Contagious Ideas: Understanding Wald's Outbreak Narrative

The purpose of Priscilla Wald’s book, Contagious: Cultures, Carriers, and the Outbreak Narrative, is to explore the spread of disease and the effects it has. Wald does not focus on the loss of life or the medical side of disease, instead she chooses to focus on the spread of the idea of a particular disease, which she calls the outbreak narrative. She then looks at how each path leads to the containment of each disease. By doing so, she creates criteria which can be used to evaluate the spread of any idea; including the temperance movement. After exploring the facets of the temperance movement and comparing them to the mold Wald creates, we find that the movement fits into the outbreak narrative. Since the temperance movement took the form of an outbreak narrative, panic and a lack of knowledge plagued the United States and many parts of the world in the 19th century.
In order to examine whether or not the temperance movement fits Wald’s outbreak narrative, we must first define the criteria of the outbreak narrative. Wald sets a clear criterion on page two of her book. She states, “the outbreak narrative follows a formulaic plot that begins with

After the influx of anti-alcohol propaganda flooded America, society instantly painted alcohol as the worst thing to strike America. Society at the time became incredibly vulnerable to false information mixed in with credible information. Since the temperance movement took the form of an epidemic striking America, a form of panic ensued amongst society. People were naturally attracted to the new idea of temperance which opened the door for manipulation of the truth behind alcohol consumption. In return, this provided an opportunity for temperance to spread not only throughout America, but the rest of the world as