Maternal Judgments : Women, Children, and Smallpox Vaccination in Spain and Its Empire

Maternal Judgments examines the role of race and gender in the responses to the world’s first vaccination campaign, helmed by the Spanish Crown in the early nineteenth century.

In 1796 the English physician Edward Jenner promoted the use of cowpox to provide immunity against smallpox, making it the first vaccine in human history. Soon after, the Spanish monarchy extended the vaccine to its global empire. Using mostly orphaned boys as carriers, the Royal Philanthropic Expedition transported the vaccine from Spain to the Americas and the Philippines. At the same time, the king opened vaccination rooms across Spain, and individual doctors sought the vaccine from other sources. As the Crown decided not to make vaccination compulsory, the success of this multifaceted vaccination campaign relied on convincing mothers to have themselves, their children, and their dependents vaccinated.

Maternal Judgments follows the vaccination campaign around the globe, examining the gendered strategies used to persuade women of all races and classes of the safety and efficacy of the vaccine and the complicated responses of the women who were some of the first mothers in history to decide whether to have their children vaccinated.