Spring 2026 Colloquium - S. Wright Kennedy
University of South Carolina
Title: Separate but Dead: Mapping Disease & Segregation in New Orleans, 1880-1915
A Charles E. Culpeper Lecture in the History of Medicine
Abstract: In the late nineteenth century, life expectancy rose dramatically in Western societies, yet this unprecedented public health triumph was starkly divided along racial lines in the United States. This talk examines public health and demographic trends in New Orleans from 1880 to 1915, showing how intersections of race, environment, and disease produced profound disparities that reflect broader patterns of racial inequality in the United States. Using historical GIS, the study integrates diverse historical records, including death certificates, census data, topographic surveys, and municipal records, to map inequalities driven by residential segregation and environmental injustice.
Despite sanitary improvements such as drainage, sewerage, and clean water infrastructure in the early twentieth century, health benefits overwhelmingly accrued to white residents. African Americans, increasingly segregated into flood-prone and poorly serviced neighborhoods, faced severe disease burdens, particularly tuberculosis among adults and diarrheal diseases among infants. Consequently, Black life expectancy stagnated or even declined, while white life expectancy steadily increased. By 1915, the racial gap in life expectancy at birth exceeded fifteen years, with an eleven-year disparity among those surviving to age fifteen.
This research demonstrates that the mortality transition, a hallmark of demographic progress, was fundamentally unequal, shaped by deliberate racial policies and violent grassroots actions, including strategic arson by white residents to establish and enforce racial boundaries. Connecting spatial and demographic analyses, this study underscores the lasting legacies of segregation and the enduring relevance of historical injustices in contemporary discussions about health equity, infrastructure, and urban policy.
