Tuberculosis was the most common cause of death in the United States during the nineteenth century. The lingering illness devastated the lives of patients and families, and by the turn of the century, fears of infectiousness compounded their anguish. Historians have usually focused on the changing medical knowledge of tuberculosis or on the social campaigns to combat it. In Bargaining for Life, Barbara Bates documents the human story by chronicling how men and women attempted to cope with the illness, get treatment, earn their living, and maintain social relationships.

Barbara Bates, MD, MA (1928—2003) was an American physician, author and historian. She authored a leading medical textbook on physical examination. Bates was on the faculty at several U.S. medical schools, and she was on both the medical and nursing school faculties at the University of Pennsylvania. She helped to develop the role of the nurse practitioner in American healthcare and she wrote a thorough account on the history of tuberculosis in Pennsylvania. She died in 2003.