The cultural fear of vampires stretches back centuries throughout Europe, but in the continental U.S. it took seed from another fear entirely: tuberculosis. The New England Vampire Panic of the 19th-century was a reaction to a deadly disease so mysterious it needed a scapegoat. Enter: the Brown family of Exeter, Rhode Island –specifically a young daughter whose body civilians would use to justify a monster of their own making.
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Mercy Brown
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