During the Great Hunger in Ireland, the majority of deaths were attributed to epidemic diseases such as typhus fever and dysentery. Dr. Sonnelitter will discuss the relationship between the famine and the wave of epidemic diseases that struck Ireland in this period. She will also examine the relationship between epidemics and Irish immigration and explore how these diseases affected the experience of Irish immigrants arriving in the United States and Canada.
This is the second lecture in our series First Responders: Then and Now, which has been funded in part by Humanities New York with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities.