Transcripts For CSPAN3 Influenza Pandemic World War I 20240713

Also stealing this line from another doctor, dr. Nyberg. Potentially, there is only one thing you can learn from the world war. That thing would be dont forget to get your flu shot. [laughter] so, ladies and gentlemen, do also, we did get that wonderful thing called daylight savings time because of world war i in the United States and other countries around the world. Also, a nice little psa. Do not forget saturday into sunday, we will fall back and you get one extra hour of sleep. Maybe it means you get to enjoy even hardier this evenings dinner. Now, i am so pleased to introduce our next speaker. Dr. Nancy bristow is a distinguished professor of history at the university of puget sound where she specializes in 20th century American History with an emphasis on race, gender, and social change, and serves on the Leadership Team of the institute. Team of the race and pedagogy institute. She is the author of 1996 is social engineering and the great war 2012s american pandemic of the 1918ld influenza epidemic, whose content she will be addressing this afternoon. You might have seen her on the American Express great war. Her most recent research will be published in black power law an order. The 1917 shootings in Jackson College which will be coming out in may of by Oxford University 2020 press. To find out more about this very pressing issue, please put your hands together and welcome dr. Bristow to the stage. [applause] dr. Bristow thank you so much. Thank you so much. It is a pleasure to be here. I am so grateful to the museum, to all of to laura you, to the tech people for making this a stupendous event and before i get started today, i have one favor to ask of the audience. I am skipping school today. I need to let them know i really was doing something. If you all could give me a smile, wave, and say hey there scholar. A few photos. That was it. Awesome. Let me get to work. On june 6, 1918, in north dakota, lillians mother gave birth to a little girl. Unfortunately, five months later on november 12, her mother passed away. She had contracted influenza and died a few days later. In these days, it was not proper for a man to raise his daughters alone. So her older sister was farmed out to relatives where she lived. Lillian unfortunately was traded from Family Member to Family Member for two years. Finally, she was able to settle in with relatives living in the same town as the father as she got to see him regularly through her childhood. When i interviewed her 85 years later, she still maintained spanish influenza that killed her mother changed her life completely. It had to, she suggested. Experts today estimate as many as 1 3 of human beings on the globe suffered from this new incarnation of influenza incorrectly dubbed spanish influenza. Striking with unprecedented ferocity, the pandemic caused no fewer than 50 million deaths. It attacked in four waves. First, coming through in the spring, and then unfortunately coming back in a second wave that was much more deadly. During that second wave, infection rates in the United States ranged between 25 and 40 . And some 675,000 americans perished. Thats more than half a million that would have died, even in those days, of annual flu. Lillians mother was one of the victims. The pandemic did not end in 1918. There was a third wave early in the spring of 1919. In either the first annual version of this new virus or a fourth wave came through in early 1920. You can imagine the disruption this must have been in a world just coming off of the great war that had already suffered through the pandemic of the fall of 1918. Interestingly, it has long been an article of faith among american historians that this was a forgotten pandemic as he would suggest in his landmark study of the pandemic. It is true. In the aftermath of the pandemic, there were few monuments built, literally a handful in the country. Anniversaries pass without memorialization. Very few people spoke of it publicly. And yet, lillians recollection suggests this idea of a completely forgotten pandemic is missing part of the story. Because this clear people did remember the pandemic as individuals in a personal and private lives. What i want to do today is complicate this idea of national amnesia. Here is the plan for the day. Im going to set some context explaining what the pandemic was, the impact it was having, but then i want to turn to the issue of it being remembered in the way people remembered it as a really traumatic story. Then i will turn to the other part of it, the ways in which the public culture we were able to forget this terrible event, and talk about the process by which that happened. I will close with a few remarks about the costs of forgetting. Scholars disagree about how it about the origins of the pandemic. Pardon me. But many will agree it started in kansas. There was a virus, it made its way into the Army Barracks and would travel out and across the United States where it would travel on to the western front. The terrible thing that happens on the western front is you have a lot of people in difficult circumstances and a great opportunity for the virus to continue to mutate, to go through what we call genetic shift. That is exactly what took place. The pandemic would come back in late august and arrive suddenly in three locations on almost the same day in france, the United States, and in sierra leone, africa. This would be the third wave. It landed in boston in august. By the end of october, the entire United States would be drowning in a sea of disease from buffalo to birmingham, from dayton to los angeles. This new incarnation of influenza was different. At first, they tried to pass it off as they had when the first wave came through in the spring as this is just regular seasonal flu. But when it came back in october, september and october, it was clear this was something that bore only scant resemblance to the traditional flu. One way it was different was the pace at which it spread. It arrived in boston in late august on the 27th. By the end of october, it covered the entire nation. It had done the same thing worldwide. It also struck with unexpected virulence in terms of mortality rate. It had an infection rate across the United States of 20 . A morbidity of 28 . You can see what this ends up meaning for u. S. Life expectancy. A morbidity of 28 . Mortality rate of 2. 