Charles M. Higgins

Charles Michael Higgins (October 4, 1854 - October 21, 1929)[3] was an Irish American ink manufacturer and anti-vaccinationist.

Charles Michael Higgins
Born(1854-10-04)October 4, 1854
County Leitrim[1]
DiedOctober 21, 1929(1929-10-21) (aged 75)
Prospect Park (Brooklyn)[2]
OccupationInk manufacturer, writer

Biography

Higgins was born in County Leitrim, Ireland.[1] He moved to Brooklyn at the age of six. Higgins was the inventor of Higgins American India Ink.[1] He operated the Charles M. Higgins Company to manufacturer the drawing ink he invented.[1]

Higgins married Alexandra Fransioli in 1899 and they had three children.[1] He was a founding member of the Kings County Historical Society.[1] He opposed vaccination and was also an anti-vivisectionist.[4]

Anti-Vaccination League of America

Higgins was the co-founder and treasurer of the Anti-Vaccination League of America. The League was created in 1908 by Higgins and industrialist John Pitcairn.[5] Its anti-vaccination campaigns focused on New York and Pennsylvania.[5] Members were opposed to compulsory vaccination laws.[6] Higgins was the League's chief spokesman and pamphleteer.[7] Historian James Colgrove noted that Higgins "attempted to overturn the New York State's law mandating vaccination of students in public schools."[6] The League should not be confused with the Anti-Vaccination Society of America, that was formed in 1879.[5]

Higgins was criticized by medical experts for spreading misinformation and ignoring facts as to the efficacy of vaccination.[8][9] The League dissolved after the death of Higgins in 1929.[10]

Selected publications

References
  1. "Guide to the Charles M. Higgins papers 1978.114". Brooklyn Historical Society.
  2. Anonymous. (October 23, 1929). Dead Ink Man. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. p. 3
  3. Anonymous. (1930). Charles M. Higgins. Proceedings of the National Wholesale Druggists Association 56: 83.
  4. Anonymous. (1923). Some Quasi-Medical Institutions. Prepared and Issued by the Propaganda Department of the Journal of the American Medical Association. p. 23
  5. Walloch, Karen L. (2015). The Antivaccine Heresy: Jacobson v. Massachusetts and the Troubled History of Compulsory Vaccination in the United States. University of Rochester Press. pp. 4-5. ISBN 978-1-58046-537-3
  6. Colgrove, James. (2006). State of Immunity: The Politics of Vaccination in Twentieth-Century America. University of California Press. pp. 52-54. ISBN 978-0-520-24749-9
  7. Altenbaugh, Richard J. (2018). Vaccination in America: Medical Science and Children’s Welfare. Palgrave. p. 51. ISBN 978-3-319-96348-8
  8. Tolley, Kim (May 2019). "School Vaccination Wars: The Rise of Anti-Science in the American Anti-Vaccination Societies". History of Education Quarterly. 59 (2): 161–194. doi:10.1017/heq.2019.3.
  9. "Antivaccinationists in Albany". Journal of the American Medical Association. 64 (6): 520. Feb 6, 1915.
  10. Colgrove, James. (2006). State of Immunity: The Politics of Vaccination in Twentieth-Century America. University of California Press. p. 74. ISBN 978-0-520-24749-9
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