Mass Hysteria In Upstate New York Summary

Throughout the course of America’s history there are many events of injustice: the mistreatment of Native Americans, using African Americans as personal property, and accusing men and women in Salem, Massachusetts of witchcraft. The Salem witch trials occurred many years ago in 1692. In the Puritan community, religion was a huge part of life. It controlled most of people’s everyday activities and was a way to find hope in their difficult, unglamourous lives. According to History.com, “Puritans were portrayed by their enemies as hair splitters who slavishly followed their bibles as guides to daily life” (Delbanco). In 1692, a Puritan’s faith was easily shaken. They were extremely wary of the supernatural, and more importantly the “Devil’s magic” says Smithsonian Magazine (Bloomberg).

The blizzard on January 12, 1888 will forever be known as one of the most disastrous storms in history. The storm earned the name “the children’s blizzard” because so many children lives were taken in this malicious storm. Could something have been done to prevent such a large death toll? Yes. If the proper steps had been taken to warn the people of the approaching bad weather, then many could have taken the necessary precautions to ensure the safety of their family and livestock.

There were bizarre things that happened throughout history, but the most bizarre thing was the women in the Salem Witch Trials. The Salem Witch Trials happened in 1692. The Salem Witch Trials was the oddest thing that happened in Massachusetts.During the Salem Witch Trials young girls displayed odd behaviors, physicians were called to examine the girls and could not find any natural causes of their odd behavior, and the young girls were pressured into revealing who was controlling them ( “The Salem Witch Trials, 1692”).

The issues of mental illness have been around from the start of human existence. Mental illness is considered any psychiatric disorder that cause untypical behavior. Questioning happened more in the 1930’s when more problems came around and how to fix it began to arise. Mental illness included the diseases, the cures,

When you think of a blizzard, you usually don’t think of tragic 40 below zero temperatures. You don’t always imagine extremely high winds blowing the snow every which way, making it very difficult to see what’s in front of you. You certainly don’t think of a blizzard to kill 235 people, including 213 children just trying to make it home from school. The Children’s Blizzard of 1888 included many details common to blizzards, had incredible devastation due to the welcoming conditions beforehand, and involved some very surprising circumstances.

Our natural hazard is blizzards. Blizzards are a severe snowstorm with high winds and low visibility. Blizzards can form when warm air must rise over cold air. There are two ways this can occur when winds pulls cold air toward the equator from the poles and it brings warm air toward the poles from the equator. Cold and warm air brought together forms and precipitation occurs. Most blizzards often happen in the Northern east states and the provinces of Canada. When a blizzard happens it can shut down a city, transportation is impossible there would be no electricity. If people are outside they can get frostbite or hypothermia. Flooding can happen after a blizzard. Blizzards can not be prevented because blizzards are a natural hazard. Blizzards can be predicted by finishing the center of a low pressure system by looking at maps. By identifying areas at low pressure wind flow patterns, temperatures, and the dew point.

As humans, fear is nearly inevitable. We all experience it one point or another in our lives, some more than others. However, what happens when a fear gets out of hand? Or worse, when this fear is instilled in a whole group of people? This situation, known as mass hysteria, is clearly depicted in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. The people of Salem were essentially engulfed by the fear of witches, causing them to behave in many irrational ways. Although mass hysteria affected these fictional characters, its effects are all too real in life today. Such effects include the aftermath that followed the September 11th terrorist attacks. One thing both The Crucible and post 9/11 have in common: they feared the unknown.

“Over 58,000 students identified as homeless on the 2013 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA®) , a 75 percent increase over the last three years”(Dunning). Homelessness on college campuses is damaging to the individuals who are affected by it. Homelessness is damaging to the individual because it makes graduating from college difficult. To find a way to solve homelessness we need to figure out what the causes of homelessness are.

