At the beginning of Fever 1793, Mattie Cook daydreams about her business ambitions: “I wanted to own an entire city block—a proper restaurant, an apothecary, maybe a school, or a hatter’s shop. Grandfather said I was a Daughter of Liberty, a real American girl.” The yellow fever epidemic disrupts all such dreams, making even ordinary survival seem an unlikely achievement. However, Mattie still puts her ambition and ingenuity to work, proving herself adaptable and thereby surviving the fever, even helping others survive. A similar adaptability saves the day on a broader scale, helping Philadelphia doctors conquer the outbreak. By showcasing Mattie and the doctors’ “American” traits of ingenuity and ambition in this way, Anderson suggests that characteristics like these, especially when directed toward the good of others and society at large, can help struggling people come together, survive, and thrive.
When the epidemic turns ordinary life upside down, adaptability proves to be a potentially lifesaving trait, both for Mattie and for the Philadelphia medical establishment. From childhood, Mattie has been taught “old soldier’s tricks” and basic survival skills by her veteran grandfather. She uses some of these to enable her weakened grandfather to survive when they’re abandoned in the Pennsylvania countryside—“Find a willow tree and you’ll soon find water nearby […] Raspberry bushes mean rabbits are about”—but she also has to improvise off of these basic skills using the objects she has at hand. For example, she uses her petticoat as a fishing net. Rather than relying on a strict application of what she’s been taught, Mattie creatively builds off her grandfather’s lessons in order to serve the pressing needs of the moment.
The medical establishment in the city of Philadelphia also has to adapt to the ravages of the fever. When Mattie emerges from her fever and hears she’s at Bush Hill—known as one of Philadelphia’s worst hospitals—she learns from a nurse that “Bush Hill is now a respectable place […] Mr. Stephen Girard, Lord bless his name, has taken over and turned this into a right proper hospital. All them thieving scoundrels have been driven off.” The emergency transformation of Bush Hill is an example of forward-thinking ingenuity that saves countless lives.
Similarly, Philadelphia doctors were divided between those who practiced more traditional methods of bleeding in order to cure fevers, like American Dr. Benjamin Rush, and those French doctors who, acquainted with yellow fever from the jungles of the West Indies, pushed to treat the suffering through fluids, fresh air, and rest. “You’ll hear folks say that Dr. Rush is a hero for saving folks with his purges and blood letting. But I’ve seen different. It’s these French doctors here that know how to cure the fever. I don’t care if Dr. Rush did sign the Declaration of Independence,” Nurse Flagg explains to Mattie (who later uses this information to spare Eliza’s nephews from potentially fatal bleeding). Ingenuity and adaptability are vital in a crisis, on personal, institutional, and societal levels.
Mattie summons untried physical and emotional strength to undertake unprecedented tasks, putting others’ needs before her own. For example, Mattie assists in her own grandfather’s burial and funeral because there is no one else available for the tasks. When the weight of her grandfather’s remains is too much, the man pushing the cart of corpses “looked me up and down once, then moved to the side. […] Together we pushed the cart to the burial ground.” When there’s a shortage of ministers at the makeshift graveyard, Mattie takes charge of the situation by leading the assembled workers in prayer. Though she is just a 14-year-old girl, Mattie’s courageous initiative, spurred by love, seems to cut through whatever doubts others have about her.
Later, although Mattie is still recovering from yellow fever and literally dreams of bountiful food, she puts her comfort and wellbeing second to the children for whom she’s helping to care, as when she makes sure that most of the limited food supply goes to them: “The stew in the kettle was made for four, not six […] I poured half of [my portion] back. ‘I don’t need all of this, Eliza. The boys should eat so they don’t take sick.’” Though she’d shirked work and happily indulged herself at the beginning of the story, Mattie adapts to her changed circumstances by putting others first.
Although Mattie has always had a creative, ambitious outlook, she adapts her dreams to immediate needs created by the epidemic. Even as a young girl, Mattie has notable business acumen and longs to someday expand on her mother’s plans for the coffeehouse: “‘First we should buy another coffee urn, to serve customers with more haste,” I said […] And we could have an upstairs meeting room for the gentlemen […] And we could reserve space to sell paintings, and combs, and fripperies from France.’” She especially longs to prove herself by achieving even more than her mother did, but she has not yet been forced to develop the motivation and adaptability necessary to achieve those dreams.
After the epidemic has passed, Mattie doesn’t give up on her more fanciful dreams or her desire to impress her mother, but she is most concerned about her loved ones’ wellbeing. She combines her love for Eliza with her good business sense in order to find a mutually beneficial solution for the coffeehouse, telling Eliza: “My partner has to be someone I can trust. Someone who knows how to run a coffeehouse and isn’t afraid to give me a kick in the backside every now and then […] I’m sharing it with you. It’s the right thing to do, and it’s good business.” Mattie’s kindhearted adaptability, combined with her natural ambition, allows her to provide greater security for Eliza and her family while realizing some of her dreams for the coffeehouse.
