseases on American medicine, politics, economy, demographics, and the daily lives of affected individuals. Students will gain research skills through extensive use of primary sources including newspapers, diaries, archaeological findings, and oral traditions of illness as well as modern sources like photographs, blogs and digital media, and representations of disease on television and film. We will seek to explore the ways that past Americans reacted differently to outbreaks of disease, as well as the ways that modern experiences mirror the past.