Jim Downs is a 39-year-old assistant professor of history and interim director of the American Studies program at Connecticut College. As a historian, Jim Downs has spent much of his time learning about the Civil War, but it was his intention with his book Sick From Freedom to bring light to the darker history of the emancipation era in the United States, and more importantly, what he believes is the “largest biological crisis of the 19th century.” When people think about the Civil War, many people think about the military causalities, and the division created between the North and South; Jim Downs goes beneath the surface to give a deeper look at the health crisis that unfolded in the years following emancipation, and the hundreds of thousands