Anderson also shows examples of people who “adapt” in unhealthy and injurious ways; for example, some merchants, even pharmacists, charge outrageous prices during the epidemic, taking advantage of people’s desperation. However, she portrays Mattie as the inverse of this—a kind of archetypal early American girl who is brave, forward-looking, and balancing her own desires with neighborly concern. By showcasing this type of courage and intelligence in the protagonist of the novel, as well as the other heroic characters, Anderson shows that ingenuity and adaptability are crucial to surviving difficult obstacles and even large-scale crises.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Ingenuity, Ambition, and Survival ThemeTracker
Ingenuity, Ambition, and Survival Quotes in Fever 1793
A few blocks south lay the Walnut Street Prison, where Blanchard had flown that remarkable balloon. From the prison’s courtyard it rose, a yellow silk bubble escaping the earth. I vowed to do that one day, slip free of the ropes that held me. Nathaniel Benson had heard me say it, but he did not laugh. He understood. Perhaps I would see him at the docks, sketching a ship or sea gulls. It had been a long time since we talked.
If I was going to work as hard as a mule, it might as well be for my own benefit. I was going to travel to France and bring back fabric and combs and jewelry that the ladies of Philadelphia would swoon over. And that was just for the dry goods store. I wanted to own an entire city block—a proper restaurant, an apothecary, maybe a school, or a hatter’s shop. Grandfather said I was a Daughter of Liberty, a real American girl. I could steer my own ship. No one would call me little Mattie. They would call me “Ma’am.”
“It is not yellow fever,” he said.
Grandfather sighed in relief.
“But Dr. Rush says yellow fever is spreading everywhere,” Eliza said.
“Dr. Rush likes to alarm people,” Mr. Rowley replied. “There is a great debate about this pestilence. Yesterday a physician I shall not name diagnosed yellow fever in an elderly woman. Her family threw her into the street. She died, but she didn’t have yellow fever. It was all a mistake. I use the diagnosis sparingly. And I assure you, there is no fever in this house.”
“There,” he sighed. “That’s better. It’s time to review your soldiering lessons.”
I groaned. From my crawling days. Grandfather had taught me all the tricks of the American and the British armies, and quite a few from the French. Again and again and again. It would do no good to argue. I was his captive.
“A soldier needs three things to fight,” he continued. He held up three fingers and waited for my response.
“One, a sturdy pair of boots,” I said. “Two, a full belly. Three, a decent night’s sleep.”
My wet petticoat swayed in the breeze. It would have to do.
I tried to rip open the seam with my teeth, but the tiny stitches that Mother had sewed would not yield. Another fish wiggled to the top of the water to gulp down a water bug.
If I had sewn the skirt, it would have been easy to tear apart. Instead, I would have to use it whole. I pulled the drawstring at the waist tightly until I could barely poke my thumb through the opening. I would hold open the hem and pray an unusually stupid fish would swim into the trap.
“I bet no soldier ever thought of this one,” I said, wading back in the water with my improvised net.
The city had turned a mansion on Bush Hill into a hospital for fever victims. According to the gossips, Bush Hill was one step away from Hell, filled with dead bodies and criminals who preyed on the weak. It was a place to stay away from, not a place where a young girl should lay about and sip broth, even if her grandfather was mooning over her nurse.
Mrs. Flagg lifted a mug of cool tea to my mouth. “You listen to me. This here Bush Hill is not the same Bush Hill of last week. Mr. Stephen Girard, Lord bless his name, has taken over and turned this into a right proper hospital. All them thieving scoundrels have been driven off. You’re lucky you were brought here. We have doctors, nurses, medicine, food— everything a fever victim needs. And we have enough problems without you running off the ward.”
“You’ll hear folks say that Dr. Rush is a hero for saving folks with his purges and blood letting. But I’ve seen different. It’s these French doctors here that know how to cure the fever. I don’t care if Dr. Rush did sign the Declaration of Independence. I wouldn’t let him and his knives near me.”
I shivered as I remembered the blood Dr. Kerr had drained from Mother. Maybe Grandfather should return to the house and bring her here. What if Dr. Kerr bled her too much?
I fumbled with the tread of the hollow stair, then threw it to the side and lifted out the metal box. I opened the lid. It was still there, pence and shillings. Thank heaven for that.
I returned the box to its hiding place. It could be worse, I thought. The house is still standing. We’re alive. Mother and Eliza must be somewhere safe, I had to believe that. The fever would soon be over, and our lives would return to normal. I just had to stay clever and strong and find something to eat.
A tear surprised me by rolling down my cheek. “None of that, Mattie girl,” I whispered to myself as I scrubbed the tear away. “This is not the time to be childish.”
Rev. Allen said this was a chance for black people to show we are every bit as good and important and useful as white people. The Society organized folks to visit the sick, to care for them and bury them if they died […] The Africans of Philadelphia have cared for thousands of people without taking notice of color. If only the doctors had been right, we could look to these days of suffering as days of hope.
If Mother was dead, I’d have to sell the coffeehouse, or have the orphan’s court sell it for me. I’d get work as a scullery maid, or move into the orphanage and do laundry.
I looked past the apple seller to the haberdasher’s window behind him. My face looked back at me from the thick glass. […] The shape of my face looked for all the world like Mother’s, her nose, her mouth.
But my eyes were my own. I blinked.
A scullery maid? Ridiculous. I was Matilda Cook, daughter of Lucille, granddaughter of Captain William Farnsworth Cook, of the Pennsylvania Fifth Regiment. I could read, write, and figure numbers faster than most. I was not afraid of hard work.
I would set my own course.
Early morning was the only time I felt as if there were ghosts nearby, memories of the weeks of fear. That’s when I found myself listening for Polly’s giggle or Grandfather’s voice. Sometimes they felt so close. Close enough to tell me I should stop dawdling and get to work.
I smiled as the mist faded. The yellow sun rose, a giant balloon filled with prayers and hopes and promise. I stood and shook the idleness out of my skirts.
Day was begun.