5 . It was enough to lower Life Expectancy in 1918 by 12 years. At a time in which people were beginning to imagine the end of Infectious Disease and seeing Life Expectancy on an upward trajectory, this was a terrible shot. Another thing that made this shock. Another thing that made this shocking and disrupting was who was sickening and dying. Traditionally, with influenza we have a ushaped mortality chart. It takes most of its victims , even as it does today, among the very young and very old. In 1918, instead, we have a w. It suggests 50 of the victims were taken from those in the prime of their lives. Think about who that is. We are talking about young parents. We are talking about School Teachers and nurses and firefighters and perhaps city council members. We are talking about the people who keep a society running and keep families running. But it was not only this pattern of infection. The other thing that made this horrifying for people was the symptoms. Here i want to describe them just briefly. I apologize because it is not a pretty picture, but i think we need to really understand what it was that people had to live through, given that most people suffered through illness at home and the caregivers were primarily Family Members. At its beginnings would just be the flu. We know how unpleasant the flu can be. Aches, fever, cold like symptoms. About 1 5 suffered only that. For others, the problem was spanish influenza. They would face high fevers, disabling headaches, pain in the joints and muscles that was extreme, leading to edema in the lungs. For some, these symptoms might pass. But for others, it got worse. Delirium and unconsciousness would often follow as the lungs filled. The immune response would create a feeling of the lungs with the bodily fluids of the patients leading to discoloration of hands and feet and face. Sort of a blue and purplish color. And then often, finally, bloody fluids would drain from the orifices. Some people would get sick and die as quick as a day. Usually was more like three or four days. Some people might suffer through this 10 days or two weeks. Others faced what at first appeared to be just traditional influenza, would appeal appeared to be healing, then would face bacterial pneumonia. In 1918 weor which still do not have antibiotic cures. During the worst weeks of the pandemic, of course, cities and towns would attempt to control the pandemic. They would be trying to prevent the spread and keep as many people healthy as possible, even as they are trying to take care of the sick and handle the growing number of the dead. For this, kansas city can stand as a typical story of what this process might look like in the kinds of things taking place. In kansas city, as most places nationwide, influenza arrived by way of an army camp. There were two army motor schools near the city and thats ere influenza mostly emerged. City leaders including Public Health officials tried to calm the public and suggested do not worry, civilians will be fine. Of course, that was not true, just as it was not true anywhere else in the country. By late september, the army was completely quarantined. Something like 1000 people were already down with the illness. The Kansas City Department of health continued to downplay the risks until they could not any longer. On october 7, it was clear there was a major emergency. Major Health Emergency taking place. They closed schools, churches, theaters. They banned public gatherings of any group larger than 20. That figure is important to notice because that meant you could keep some things open. You could keep saloons and dance halls open, as long as you did not have more than 20 people, 20 people in any given space. You could keep those open, and they did. Unfortunately, there was infighting among the Public Health folks in kansas city. Shortly after they put the restrictions in place, they were removed. Influenza worsened and quickly they had to restore reimpose these restrictions. This time, they were tighter. Dances, parties, weddings, funerals. Business hours were shortened. Although cases of influenza were required to be quarantined. Citizens strained under these restrictions for a full month. Hard to picture doing that today. Schools simply closed for an entire month. Unfortunately, that was not long enough. They reopened the schools on november 18 but had acted too quickly and again influenza spread, and this time especially among the School Children who had returned. By the end of the year, the second wave was largely passed. That did not mean influenza was gone. In fact, in january and february, morbidity skyrocketed again. In some ways, people suggested this was as bad as been before. It was so severe that people could wake up healthy and be dead by nightfall. But no further measures were taken. The Community Moved on. It would not sit for those restrictions i talked about in public attention moved on to october. Recovery from the pandemic and to a future after the war. When the pandemic came to a close, the city suffered 11,000 cases in 2300 influenza deaths, one of the higher rates nationwide. Up to this point, ive been talking about influenza, spanish influenza, something distinct and different from anything before. In terms of an illness, it was. In one way, it was not different. It is important to note this, as we are speaking about the experience that people went through. Change was social and cultural norms, and their imposition and shaping of americans lives over the course of the pandemic. Let me explain what i mean. Strict adherence to gender roles, the