50 Fun Facts About Fever 1793

Which insect, buzzing in Mattie Cook's ear as Fever 1793 opens, actually spread the epidemic?

Mosquito bites carried the virus, but nobody in 1793 knew it; doctors blamed bad air, and the insect's role was not confirmed for about another century.

In Fever 1793, whose return to Philadelphia shows Mattie Cook the epidemic is over?

George Washington comes down High Street in November with wagons of returning families behind him, and in one of them Mattie spots her missing mother.

In Fever 1793, what change in the weather does Mattie Cook wait for to end the epidemic?

The first frost arrives in late October, and Mattie and Eliza carry the sick children outside into the cold air, where they quickly begin to recover.

Which serving girl at the Cook coffeehouse is the first person Mattie knows to die in Fever 1793?

Polly had been Mattie's childhood playmate, yet Mattie's mother forbids her to go to the funeral for fear she will catch the sickness too.

What kind of pet belongs to Mattie's grandfather, the old Revolutionary War captain, in Fever 1793?

A parrot named King George is the old soldier's companion, and the squawking bird follows Mattie all the way to a stream when she goes looking for water.

What weapon does Mattie Cook seize to drive a thief out of the family coffeehouse in Fever 1793?

Grandfather's sword hangs over the mantel until a burglar pulls it down; Mattie slashes his shoulder with it, but the struggle has already cost the old man his life.

Which European capital does Mattie Cook dream of visiting in Fever 1793 to buy fabrics to sell?

Paris stands for everything Mattie wants beyond the coffeehouse; she even decides that the lemons at the market must smell exactly like the French city.

Which treatment does Dr. Kerr use on Mattie's mother after diagnosing yellow fever in Fever 1793?

Bloodletting was a standard cure of the day: the Scottish doctor drains ten ounces from her and promises to come back the next day for ten more.

Which author read the diaries of Philadelphia's epidemic survivors while researching Fever 1793?

Laurie Halse Anderson published the novel in 2000 and saw it become a Publishers Weekly bestseller; she compared the research to digging at an archaeological site.

In Fever 1793, how is Mattie Cook's unconscious mother brought home when the sickness strikes her?

In a wheelbarrow, pushed by a stranger who tips her out in the street; Mattie and her grandfather see it happen as they walk home from the print shop.

To which mansion turned fever hospital does Grandfather carry the sick Mattie in Fever 1793?

Bush Hill had a bad reputation until new management set it right; its French doctors prescribed bed rest and food rather than the harsh purges used in the city.

What does Mattie Cook offer Eliza at the thanksgiving feast near the end of Fever 1793?

A business partnership makes the former cook co-owner of the reopened coffeehouse; she hesitates at first, and Mother Smith has to prod her into saying yes.

In Fever 1793, what news does each tolling of Philadelphia's church bells carry across the city?

Another death is what every toll announces, and the bells ring so often that they cut short Nathaniel's invitation to take Mattie fishing.

Which genre label fits Fever 1793, as it does its author's later Seeds of America trilogy?

Historical fiction blends real and invented: the fever, the hospital and its French doctor existed, while Mattie, Eliza and the coffeehouse are made up.

In Fever 1793, with whom has the wealthy Colette Ogilvie secretly eloped, as her fever reveals?

Her French tutor turned out to be her secret husband, news that scandalised her mother and enraged her sister, who was in love with him too.

How did Mattie Cook's father die, only two months after he finished building the family coffeehouse?

He fell off a ladder and broke his neck when Mattie was four; the carpenter never saw his coffeehouse thrive, and his own father moved in to help run it.

In Fever 1793, how did Eliza, the coffeehouse cook born into slavery in Virginia, become free?

Her husband bought her freedom with money saved from shoeing horses, and she came to Philadelphia to earn enough to free him in turn before a runaway horse killed him.

Which Black mutual-aid group does Eliza work with in Fever 1793 to nurse Philadelphia's sick?

Free African Society members nursed the sick and carried away the dead when thousands of Philadelphians fled; the group had been founded in the city in 1787.

Which piece of her clothing does a hungry Mattie Cook turn into a fishing net in Fever 1793?

Her petticoat makes a clumsy net: she topples into the stream and trudges back to her grandfather with water but not a single fish.

To which real Philadelphia portrait painter is Nathaniel Benson apprenticed in Fever 1793?

Charles Willson Peale also ran one of America's first museums in Philadelphia, and his family of painters is remembered as the First Family of American Art.

What did Mattie and Nathaniel watch the Frenchman Blanchard launch over Philadelphia in early 1793?

A balloon carried Blanchard up from the yard of the Walnut Street Jail on America's first untethered manned flight, and Mattie daydreams of floating away like it.

What gift does Nathaniel Benson send Mattie Cook just before she flees Philadelphia in Fever 1793?

A painting of flowers arrives at the coffeehouse with a note, and Mattie holds on to it, pulling it out again weeks later while she nurses three sick children.

Which family friends own the country farm where Mattie's mother wants to send her in Fever 1793?

The Ludingtons' farm holds no appeal for Mattie, who dreads the hard labor there, and at first her grandfather also objects to sending her away.

What happens to Mattie and her grandfather when guards near Pembroke suspect him of having fever?

They are left by the road when the farmer driving their wagon throws them off and rolls on with his own family; the old man's ill-timed coughing fit did the damage.

Which nurse tends Mattie at the fever hospital in Fever 1793 and flirts with her grandfather?

