Skip to Main Content

Pandemics, Epidemics, and Vaccines: History, Science, & Controversies: 1918 Influenza Pandemic

A research topic guide covering pandemics and epidemics as well as the history, science, and controversies of vaccines.

Resources

Archives, Research & Reference

1918 Flu Pandemic

 

100 years ago the 1918 influenza pandemic devastated entire communities and took at least 675,000 American lives. It was the most severe pandemic in recent history, sweeping the globe quickly and killing more than 50 million people. This video provides information and background on the 1918 flu pandemic.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6Ccdk5wPvk&t=21s

Spanish Flu Face Mask: A Century's Crusade Against A Pandemic

During one of the deadliest pandemics in human history - The Spanish Influenza, the then San Francisco Mayor singed The Mask Ordinance - the first order requiring the wearing of face masks in public in the United States.

Source: AVON

Perspectives

Flu

The fascinating, true story of the world's deadliest disease. In 1918, the Great Flu Epidemic felled the young and healthy virtually overnight. An estimated forty million people died as the epidemic raged. Children were left orphaned and families were devastated. As many American soldiers were killed by the 1918 flu as were killed in battle during World War I. And no area of the globe was safe. Eskimos living in remote outposts in the frozen tundra were sickened and killed by the flu in such numbers that entire villages were wiped out. Scientists have recently rediscovered shards of the flu virus frozen in Alaska and preserved in scraps of tissue in a government warehouse. Gina Kolata, an acclaimed reporter for The New York Times, unravels the mystery of this lethal virus with the high drama of a great adventure story. Delving into the history of the flu and previous epidemics, detailing the science and the latest understanding of this mortal disease, Kolata addresses the prospects for a great epidemic recurring, and, most important, what can be done to prevent it.

The Influenza Pandemic Of 1918-1919

Documents from period newspapers, medical journals, government publications, letters, journal entries, memoirs, and novels are collected to present a full picture of the influenza pandemic of 1918-19, which took the lives of at least 30 million people worldwide in Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919.

Pale Rider

In 1918, the Italian-Americans of New York, the Yupik of Alaska and the Persians of Mashed had almost nothing in common except for a virus--one that triggered the worst pandemic of modern times and had a decisive effect on the history of the twentieth century. The Spanish flu of 1918-1920 was one of the greatest human disasters of all time. It infected a third of the people on Earth--from the poorest immigrants of New York City to the king of Spain, Franz Kafka, Mahatma Gandhi and Woodrow Wilson. But despite a death toll of between 50 and 100 million people, it exists in our memory as an afterthought to World War I. In this gripping narrative history, Laura Spinney traces the overlooked pandemic to reveal how the virus travelled across the globe, exposing mankind's vulnerability and putting our ingenuity to the test. As socially significant as both world wars, the Spanish flu dramatically disrupted--and often permanently altered--global politics, race relations and family structures, while spurring innovation in medicine, religion and the arts. It was partly responsible, Spinney argues, for pushing India to independence, South Africa to apartheid and Switzerland to the brink of civil war. It also created the true "lost generation." Drawing on the latest research in history, virology, epidemiology, psychology and economics, Pale Rider masterfully recounts the little-known catastrophe that forever changed humanity.

American Pandemic

Between the years 1918 and1920, influenza raged around the globe in the worst pandemic in recorded history, killing at least fifty million people, more than half a million of them Americans. Yet despite the devastation, this catastrophic event seems but a forgotten moment in the United States. American Pandemic offers a much-needed corrective to the silence surrounding the influenza outbreak. It sheds light on the social and cultural history of Americans during the pandemic, uncovering both the causes of the nation's public amnesia and the depth of the quiet remembering that endured. Focused on the primary players in this drama--patients and their families, friends, and community, public health experts, and health care professionals--historian Nancy K. Bristow draws on multiple perspectives to highlight the complex interplay between social identity, cultural norms, memory, and the epidemic. Bristow has combed a wealth of primary sources, including letters, diaries, oral histories, memoirs, novels, newspapers, magazines, photographs, government documents, and health care literature. She shows that though the pandemic caused massive disruption in the most basic patterns of American life, influenza did not create long-term social or cultural change, serving instead to reinforce the status quo and the differences and disparities that defined American life. As the crisis waned the pandemic slipped from the nation's public memory. The helplessness and despair Americans had suffered during the pandemic, Bristow notes, was a story poorly suited to a nation focused on optimism and progress. For countless survivors, though, the trauma never ended, shadowing the remainder of their lives with memories of loss. This book lets us hear these long-silent voices, reclaiming an important chapter in the American past.

The 1918 Flu Pandemic, History and Lessons Learned

 

Christopher McKnight Nichols, Ph.D., director of the Center for the Humanities and associate professor in OSU’s School of History, Philosophy and Religion, will present “The 1918 flu pandemic, history and lessons learned.” His presentation will provide a timely exploration of the history of the 1918 influenza epidemic and how our understanding of the past might assist in developing new policies in the present and for the future.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGDrdxA9Sag