About this episode

The episode discusses the impact of the 1832 cholera pandemic on New Orleans, highlighting the death toll and the responses of individuals like Reverend Theodore Clapp.

Cholera strikes New Orleans. Ten percent of the city is killed. Reverend Theodore Clapp performs a minister’s duty amidst the horror. We learn about bizarre treatments. Germ theory is not yet a thing. READ MORE: Autobiographical Sketches and Recollections, during athirty-five years' residence in New Orleans by Theodore Clapp The Cholera Years by Charles E. Rosenberg “Nineteenth Century Public Health in New York and NewOrleans: A Comparison” by John Duffy “Cargo, ‘Infection,’ and the Logic of Quarantine in theNineteenth Century” by Davis S. Barnes “Asiatic Cholera in Louisiana, 1832-1873” by Leland A.Langridge Encyclopedia of Pestilence, Pandemics, and Plagues editedby Joseph P. Byrne “Outline of the History of Malignant or Asiatic Cholera inNew Orleans, La.” by Joseph Jones “How Yellow Fever Intensified Racial Inequality in19th-Century New Orleans” by Karin Wulf SOUNDS: French Quarter Bourbon walk.wav by volivieri -- https://freesound.org/s/110012/ -- License: Attribution 4.0

More episodes of City History: New Orleans

• 2.4: The End of Congo Square · January 19, 2026 · 34 min
• 2.3: How Congo Square Survived · January 3, 2026 · 22 min
• 2.2: Congo Square · November 20, 2025 · 33 min
• 2.1: Congo Plains · September 30, 2025 · 25 min
• 1.31: Why the Battle of New Orleans Mattered · July 7, 2025 · 34 min
• 1.30: The Goodbye Look · June 4, 2025 · 23 min

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