The Los Angeles police used the murder of the 22-year-old farmworker to launch a widespread attack on what they perceived as an unruly and rapidly multiplying Mexican American youth "element."
Lorena and several other young women had been placed in the Los Angeles County Jail on suspicion of wrongdoing immediately following the murder of Jose Diaz.
While Alice grew up in mostly segregated, white neighborhoods, she had a keen regard for the underdog and felt deeply about the indignities and injustices the minority groups of the city suffered.
In response to his groundbreaking theory on the cause of yellow fever, Carlos Finlay was called a "crank" and a "crazy old man." The derision hurt the doctor whose homeland was devastated by the disease, but he would live to see his work vindicated.
Walter Reed is known today for the Army medical center that bears his name. But a century ago he was known as the Army officer who helped defeat one of the great enemies of the time: yellow fever.
When Jesse Lazear died from yellow fever, he left a wife, a newborn child, and an infant. He also left a lasting contribution to the scientific understanding of the disease.
In 1793 Philadelphia was the nation's largest city and its capital, home to prominent citizens like Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and Alexander Hamilton. It was also the site of the most fearsome epidemic to strike the young nation.
There were comparatively few cases of yellow fever during the Civil War. Peacetime brought a boom of trade as improved rail service and shipping allowed people and goods — as well as disease — to travel easily in the united nation. By 1878, conditions were ripe for a powerful epidemic of yellow fever in the Mississippi Valley.
