NavigationPublic Program - Melanie Kiechle
Lectures and Performances
Thursday, November 16, 2017 - 7:00pm
What a Stench! The Civil War's Instant Cities
by Melanie Kiechle
When they weren't fighting, Civil War soldiers worried about smelly camps, hospitals, and prisons. The stenches of these spaces reminded soldiers of cities, which were notoriously bad for health. Based on her new book, Smell Detectives: An Olfactory History of Nineteenth-Century America, Kiechle will take us on a tour of Civil War smellscapes to explain how wartime smells combined with antebellum medical beliefs to create public health in American cities after the war.
