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Saginaw Valley State University

October 29, 2024

SVSU to host expert in vaccines and history

Portrait of man with glasses, gray jacket, against red background

Since the earliest inoculations in colonial America, there has been controversy surrounding the practice of using disease to provide immunity. Saginaw Valley State University will host a lecture on 300 years of vaccine controversy with guest speaker Robert D. Johnston, professor history at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The lecture will be held on Wednesday, Nov. 13, at 7 p.m. in the Rhea Miller Recital Hall at SVSU. The lecture is free and open to the public.

In his lecture, “Pox, Populism, and Politics: Three Centuries of American Vaccination Controversies,” Johnston will trace attitudes about vaccinations beginning with a 1721 conflict between a Puritan minister and Benjamin Franklin’s brother through the polarizing and bitter divisions over COVID-19 vaccinations. During a Q&A session after the lecture, Johnston hopes to encourage a respectful and productive conversation.

Johnston is the director of the teaching of history program and a professor history at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He holds a Ph.D. from Rutgers University and is an accomplished writer and editor. His book “The Radical Middle Class: Populist Democracy and the Question of Capitalism in Progressive Era Portland, Oregon” won the President’s Book Award from the Social Science History Association. He has edited many journals focusing on the politics of alternative medicine, rural politics and the American middle class, and he served as co-editor of the “Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era.” Johnston has served on the development committee for the College Board’s advanced placement United States history exam and has authored a textbook for middle and high school students.

Johnston’s lecture is presented as part of the Barstow Excellence in Teaching Humanities Seminar at SVSU. The seminar was established through a gift from the Barstow Foundation, which supports education, health and human services agencies, and humanitarian causes with emphasis on the greater Midland area.