loss of one parent could plunge a family into disarray. Lillians father, who was not sanctioned to raise his own children. It was complicated when the mother would be surviving and the father would pass away because in these days, men were often the primary breadwinner. Especially for middle class or upper class families. This would leave families in complete economic disarray. As one red cross worker in kentucky explained, a large number of cases were reported where the mother was left with a large family of children with no means of support. Left to the mercy of the meager assistance sympathetic neighbors might give. In some cases, it was solved by a womans transition to the workplace. Or by a child heading to work. For the poorest families, the basic problems of the epidemic were worsened by material need. With no financial cushion, lost wages for a short time could mean hunger, could mean cold, could mean homelessness. The poor were generally forced to rely on charity because we have no meaningful social safety net. They would often run into a system of surveillance and a system of judgment that punished them for poverty. For people of color, the circumstances were more difficult. Their experiences drawn by poverty they produce. Again, an example to illustrate. A 14yearold contracted influenza at the Indian School in salem, oregon. She was there, she had been placed there by her reservation in california and had had a clear physical exam when she arrived. But these schools where a breeding place for sickness. In the months preceding the epidemic you could see that students were wrestling with everything from chickenpox the tonsillitis to a stiff neck, which makes you worry. Problems with their feet. On other pages you find pulmonary problems, stomach troubles. Eye these were unhealthy places. She contracted influenza there, as did many, many other students. This was the latest example of the sickening of the Indigenous Peoples of the United States through the spread of disease. A long, long story in our history. Africanamericans, alternatively, face the the persistence of White Supremacy and its Practical Application in segregation. Hospitals often remained barred to African Americans and their caregivers. It was usually the black community that made things happen. In richmond, virginia, the city did open a Public Hospital for all residents of richmond. There is a catch. African americans could only gain treatment in the basement. Here in kansas city, there was actually a very special place, General Hospital number two, which was opened in 1908, and was the first hospital serving the black community entirely people buy and run by africanamericans. Let, it was also a segregated facility that was outmoded, overcrowded and ill maintained. My point here is that social identity mattered during the pandemic. T was not changed in the midst of disruption, especially those with social power, maintaining the way things were done, including the social hierarchy was a means of maintaining a sense of normalcy. The cost of that was severe for some. Put simply, the violence was untrained in american prejudice, but the American Public was not. Aftermath and the talk about how this trauma lived on. Atould suggest again that, the level of the individual, the trauma does not simply dissipate, but continues to frame lives, perhaps for their entirety. What a strange is how notoriously different it is to find resources of people writing, talking and singing about the flu. This is part of the idea of it having been forgotten as part of public life. There are, however, a few very rich sources to tell us the experiences of those who have suffered. My favorite is katherine porter. If you have not read it, i as onend this wonderful way alongside the lovely novella about the pandemic. She was writing as a Young Journalist at the Rocky Mountain news in denver when she became sick with influenza. She was sick enough that the paper would not run it but would have written her obituary. But she did pull through. And later, more than a decade later, she would write about what had taken place. When she recovered, she learned she had lost her fiancee. Her novella is very autobiographical. It focuses on the young character named miranda and a 24yearold woman, and follows her romance with a young soldier named adam and her struggle with influenza. As she submerges maranda into the illness, she reveals the fear the disease prompted. She says, the character, i am in pain all over and you are in such dangers i cannot bear to think about. And she and her boyfriend adam began to wonder why they cannot save each other. When adam is taking care of miranda, they talk about what each had meant to do as if their deaths were preordained. She gives a sense of the peace and the terror, the coherence and confusion she passed through as a patient. And perhaps a warning of how painful her life in the would be, her character miranda does not seem to fear debt but instead finds tranquility and joy in its approach. But death is not to be hers. Porter portrays vividly the malaise and depression from which victims suffered in the aftermath. Miranda struggles to rejoin the living, longing for the heaven of her dream. Her desolation is not only the illness she is recovering from but the loss of adam. Whose death she experiences as a cruel trick. The novella ends with ironic declaration of the promise of the future. She writes, no more war, no more plague, empty streets, the dead, cold light of tomorrow. Now, there would be time for everything. . The novella ends with a profound sense of despair. It anticipates central themes that come up in other sources. Sources that i was able to find. The physical cost for those who suffered and survived. The grief experienced by those who lost loved ones. And the dislocation so Many Americans experienced in their lives shattered by the pandemic. Others too wrote expansively about the epidemics cost. Another important novel is look homeward angel, in which