ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Sometimes a book takes much longer to finish than the author ever expects. In 1989, I set out to write a definitive account of General Public Utilities Corporation and the Three Mile Island nuclear accident of 1979. After some early unpleasantness initiated by the company, I discovered that GPU had a fascinating earlier history under the name of Associated Gas & Electric Company, led to ruin by a man named Howard C. Hopson. Instead of focusing only on the accident, I thought, why not write a book that would cover both the Hopson era and GPU’s misadventures with nuclear energy? Then in 1993, while looking at New York Public Service Commission documents related to Associated Gas & Electric in Albany, New York, I found a brief mention of a typhoid epidemic in Ithaca, New York, and realized the company had two catastrophes in its long history. My book grew again. I eventually decided to divide my single GPU book into three; this is the initial volume in what I hope will be a trilogy.

I must first thank my wife, Lisa W. Brittingham, who was always supportive, and my lovely daughters, Elizabeth and Lydia DeKok. They grew from babies to teenagers while this book was in progress. Anyone writing a book spends hours huddled in a small room staring at a laptop or on the road doing research, and without a supportive family those tasks are far more difficult if they are even possible at all.

This book would not have been possible without the help of the staff at Cornell University Library’s Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections. Even though the epidemic story does not reflect well upon the Cornell University of 1903, they helped me with enthusiasm and professionalism, especially Phil McCray, a skilled archivist who became a friend and hosted me at his home in Ithaca on numerous research trips. Other staff I should mention by name are Elaine Engst, director and university archivist, who helped in many ways but especially in guiding me through the process of unsealing the Cornell University Executive Committee files from the time of the epidemic, and Julia Parker and Laura Linke, who found and pulled many helpful documents during the years of my research. Special thanks also go to James J. Mingle, Cornell University counsel, who ultimately granted my request to unseal the Executive Committee papers.

I should also thank my cousin, Beth Zelony, and her husband, Rob, for loaning me their New York apartment on my research trips to the newspaper collections of the New York Public Library. Newspapers, especially the long defunct Ithaca Daily News, New York Tribune, and New York Sun, and the still publishing Ithaca Journal, played a critical role in my research. Their day-to-day coverage of the epidemic was invaluable to me. As a journalist, I could appreciate the hard work of these long dead and now anonymous reporters to write the first drafts of history. Some of the Ithaca reporters wrote their stories even while members of their own families lay ill with typhoid. I hope my second draft of history is a credit to their dedication.

It has become easier to access and make use of old newspaper articles with the advent of NewspaperArchive.com, which has gathered many of America’s newspapers (though not yet all, and not yet those in Ithaca) into its database. When I found articles about the Ithaca epidemic in newspapers around the country, I knew it had been a national story. Researching my book was likewise made immensely easier by Google Books, the vacuum cleaner of our published past, the ultimate collector of digital copies of the “quaint and curious volumes of forgotten lore” that Poe once wrote about. Because Google Books allows keyword searching within its vast database, I was able to find any number of helpful books and articles that likely would have escaped my attention otherwise. I know many, including me, have qualms about how Google Books will ultimately affect writers and readers, especially if it chooses to begin charging for its services. For now, though, it is quite useful. But so are the older ways of research, and I am grateful to the staff of the Dauphin County Library in Harrisburg for finding many obscure titles for me via interlibrary loan. I’m sure some of my requests prompted some head scratching. The wide-ranging collections of the Pennsylvania State Library in Harrisburg were also invaluable. Thanks also to the Yates County Historical Society in Penn Yan, New York, for directing me to its collections of newspaper clippings relating to William T. Morris and for permission to photograph the 1912 oil painting of him that hangs in its museum. I also made good use of the collections of The History Center in Tompkins County, which gave me permission to use its photograph of Theodore Zinck. Photographs of George A. Soper, the savior of Galveston, Texas, and Ithaca, New York, who tracked down Typhoid Mary, are surprisingly rare, but Casey Greene at the Rosenberg Library in Galveston was able to provide me with one taken just two or three years before Soper arrived in Ithaca. Writing my book would have been much more difficult without the prior research done on Ithaca’s founding families by Carol U. Sisler. Her excellent book, Enterprising Families: Ithaca, New York, was never far from my desk. Ulrike Folkens of the Robert Koch Institut in Berlin helped me find Dr. Koch’s seminal writings on typhoid carriers.

Many people helped me find information about the Cornell University students who died in the epidemic, who often were the best and brightest in their hometowns. Maudine Bennum at the Harrison County Genealogical Society in Bethany, Missouri, and Gary Cox at the University of Missouri Archives in Columbia provided valuable information on the life and death of Oliver G. Shumard, the first Cornell student to die. Similarly, my thanks go to the Steuben County Historian’s Office in Bath, New York, for help in finding a local news clip about the death of Charlotte Spencer; to Jean Ellis, reference librarian at the Passaic Public Library in Passaic, New Jersey, for clips on the death of George Wessman, Henry Schoenborn, and William J. Reinhart; to Fred Miller, president of the Tuscarawas County Historical Society in Ohio for clips on the death of James Vinton; to Susan L. Conklin, Genesee County historian, for a very helpful clip from the Batavia Daily News in Batavia, New York, on the death of Charles J. Schlenker; and to Robert J. Scheffel, local history librarian at the Rochester Public Library, for clips on the death of Otto Kohls.

Thanks also go to Jean Long, town historian of Alfred, New York, for material on the family of Charles Langworthy; to Lois A. Foxwell, archivist of Alfred University, for tracking down documents relating to the life of an alumnus, Dr. Daniel Lewis, who was the New York State health commissioner during the 1903 epidemic, as well as clips from the Alfred Sun about the death of Charles Langworthy; to Charlotte Garofalo of the Gouverneur Reading Room Association in Gouverneur, New York, for an obituary of George S. Hill; to Donna K. Baron and Ted Fuller of the Middlesex County Historical Society in Middletown, Connecticut, for clips on the death of Lewis K. Hubbard, and to Barbara Goodwin at the Windsor Historical Society in Windsor, Connecticut, for information on Flavia Thrall, the clairvoyant healer who failed to save Hubbard from typhoid; to Wyoming County historian Doris A. Bannister in Warsaw, New York, for clips on the deaths of James Francis McEvoy and Henry Norris Rockwell; to the Sherburne Public Library in Sherburne, New York, for clips on the death of Fred J. Pray; and to the Oneida County Historical Society for clips on the death of Addison P. Lord.

I never cease to be amazed by New York’s state system of 1,640 official local historians, which dates to 1919. Nearly every county has one, and so do many towns and villages. Historians are required to have a level of education appropriate to their work and are held to high standards of professionalism. I worry that this valuable service might become a juicy target in an era of government budget crises. Libraries themselves are no longer sacrosanct. In Pennsylvania, where I live, the current governor, Edward G. Rendell, a Democrat, has slashed funding for public libraries. Writing books like this one will become increasingly difficult if our society does not maintain the institutions that preserve our history.

David DeKok

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

August 15, 2010