Charles Michael Higgins (October 4, 1854 – October 21, 1929) was an Irish-American ink manufacturer and

anti-vaccinationist Vaccine hesitancy is a delay in acceptance, or refusal, of vaccines despite the availability of vaccine services and supporting evidence. The term covers refusals to vaccinate, delaying vaccines, accepting vaccines but remaining uncertain abou ...

Biography

Higgins was born in

County Leitrim County Leitrim ( ; gle, Contae Liatroma) is a county in Ireland. It is in the province of Connacht and is part of the Northern and Western Region. It is named after the village of Leitrim. Leitrim County Council is the local authority for the ...

, Ireland. He moved to

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

at the age of six. Higgins was the inventor of Higgins American India Ink. He operated the Charles M. Higgins Company to manufacture the drawing ink he invented. Higgins married Alexandra Fransioli in 1899 and they had three children. He was a founding member of the Kings County Historical Society. He opposed vaccination and was also an

anti-vivisectionist Vivisection () is surgery conducted for experimental purposes on a living organism, typically animals with a central nervous system, to view living internal structure. The word is, more broadly, used as a pejorative catch-all term for Animal testi ...

Anti-Vaccination League of America

Higgins was the co-founder and treasurer of the Anti-Vaccination League of America. The League was created in 1908 by Higgins and industrialist

John Pitcairn Major John Pitcairn (28 December 1722 – 17 June 1775) was a Marine Service officer who was stationed in Boston, Massachusetts, at the start of the American War of Independence. Born in Scotland in 1722, Pitcairn joined the Naval Service at ...

.Walloch, Karen L. (2015). ''The Antivaccine Heresy: Jacobson v. Massachusetts and the Troubled History of Compulsory Vaccination in the United States''. University of Rochester Press. pp. 4–5. Its anti-vaccination campaigns focused on

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

and

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

. Members were opposed to compulsory vaccination laws.Colgrove, James. (2006). ''State of Immunity: The Politics of Vaccination in Twentieth-Century America''. University of California Press. pp. 52–54. Higgins was the League's chief spokesman and pamphleteer. Historian

James Colgrove James is a common English language surname and given name: *James (name), the typically masculine first name James * James (surname), various people with the last name James James or James City may also refer to: People * King James (disambiguat ...

noted that Higgins "attempted to overturn the New York State's law mandating vaccination of students in public schools." The League should not be confused with the

Anti-Vaccination Society of America Anti-Vaccination Society of America opposed compulsory smallpox vaccination from the final decades of the 19th century through the 1910s. It was founded in 1879 after a visit to the United States by William Tebb. It published a periodical called ' ...

, that was formed in 1879. Higgins was criticized by medical experts for spreading misinformation and ignoring facts as to the efficacy of vaccination. The League dissolved after the death of Higgins in 1929.Colgrove, James. (2006). ''State of Immunity: The Politics of Vaccination in Twentieth-Century America''. University of California Press. p. 74.

Selected publications

''A Plea for Justice to China''
(1900)
''The Crime Against the School Child''
(1915)
''Brooklyn and Gowanus in History''
(1916)
''Vaccination and Lockjaw''
(1916)
''Unalienable Rights and Prohibition Wrongs''
(1919)
''Horrors of Vaccination Exposed and Illustrated''
(1920)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Higgins, Charles M. 1854 births 1929 deaths American anti-vaccination activists Anti-vivisectionists Irish emigrants to the United States (before 1923) People from County Leitrim