Anxieties about immunization date back at least to the early eighteenth century, when Lady Montagu had her son inoculated during her stay in the Ottoman Empire and later brought the procedure to Europe, inoculating her daughter in London in 1721. Although inoculation, the implantation of the smallpox lymph underneath the skin as a means to provide immunity to the disease, saved many lives, the process was unpredictable. From time to time, the recipient became infected and an outbreak of the disfiguring and often fatal disease occurred. Edward Jenner’s popularization of the use of the cowpox lymph to prevent smallpox (a procedure known as vaccination) revolutionized health care as it proved to have no negative effects; however, vaccination efforts were hindered by ongoing anxieties about not only this new medical technology but healthcare and the medical profession more generally.

This session will examine the deep history of opposition to vaccination through the lens of the first vaccination efforts in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in both Europe and the Americas. Victoria Meyer will discuss the role of parental sentiment in physicians' support (or not) of immunization in France and England. Allyson Poska will demonstrate how long-standing race and class conflicts perpetuated opposition to vaccination in both Spain and the Spanish Empire. Farren Yero will analyze the role of slavery and formulation of ideas about consent in colonial vaccination efforts, with a focus on Caribbean port cities. Lydia Murdoch, who work has examined responses to vaccination in Victorian England, will chair and use her expertise in the later nineteenth century to provide the comment that will tie the panel together. This panel will reveal how the complicated interactions between medical professionals and patients, as well as the intersections of race, class, gender, and status, were critical in the earliest experiences of vaccination and will reflect on how those experiences continue to be reflected in the anti-vaxx movement today.