Mrs. Flagg nurses Mattie back to health, and the old captain is so taken with her that he promises to take her dancing.

Where is the Cook family's strongbox hidden, keeping its money safe from looters in Fever 1793?

Inside a hollow stair the box sits untouched, even though intruders have ransacked the coffeehouse and stolen every scrap of its food.

What does Mattie Cook demand before gravediggers bury her grandfather in a mass grave in Fever 1793?

A prayer for him is all she can give, so Mattie stops the men and reads from the Psalms herself beside the open grave.

What is the little girl Nell clutching when Mattie finds her alone in a doorway in Fever 1793?

A broken doll is all Nell has left now that the fever has killed her mother, and Mattie, alone herself, decides to take the child with her.

In the epilogue of Fever 1793, what does Mattie Cook sit on the front steps to watch?

The sunrise finds her up before anyone else, fire lit and breakfast laid out, a reversal of the opening, when her mother had to shout her out of bed.

Why can Mattie Cook's mother no longer run the coffeehouse after she returns in Fever 1793?

Illness left her too weak after a relapse kept her unconscious for weeks, so Mattie takes charge and her mother settles for minding the children.

Where does a hospital clerk plan to send the recovered Mattie Cook when her mother cannot be found?

To an orphan house, the clerk says, until her grandfather steps in and declares himself her guardian; the two leave for the city the next day.

In Fever 1793, which rotting cargo on Philadelphia's docks does Mr. Carris blame for the fever?

Coffee beans really were blamed in 1793: the city's leading physician pointed to a damaged shipment left to putrefy on the wharf near Arch Street.

Why do Mattie and Eliza move three feverish children to the coffeehouse late in Fever 1793?

It is cooler there than in Joseph's hot, stuffy rooms, so the two women load Nell and the two little boys onto a mule cart and nurse them downstairs.

Which 1999 novel about an ostracized freshman made the author of Fever 1793 famous?

Speak was a National Book Award finalist and became a 2004 film starring Kristen Stewart as Melinda, the girl who all but stops talking.

Which later novel by Fever 1793's author follows Isabel, an enslaved girl in wartime New York?

Chains opened the Seeds of America trilogy in 2008 and was a National Book Award finalist; its sequels are Forge and Ashes.

According to the author's FAQ, what definitely happens to Mattie and Nathaniel after Fever 1793?

They get married, she promises readers; in the novel itself the pair plan to wed once he finishes his apprenticeship.

Which Declaration of Independence signer was Philadelphia's leading doctor in the 1793 epidemic?

Benjamin Rush dosed fever patients with harsh purges, methods that Dr. Kerr copies in the novel and the hospital's French doctors reject.

Which French-born merchant, later America's richest man, ran Philadelphia's fever hospital in 1793?

Stephen Girard nursed and cleaned patients himself, and two decades later he bought up millions in government bonds to keep the War of 1812 funded.

Which future First Lady lost her husband and a son to Philadelphia's 1793 yellow fever epidemic?

Dolley Madison was then Dolley Todd, a Philadelphia lawyer's wife, and the same outbreak also killed her mother-in-law and father-in-law.

Roughly how many people died in Philadelphia's 1793 yellow fever epidemic, a tenth of the city?

About 5,000 deaths were registered between August and November in a city of 50,000, and the true toll was probably higher because the count came from graves.

Which symptom of liver damage gives yellow fever, the disease in Fever 1793, the colour in its name?

Jaundice turns the skin and eyes yellow in severe cases, which is why Mattie checks the colour of her grandfather's eyes when he starts shivering with chills.

Calomel, a purge Dr. Kerr prescribes in Fever 1793, is a compound of which toxic metal?

Mercury chloride, as chemists call it, was a favourite purge of 1790s doctors, who believed emptying the bowels would drive a fever out of the body.

Which false belief about Black Philadelphians led the city to seek them as fever nurses in 1793?

They were immune to it, many wrongly assumed; Black nurses answered the call anyway, and Black Philadelphians died at the same rate as their white neighbours.

Which literary term best describes Fever 1793, narrated by fourteen-year-old Mattie Cook?

Coming-of-age tale is the label: by the last chapter the girl who dodged her chores is running the coffeehouse and raising a small child.

In Fever 1793, what follows the date at the head of every chapter?

A short quotation heads each chapter, and some come from other novels: one is from Arthur Mervyn, a 1799 Gothic novel subtitled Memoirs of the Year 1793.

What is the name of Mattie Cook's orange cat, a keen mouser at the coffeehouse in Fever 1793?

Silas pounces on a mouse in the first chapter and again in the epilogue, one of several touches that make the ending echo the beginning.

Which French Caribbean colony sent the refugees blamed for Philadelphia's 1793 fever?

Saint-Domingue, now Haiti, was in the grip of a slave revolution, and about 2,000 people who fled it reached Philadelphia in the months before the fever broke out.

Which minister, who led Black Philadelphians nursing the sick in 1793, founded the AME Church?

Richard Allen opened his first church in Philadelphia the year after the epidemic and was elected the denomination's first bishop in 1816.

In Fever 1793, what does Nathaniel say his master's household ate to survive the epidemic?

Taxidermy specimens went into the pot: the painter collected animals for his museum, and with the markets empty the family ate them.

What does Nathaniel Benson playfully snatch from Mattie's market basket, twice, in Fever 1793?

An apple disappears from her basket when they meet at the market before the epidemic, and he repeats the trick on purpose when they are reunited after it.