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Taming the Falcon: Controlled and Vulnerable Environments in New York’s Floating Quarantine System, 1859-1873

Sat, April 13, 10:30am to 12:00pm, Hyatt Regency Columbus, Morrow

Abstract

Good ventilation, raised elevation, sheltered anchorage, and an abundance of pure water; these were the attributes of an ideal quarantine station in the mid-nineteenth century. The Falcon, New York’s first quarantine hospital ship, possessed none of these qualities. Why then, from 1859 to 1873, did New York develop a floating hospital quarantine system? At a time when health professionals considered the ship to be a uniquely pestilent environment, how were marine vessels reimagined as the solution to the spread of infectious disease? This paper will examine the built environment of the ship, and its role within early American public health infrastructure. Using administrative reports, meteorological records, physician treatises, and local newspapers, it will illuminate the dynamic human/non-human relationships enacted through the Falcon’s landing patterns and sites of anchorage. The floating quarantine system altered the trajectory of public health in New York. Unanticipated backlash against the traveling pest-house highlighted the necessity of a landed, permanent quarantine. At the same time, physicians favored the condensed environment of the ship, which ran counter to the trend of institutional sprawl. While earlier generations sought an ideal, naturally-occurring quarantine landscape, the floating hospital system was a celebration of human engineering. Lessons from this transitionary period culminated in the creation of two man-made quarantine islands, a progressive step in the quest for perfect isolation and control.

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