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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hello, Welcome to This Day in History Class,

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Speaker 1: where we flipped through the book of history and bring

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Speaker 1: you a new page every day. Today is August. The

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Speaker 1: day was August. The steamship Morabia arrived in New York

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Speaker 1: Harbor late in the evening. By this point, twenty two

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Speaker 1: of the ships three and fifty eight passengers who had

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Speaker 1: traveled from Hamburg, Germany had died from cholera. Cholera is

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Speaker 1: an infectious disease of the small intestine, usually caused by

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Speaker 1: contaminated food or water, and it can lead to severe diarrhea, vomiting, dehydration,

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Speaker 1: and even death. In the late nineteenth century, there was

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Speaker 1: a cholera pandemic in Asia and Africa that made it

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Speaker 1: to parts of Europe and South America. A cholera epidemic

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Speaker 1: broke out in Hamburg in eighteen ninety two because of

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Speaker 1: contaminated drinking water, and more than half of the people

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Speaker 1: who were infected died. Americans worried that the epidemic would

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Speaker 1: reach the United States. Unrestricted and so called undesirable immigration

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Speaker 1: was already a hot button issue in the country. For

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Speaker 1: contexts on the fears and prejudices surrounding immigration at the

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Speaker 1: time the Chinese Exclusion Act was renewed in eighteen ninety two.

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Speaker 1: Those fears extended to immigration from places that were affected

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Speaker 1: by cholera. Those Jewish people in Russia were not the

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Speaker 1: only ones getting cholera or flinging epidemics. Many newspapers and

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Speaker 1: public health establishments pegged them as the likely carriers of

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Speaker 1: cholera to the US. One August twenty nine article in

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Speaker 1: The New York Times said the following about Hungarians and

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Speaker 1: Jewish people in Russia, even should they pass the quarantine officials,

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Speaker 1: their mode of life when they settled down makes them

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Speaker 1: always a source of danger. Cholera, it must be remembered

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Speaker 1: originates in the homes of this human refraff. Journalists, working

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Speaker 1: class Americans, and medical professionals called for a suspension of

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Speaker 1: immigration to keep cholera from spreading to the US, but

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Speaker 1: by mid August of eight two, many ships from the

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Speaker 1: port of Hamburg were en route to New York. Steamships

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Speaker 1: continued carrying steerage immigrants out of Hamburg, even after health

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Speaker 1: officials admitted that there was a cholera epidemic. The people

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Speaker 1: aboard those ships were coming from places that had been

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Speaker 1: widely affected by cholera. One of those ships was the Moravia,

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Speaker 1: which left Hamburg on August seventeen. Only a couple of

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Speaker 1: days after the trip began, Russian and Polish Jewish people,

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Speaker 1: as well as German and French folks, began getting symptoms

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Speaker 1: of cramping, vomiting, and diarrhea, which progressed tacoma and death.

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Speaker 1: Between August nineteen and twenty nine, twenty two people died

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Speaker 1: and two more were ill upon arrival in the New

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Speaker 1: York Quarantine station. On the night of Tuesday, August, one

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Speaker 1: correspondent reported that people who died were wrapped in canvas

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Speaker 1: and thrown overboard with their belongings. The Health officer of

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Speaker 1: the Port of New York, members of the New York

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Speaker 1: City Board of Health, and physicians from the U. S.

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Speaker 1: Marine Hospital Service dealt with the cholera affected ships that

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Speaker 1: arrived in New York Harbor from Hamburg. A quarantine had

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Speaker 1: been placed over the Port of New York, which led

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Speaker 1: to the poor treatment of immigrants and the confinement of

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Speaker 1: thousands of people on steamships and islands, including those who

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Speaker 1: did not have cholera. The same day, that the Moravia

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Speaker 1: arrived in New York, Help Officer William Jenkins announced that

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Speaker 1: only steerage passengers, as opposed to first and second class passengers,

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Speaker 1: would be inspected, disinfected, and detained for about five days

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Speaker 1: for observation, and the U. S. Treasury Departments Immigration Bureau

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Speaker 1: let people into New York from Hamburg as long as

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Speaker 1: steamship companies put steerage passengers in slower, older ships and

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Speaker 1: cabin class passengers in faster newerships. This separation allowed cabin

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Speaker 1: class passengers to be quickly inspected, and it allowed the

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Speaker 1: fast detention of immigrant passengers aboard the slower ships. The

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Speaker 1: Morabia was the first slow moving pest ship to arrive

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Speaker 1: in New York from Hamburg. Its passengers were sent to

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Speaker 1: Hoffman Island, where they were bathed and their clothes were fumigated.

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Speaker 1: Jenkins ordered that they be quarantined for as long as

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Speaker 1: necessary as they were made in quarantine. More ships arrived

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Speaker 1: and were quarantined. US President Benjamin Harrison issued an order

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Speaker 1: for a nationwide twenty day quarantine of ships from foreign

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Speaker 1: ports carrying immigrants. The twenty day period applied to steerage

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Speaker 1: immigrant passengers, but not cabin passengers, and state authorities could

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Speaker 1: decide to keep people in quarantine for more time in

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Speaker 1: special cases. But by early September, there were no new

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Speaker 1: cases of cholera on the Moravia, and the cholera epidemic

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Speaker 1: was over by the end of September, But all the

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Speaker 1: conflicts that had arisen among state and federal officials over

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Speaker 1: management of the epidemic led to a desire for changes

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Speaker 1: in public health and immigration laws. In President Harrison signed

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Speaker 1: into law the National Quarantine Act, which created a national

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Speaker 1: system of quarantine while still allowing for state run quarantines.

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Speaker 1: It also puts standards in place for medically inspecting immigrants, ships,

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Speaker 1: and cargoes. I'm Eves Jeffcote and hopefully you know a

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Speaker 1: little more about history today than you did yesterday. You

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Speaker 1: can find us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at t

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Speaker 1: D I h C podcast Tune in tomorrow for another

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Speaker 1: Day in History. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio,

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