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From the beginning of early vaccination attempts in the 19th century, resistance to vaccinations began, particularly in England and the United States. Early protests against Edward Jenner were voiced soon after he began his vaccination attempts of smallpox. Objections ranged from reasons involving sanitary conditions of the injection, religious reasons against vaccinating, with some seeing it as unclean having come from an animal, scientific or at least pseudo-scientific reasons against vaccinating, and political objections. In the early 19th century, personal liberty was increasingly cited as a reason for those who opposed being vaccinated. In fact, with the English Vaccination Act of 1853 ordered for young children, the personal liberty argument became far more pronounced. Interestingly, anti-vaccination movements often emerged as being relatively strong in specific regions. In the United Kingdom, the town of Leicester emerged in the mid-19th century as a hotbed of anti-vaccination rallies. As vaccination laws came into effect in the United States, similar reactions against vaccinations emerged, with personal liberty increasingly cited as the main reason why someone objected to vaccinations. In the United States, the Anti-Vaccination Society of America became established in 1879 after William Tebb, a leading British anti-vaccination activist, visited. By the late 19th century, vaccination laws in California, Illinois, and Wisconsin were all challenged in courts. A landmark U.S. Supreme Court case in 1905 ruled that states did have the right to instigate required vaccination campaigns, limiting state-level anti-vaccination movements.

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