JACKSON, Wyo. – Join History Jackson Hole to welcome Pulitzer Prize-winner Dr. Elizabeth Fenn, the first of two Western Scholar Series speakers, talking on topics related to America’s 250th Anniversary in the West and Jackson Hole. The talk will take place on Thursday, July 30 from 6 to 7 p.m.

The smallpox epidemic of 1775-82 swept from Mexico to Massachusetts, from Pensacola to Puget Sound leaving devastation in its wake. Its dates coincided almost perfectly with the American Revolution from 1775-83. In fact, the disease took many more lives than the war with the British, yet it remains almost entirely unknown.

On Thursday, Dr. Fenn will present the Western Scholar Talk: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82. Doors will open at 5:30 p.m., and the talk will take place on the Jackson Hole History Museum’s outside deck (weather permitting). It will be followed by a book signing with copies of Fenn’s book Pox Americana available for purchase in the museum store. 

In her talk, Fenn will show how this episode of smallpox contagion sheds new light on the period of the American Revolution. She will address topics such as biological warfare and also regions of the continent that historians often ignore, including the Jackson Hole area. 

Dr. Elizabeth Fenn recently retired from the University of Colorado Boulder, where she was a distinguished professor in the Department of History. Her book Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82 is the basis of her lecture at the Jackson Hole History Museum. 

Pox Americana was awarded three prizes, including the 2002 James J. Broussard First Book Prize, the 2003 Longman-History Today Book of the Year award, and the 2004 Society of the Cincinnati Book Prize. Fenn is also the author of Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People, which won the Pulitzer Prize and conveys early American history from the perspective of Indigenous peoples at the center of the continent. 

A second talk in the Western Scholar Series, The Western End to the American Revolution with Alan Taylor, is scheduled for Thursday, August 13 from 6 to 7 p.m.  

Both talks are free and open to the public and made possible thanks to the Jackson Hole News&Guide, The Hole History Society, Masinter Family, Teton County Semiquincentennial Committee, Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund, and Wyoming Humanities.

For more information, visit jacksonholehistory.org or call (307) 733-2414.Â