the main character returns home from college in an emergency because his brother is dying of influenza. This happened to thomas wolfe. He writes in unsparing detail about how awful it was to watch his brother, and how horrific his body his brothers body that is, really looked. He talks about his brothers strangulation and says he found himself choked by the ugliness. Ugliness and discomfort. Talks about it, is messy. He says, its messy, messy, do you hear . He demands his readers to listen. Death seems no less painful for witnesses in the novel. He talks toward the end of the chapter about how the last in consequences would never leave. It would not, could never be all right. there was no promise of a brighter future, only the anguish of a tragedy. Others wrote about it and emphasized not so much the physical or emotional, but also alongside the costly financial meaning of the pandemic. A beautiful piece written by melvin frank about what happened to his community when he was young, suggests the andase was a killer scarcely any household in the area was unaffected. His household was affected. He talks about it being a terrible thing for a boy to watch his father struggle for breath. When his father is hospitalized he said, gloom descended, a fog was close to the surface. His father died in 1920. Learning of his fathers death, frank suggested he was reeling from the news as his world had tumbled in. He found himself prematurely grown, now the man of the family. At the tender age of 12, one week later, he went to work. Such a catastrophic retelling of what took place in the pandemic is not limited to only memoirs. It turns up in rare instances in popular culture. I think it is no coincidence that the places it turns up is in the blues. It is not in popular songs. It is not in cartoon strips. It is in the blues. A place were you can tell this kind of story and be heard. There are a couple of examples of it. Piece, in jenkins which she suggests many never got over it and would die. People were dying everywhere. Death was creeping through the air. The groans were sad. She goes on to suggest it was not just the rich, but the rich and the poor, north and south, east and west were all stricken. Johnson tells a similar story. Again, what is interesting is the ways in which these are so exceptional. That we dont find these kinds of examples of cultural remembering about the pandemic. To again, as a get ready move forward from this, i want to say one more time, this does not mean people did not remember in private. And again, an important way i was able to learn about this was a series of were filledes that out by soldiers that were held in a world war i collection. Again and again and again as it asked them to talk about health and health care during their time in the service, they routinely turned back to the pandemic. Sometimes in detail. Sometimes in offhanded ways where they conclude simply, it was awful, or boys died like flies. Others wrote in quite lengthy ways about the horror they saw, about the bodies stacked in the base hospitals, like cords of hordes of wood. The people died faster than the bodies could be taken care of. I think the idea of it was awful is perhaps the best way to think about how those who survived in their private lives thought about what had taken place. Is so strange, right, is that the private memories saved from the publics fear. What i want to do now is talk about how i think that happened and why i think that happened. One can note this is happening parallel to the end of world war i. We know that americans do remember the ending of world war i. There are memorials in cities around the country, to the great war. Im talking today in the National World war i museum and memorial. Theres nothing like this comparable for the influenza pandemic, even though it killed 10 times as Many Americans as world war i. Why . I think this is a good question for historians. We know scientists are still trying to figure out the genetic makeup. Ok, they have figured out the genetic makeup, but they are still puzzling over where the pandemic started. A similar conundrum for historians is, what is going on that we remember the war but we do not remember the pandemic and they happened at the same time . I have three answers. One goes back to the point i made earlier, which is this idea that the culture did not change. Social norms were the same. So, the society was not different after from how it had been before. In a sense, there are no markers to herald it to our attention. Probably more important for our purposes today as we are thinking about world one and its conclusion is the way the war outranked influenza. Throughout the pandemic, the story vote to get onto the front page. It was relegated to the back pages and below the fold. The war always had the banner headlines. Example of this, woodrow, the president of the United States, who lost 675,000 american citizens to the disease, never mentioned the pandemic in public. Why not . The war effort. The pandemic was taking place alongside the war at a moment close to its conclusion, and ultimately after, at a moment when there was great preoccupation with american participation in the war and what needed to happen. Wilson worried attention to the pandemic would draw attention away from the war. In a sense, the pandemic was sold as part of the war. You did not fight the pandemic because it was making people sick but because it was Kaiser Wilhelms ally. We see conflation of the pandemic with the war. Doctors and nurses are heralded as soldiers. As brave as the people at the front. Deaths would often be described as deaths of martyrdom. And this suggests my third argument. That is that the pandemic was just the wrong story for the United States at this historical moment. And it was soon lost as a result behind the stories of triumph that you could tell about world war i. We can see this clearly. Let me give you a couple examples of how this is enacted in the culture. When we look at Public