The secret people: patriotism, the press, and civil rights in the National Leprosarium

This project studies patient-activism at United States Public Health Service Hospital 66, the National Leprosarium. The goal is to show how a diverse group of patients adopted mainstream American rhetoric and partnered with veterans groups in order to establish their own civil liberties and to diminish the stigma of their shared disease. The paper will show first how leprosy became a disease of national concern and regulation, and then how patients worked to dismantle the laws and rules that oppressed them and denied them their civil rights, while maintaining leprosy as an area for national interest.