The current resurgence of bedbugs in the United States has brought the little pests once again into the limelight after decades of obscurity. Our pioneer ancestors, however, were well acquainted with bedbugs, as revealed by contemporary diaries, books, and newspapers. The Omaha Daily Bee on February 23, 1891, included an unsigned poem that must have expressed the feeling of thousands of sufferers.
A bedbug, depicted in Charlotte Taylor’s “Unwelcome Guests,” Harper’s Magazine XXII (December 1860).
Twas on a sultry summer night,
The moon was shining calm and bright,
When from my couch I rose to fight
The bedbug.
I uttered many a sad lament,
As on my murderous search intent,
Into each hidden crack I went
For bedbugs.
My wretched limbs were smarting well,
And O, my anguish who can tell,
As oft I caught the sickening smell
Of bedbugs.
Read the rest of the poem (yes, there are six more stanzas!) in a Timeline column on the Nebraska State Historical Society website. — Patricia C. Gaster, Assistant Editor for Research and Publications
