Religion in Boston's 1721 Smallpox Epidemic: Disease and Devotion in Social Context

Historians of Boston's 1721 smallpox epidemic have focused almost solely on the inoculation controversy, a heated debate among ministers, physicians, and other elites. This perspective overlooks the vast majority of Boston's residents, who experienced the epidemic not as an episode in the history of medicine but rather as an event with powerful spiritual ramifications. As lay Bostonians sought comfort for themselves and their afflicted loved ones, they strengthened social cohesion through a variety of public, semi-public, and private devotional practices. Though their rituals sometimes laid bare societal divisions of race and class, on balance their devotions thickened social bonds in the face of a disease that threatened to sunder such connections.