By Caroline Brooks
Before the smallpox vaccination, a common problem within communities was the disease as well as the spread of the disease smallpox. This was the case in Indiana. Lake County, located in the most northwestern corner of Indiana is made up of many different cities, including Gary. Two other cities that are in this Indiana County are East Chicago and Hammond. The case of a 1920 outbreak of smallpox in East Chicago and Hammond, Indiana is just one of a string of cases that shapes the way smallpox is viewed today.
Lake County, Indiana. The most northwestern county in Indiana. In 1920 the county was composed of 159,957 residents, 35,000 of which live in East Chicago alone,[1] with many being immigrants as well as some United States natives. The first settlers of Lake County were German immigrants looking for farm land that they could use to start their own farms and make something for themselves. However, once this generation came and settled, they began having their own children whom were natural born citizens. This next generation of Lake County inhabitants separated themselves from the continuing groups of immigrants, mainly from Germany and Ireland, still coming into Lake County. While the community started as a farming community, the community became what it is today, a factory based community. Even today, Hammond and East Chicago are known for their steel mills, factories that make steel. The many factories were in an ideal location with only a few miles outside of Chicago and right on the Great lakes, both railroads and waterways had a way to transport supplies into Hammond and East Chicago and to take steel out of the cities. These railroads were great for transportation both in and out of these Chicago suburbs, however they did create some catastrophes, one of which East Chicago and Hammond were still recovering from when smallpox broke out in 1920 in these Northwestern Indiana cities. Only 2 years before the smallpox outbreak, 1918, a circus train crashed leaving 104 people dead.[2] This still left the community reeling and able to face one problem at a time and currently at the time was the railroad accident.
Dr. J. A. Teegarden, the health commissioner of East Chicago, had a patient. To him this was not an unusual case, the patient simply had chicken pox which was the diagnosis that Dr. Teegarden gave the patient. The patient was sent back out into the city, since he was deemed non-contagious. By almost midnight of the same day, 79 people between East Chicago and Hammond, 74 in East Chicago and 5 in Hammond[3], were diagnosed with smallpox. Then it hit Dr. Teegarden. The person who had been diagnosed with chicken pox was really suffering from smallpox, which was extremely contagious and spreading rapidly throughout the city mainly through factories. This meant the city of East Chicago had to act, and fast. One problem with the number of people who were affected by the disease was that it was so large. East Chicago did not have enough doctors to be able to treat the sick. This led Dr. Teegarden to have to reach out to the surrounding cities such as Gary and Indiana Harbor to use their doctors and nurses to treat those who were sick mainly in East Chicago.[4] The sudden discovery of smallpox in the city of East Chicago caused a panic. Upon discovering the outbreak of smallpox, the city decided to quarantine the entire southern part of East Chicago, some 12,000 people and most of the immigrant population of the city.[5] This part of East Chicago is where the outbreak was discovered, and quarantined based on the fact that the immigrants were thought to carry the disease and because the immigrants lived in such close living quarters, whereas those who lived in the northern part of the city did not live as close to each other. Another concern that the city had was the rapid spreading of the disease. Most of the immigrants including the person who was the carrier of the disease worked in the factories located in the Southern part of East Chicago. With such close working conditions the disease was being spread through the factories. This concerned the government officials of East Chicago who considered temporarily closing the factories in order for the smallpox epidemic to not grow any larger. In an effort to quarantine the immigrant population, East Chicago brought together about 100 men who served as guards to keep those in the quarantined area in that area.[6] People who lived in the quarantined area of the town were not allowed into the northern, non-quarantined, part of the city. If deliveries needed to be made, the delivery men were still able to get into the Southern part of the city, however they were not able to knock on the doors and had to leave the products at the home’s entrance as to avoid contact with those who were contaminated. The street cars that ran through the town were not allowed to stop in the southern part of East Chicago for fear of causing more spreading of the highly contagious disease. The Southern half of East Chicago remained quarantined until the disease passed and then reopened.
