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
gollark: That seems like a weird instruction.
gollark: What does it do to polynomials?
gollark: What do you mean "for polynomials"?
gollark: *grabs an antiVAXer*
gollark: We should rewrite Forge in Rust.

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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