Black Death at the Golden Gate: The Race to Save America from the Bubonic Plague

In 1900, a Chinese immigrant named Wong Chut King died in San Francisco from bubonic plague, leading to the quarantine of Chinatown. Health official Rupert Blue prevented an outbreak that had claimed ten million lives worldwide, obscuring the threat to save the city and America.

Format: Hardback
Length: 304 pages
Publication date: 04 June 2019
Publisher: WW Norton & Co

The tragic demise of Wong Chut King, a Chinese immigrant, in San Francisco in 1900 would have faded into obscurity if not for the discovery of a swollen black lymph node, a telltale sign of bubonic plague. Fueled by racist pseudoscience, officials confined Chinatown, believing that if the disease escaped containment, San Francisco would become the epicenter of a global outbreak that had claimed the lives of ten million people. To the local press, railway barons, and officials, such a scenario seemed unfathomable or inconvenient. Consequently, they took measures to downplay the threat, leaving it to health official Rupert Blue to emerge as the hero who saved the city and America from a grisly fate.

In the vein of Erik Larson and Steven Johnson, David K. Randall, a celebrated author, weaves a captivating narrative that delves into the race to understand and contain the spread of the disease.

Weight: 542g
Dimension: 167 x 243 x 25 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780393609455