Tubercular Capital: American Yiddish Literature at the Sanatorium

This article investigates the scene of writing and fundraising that was supported by the Jewish Consumptives' Relief Society (JCRS), a sanatorium founded in Denver, Colorado for indigent Jews suffering from tuberculosis. This case study investigates the coarticulation of a medical institution and the history of Yiddish literary production and translation in America, with a specific interest in the career and medical history of the Yiddish poet known as Yehoash. Drawing on the methodological interventions of Bruno Latour and Pierre Bourdieu, I argue that there emerges a traceable, literary-philanthropic network that runs to and through the JCRS, imbricating institution and writer in an exchange of what I call "tubercular capital."