The documentary, “Passion and Power: The Technology of Orgasm,” discusses the invention of the vibrator and its relationship to women, a topic that is still quite taboo in this age. The film begins with historian, Rachel Maines’ discovery of electric vibrator ads in 20th century women’s magazines and then tracing the origin of the vibrator to Victorian doctors. Apparently, physicians utilized vibrating devices to treat women with “hysteria,” a common health complaint among the women of that day. A women was diagnosed with hysteria if she displayed emotional or mental distress. Medical experts up until the 20th century considered the disease to be the womb rebelling against sexual deprivation. To put it simply, many women were sexually frustrated. The solution? Massaging the genitals to provoke “hysterical paroxysm” also known as, an orgasm. Before the invention of the electric vibrator, inducing hysterical paroxysm required skillfulness and lengthy amount of time to get the job done. However, when the portable vibrator was introduced, the process

Such as this conversation in “The Crucible” shows. Proctor asks Mary how many people the jail has arrested since the first day of accusations only two weeks before.“‘Mary She halts. Is it true? There be fourteen women arrested?’ ‘No sir. There be thirty-nine people now-’” (Miller 1125). This quote, taken from “The Crucible” just after the trials begin, this shows how quickly things crumble under the influence of fear and paranoia and soon turn to hysteria, blaming everyone who they felt fit their suspicions. Mass hysterics follow the paranoia, quickly everyone launches into a frenzy, confess witchcraft and blame someone else, their only way out. But sometimes, mass hysteria looks different. In this quote Burbano, a victim and survivor of the Pulse shooting, shows how quickly the hysteria took over. “In the confusion of the dark, packed club, people dropped to the ground and hid in bathrooms. Many started to run for the exits, grabbing friends and strangers along the way. “I don’t remember screaming. I don’t even remember breathing,” Burbano told ABC News “I just remember dragging my best friend down”” (Zambelich). This statement from an interview with one of the survivors of the Orlando Pulse shooting perfectly highlights how adrenaline affects the body and how during spats of mass hysteria the body tries its hardest just to survive. This becomes clear throughout history in places such as England during the plague.

Our text defines mass madness as outbreaks in which large large numbers of people apparently share absurd false beliefs and imagined sights and sounds (Comer et al. 2014; p. 37). Mass madness, aka mass hysteria, has occurred throughout time and across the globe. Some historical examples of mass hysteria are the Salem witch trials (1600s), the red scare (1919-1920), and satanic daycare scandals (1980s). There are many examples of mass hysteria in recent times too. The most prominent examples that I can think of are the scares involving anthrax and a fear of muslims. In 2001, following the terrorist attacks, there was a series of mail-borne attacks where people received anthrax in the mail. Then the media got ahold of the story and caused a nationwide

Our Something from Nothing Unit was designed to help students acquire positive attitudes towards reading and books. Our goal was to make the unit as enjoyable for students as possible, while ensuring they are working towards mastery of the expectations from the Language Arts and Social Studies curriculum. With the goal of student enjoyment in mind, we chose the book Something from Nothing because we found that many students love this story and can relate to, Joseph, the boy whose belongings are wearing out over time.

In reading The Crucible by Arthur Miller, it seems unfathomable in today’s world of science and logical reasoning, that such mass hysteria could break out. While we don’t blame supernatural witches any longer for strange behaviors, there are still many cases in recent history that can be paralleled to the Salem witch trials. One example is a 2012 case of over a dozen high schoolers in Le Roy, New York who developed uncontrollable tics with no obvious cause. When I chose to read The New York Times article, “What Happened to the Girls in Le Roy,” by Susan Dominus, I thought the case would give a clear psychological explanation for the cause of the girls’ afflictions, and give insight into why girls in Salem acted the way they did. However, like

Bynum goes into great detail about, “Physical symptoms that mask emotional distress.”(Bynum 1) and the levels of hysteria that come along with them. It is said that while some may think they have a serious ailment, it may just be in their head. One’s mind can play elaborate tricks on their body given the situation at hand, and the outcome can lead hysteria to wreak havoc on their sense of reality. This is seen in The Crucible when Betty Parris and Ruth Putnam fall “ill” after a night dancing in the woods. Their comatose states are the product of fearing punishment for what they did that night. This can also be seen in people suffering from mental illness, where a person may feel physically ill due to emotional distress. The symptoms shown by both Betty and Ruth spark mass hysteria in Salem, just as these psychosomatic illnesses do to our minds

The religiously motivated Salem witch trials of 1692 left a permanent stain on Massachusetts’ history, but one overlooked factor could have sparked the tragic ordeal. The trials are best summarized as an inexplicable and unforeseen frenzy of accusations, aimed at the social pariahs of the community, that led to multiple deaths in a previously tranquil place. An intense type of food poisoning known as convulsive ergotism provides a seemingly simple, yet understandably deceptive to the ignorant, explanation. Due to optimum conditions for the disease, the correlation between the bewitched and the expected symptoms, and the religious fanaticism of the time, one can conclude ergotism was an influence on the Salem witch trials.