The smallpox outbreak exposed some flaws within the system of East Chicago and Hammond, Indiana. One such flaw was the lack of resources and the lack of ability to take care of such a large disaster. When the outbreak of smallpox was discovered the doctors were unable to treat the number of people who were ill. Because of the lack of resources, the health commissioner had to send out for other doctors and nurses to help treat those who were sick. This caused a delay in people being able to be treated for smallpox. Another flaw that was exposed was the lack of education that some of the doctors had and a comfort level that they were beginning to feel with smallpox. In 1920 smallpox was not a new disease and many outbreaks had been caused before this one. However, this one was different because it was caused by a misdiagnosis. Dr. Teegarden was becoming too comfortable with diagnosing smallpox that he saw the carrier’s symptoms and automatically assumed that the symptoms were chickenpox, this caused the carrier to go out into the town infected and spreading the disease. The working conditions in the factories are another problem that was exposed during the outbreak. There were so many people who worked together in the factories that when one person got sick, if left undetected, everybody got sick. The full realization that immigrants were not liked in the northern Indiana community was shown through this outbreak. One newspaper reporting on the outbreak referred to immigrants as “foreign born” and it was these immigrants who were blamed for the rapid spreading of the disease because they live and work in such close living quarters.[7] The realization of all of these things give the community something to build on.
Even prior to the outbreak of smallpox in 1920, steps were being taken to combat smallpox. By 1920, smallpox was not as much of a concern as even measles was[8], yet none the less still a concern for cities as shown by this outbreak and the rapid spreading of the disease. The smallpox vaccination was originally discovered to be effective in preventing smallpox in 1796 by Edward Jenner in England. By 1840, vaccination was the only legal way to prevent and treat smallpox however while it was known there were not always enough doses of the vaccine to ensure everyone in entire cities would be able to receive the vaccine and had yet to entirely reach the United States. Slowly the disease began to not affect as many people, which was why it was a surprise that there was such a large outbreak in such a short amount of time. In the years leading up to the outbreak from the development of the vaccine more research was done including the research on how the disease spread. Then 1920 comes and the city of East Chicago is affected and shown the flaws in their internal makeup. Two years following the outbreak of the disease, in 1922, schools begin to regulate students having a smallpox vaccination before attending school. While schools were mandating that students have the vaccine prior to attending, this was still something that could be challenged by the parents through the courts. About twenty years went by with vaccinations happening as much as possible when one of the final outbreaks of smallpox happened in New York City. This case was handled differently and once the case was discovered the man was immediately isolated and those who were around the man were vaccinated. With the final case of smallpox, only 12 people showed signs of the disease and out of those 12 people only 2 people died.[9] In 1948 a mass effort was done to vaccinate people by the World Health Organization and the United States after the WHO recommended the freeze-dried vaccine. Over the next 23 years, a few smaller cases of smallpox appeared but were determined to be brought over by people from other countries where smallpox still existed until the late 1970’s. In 1972, the United States determined that smallpox was no longer a threat to the United States and vaccination was no longer needed. Then in 1980, the World Health Organization declared the world to be free from smallpox.[10] However despite the fact that smallpox was said to no longer be a threat to people the United States military still routinely vaccinated military personal, yet this effort was stopped in 1990 after being decided this was on longer needed. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, smallpox was once again determined to be a threat to military personal by the government so military personal are again being vaccinated for smallpox.[11] The 1920 outbreak of smallpox in East Chicago and Hammond, Indiana was just one in a string of outbreaks that caused revolutionary thought of a disease that would later be determined to no longer be such a threat.
One disaster can change a community and reveal things that were not known before the disaster. This was the case with the smallpox outbreak in 1920. The disaster showed the flaws in how the society was running and caused further exploration into what would end the outbreaks of smallpox entirely.
[1] U.S. Census Bureau. U.S. Census and Housing, 1920.
[2] U.S. Geologic Survey. Geographic Names Information System. “Full Detail Report for: Ivanhoe.” 14 February 1979.
[3] “Epidemic Locks in 12,000.” Chicago Daily Tribune. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Tribune, 31 December 1920.
[4] “Epidemic Locks in 12,000.” Chicago Daily Tribune. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Tribune, 31 December 1920.
[5] “Epidemic Locks in 12,000.” Chicago Daily Tribune. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Tribune, 31 December 1920.
[6] “12,000 People Quarantined in East Chicago.” Logansport Pharos-Tribune. 31 December 1920.
[7] “Epidemic Locks in 12,000.” Chicago Daily Tribune. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Tribune, 31 December 1920.
[8] “Epidemic Locks in 12,000.” Chicago Daily Tribune. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Tribune, 31 December 1920.
[9] “Smallpox.” The History of Vaccines. College of Physicians of Philadelphia, 2014. Web.
[10] “Smallpox.” The History of Vaccines. College of Physicians of Philadelphia, 2014. Web.
[11] “Smallpox.” The History of Vaccines. College of Physicians of Philadelphia, 2014. Web.
