Just Another Crisis? Individual's Experiences and the Role of the Local Government and Church During the 1866 Cholera Epidemic in a Small Dutch Town

Abstract

This paper shows that the dynamics of late 19th-century cholera in a relatively small town differed from the alarming dynamics of this contagious disease in large towns and metropoles. With 1866 Woerden as case study, a town located in the heart of the Netherlands, we show that the fourth and final major cholera outbreak was framed as just another crisis, on top of other crises and soon to be replaced by other crises. The outbreak not only hit the poor but also the elites and middle-class families, most probably because most of the households relied on water supply from the same river. The needy citizens could, in times of cholera, rely on additional support, but evidence also shows that local institutions already offered a wide range of support, even to migrants.