Health, doctors, and officials, nurses, we can see in the health care professions, and first an acknowledgment of the horror of what had taken place. And very quickly backing away. And a new story about the ways in which the professions are on the rise, they are doing great things, that there is only opportunity and progress ahead. For nurses, that was not hard to do. They really did understand the pandemic as a success for them. In this historical moment, nursing and being a physician were really divided by gender almost entirely. Nurses and nursing was really associated with caregiving. With the importance of literally looking after the patient, making them comfortable and providing comfort. And this, women were able to do, as a result succeeding as nurses but as women during the pandemic. What is amazing is how positively nurses do talk about their experiences. In yearbooks, in letters, and diaries, they talk again and again. They talk in the kind of language we see, at first they were scared but quickly they realized they could do great work. The greatest comfort, she says, was the knowledge that each girl was doing her best and making good as a nurse. They knew the pandemic was horrible but they experienced it as a positive. That was hard for Public Officials to do. Was no way they could suggest they had been able to contain influenza nor limit the skillets scale of its death. Again, we see this movement from at first a somewhat traumatic or tragic narrative of what had taken place, to some thing much more positive. The next president of the american Public Health association was important man in the United States Public Health system at the time. When asked about what had taken place, he said, clearly, we must confess on the whole we made a dismal failure in our attempts to control the spread of influenza. Just two years later when he speaks he will tell the story different lake. By then, he was the president of the a pha, speaking at the 50th anniversary of the organization. He acknowledged the challenges ahead but mostly emphasized the accomplishments of the field. We were born, he said, in an opportune moment, and have lived in a period for which all time will be remarkable in scientific achievements. We cannot, if we would, standstill and point to our past achievements. Noblesse oblige. Our path leads forward. The difficulties must serve to stimulate our efforts to even greater accomplishments in the future. Always a belief in progress and promise. We see this again and again in the Public Health profession. It was physicians, perhaps, that the hardest time returning to the triumphant storytelling of their profession. Victor von was a distinguished leader of american medicine, serving as the head of the division of Communicable Diseases for the army. On september 23 he traveled to camp devens as one of the first groups to investigate the disease. He was stunned. He wrote, i thought my eyes would never see such horror as i saw there. I have never had anything so depressed me as the conditions that existed at camp devens. He devens. He said he would avoid talking about it. He said im not going into the history of the influenza epidemic. It has circuited dust circled the world, sparing neither soldier nor civilian and flaunting its red flag in the face of science. Despite the disclaimer he would not talk about it, however, when he got near the conclusion of his memoir, he could not help himself. And he returns to it. He says, i see hundreds of young, stalwart men coming into the wards of the hospital, in groups of 10 or more. They are placed on cots until every bed is full. Yet others crowd in. The faces soon were a bluish cast, a distressing cough brings up the bloodstained sputum. In the morning, bodies are stacked like cordwood. This picture was painted on my memory cells when the deadly influenza demonstrated the fear the inferioritys of human inventions of life. Despite his efforts to forget, he remembered and remained haunted. We do not know how many medical practitioners shared in this sense, but i did find in a number of memoirs and diaries, people talking about it as a traumatic experience for them, something that would stay with them that they would never forget. We also know the public presentation of medicine by medicine, by physicians, very quickly moved away from selfcritical reflection into a more opportunistic optimism. They began immediately to call for funds for the research, and promised that their work with save americans lives. As influenza continued to threaten American Health in the years to come, in 1920, 1922, they talked about these as opportunities, a chance to test hypotheses. What is interesting is only a small number of physicians remain interested in investigating influenza. Interest in it went quickly. From pages and pages of articles in the journal of the American Medical Association in 1918 and 1920. By 1926 there are only 14 articles. People have moved away. I think it is not completely unconnected that at the same moment medicine is on this rise, the celebration in the sense of itself. This dynamic, the replacement of an initial story of trauma, a reflection, of concern, being replaced quickly with a more optimistic upbeat narrative was not limited to Health Care Professionals. In fact a good place to look for it is in the New York Times. It was a great reporter on the pandemic. It covered the nationwide story. It kept track of the statistics , whether it came from insurance companies, from the general staff of the army, from new yorks General Department of health. It covered the story closely. But the story was quickly diluted. Very quickly, we moved from talking about people being sick to talking about how they rebuilt their lives. Moving toward not just a future but an even better future. Accounts of the reopening of schools, the return to work, the resumption of public business. This tendency to cushion the bad news with the good was very evident, and something that they still run in the newspaper. In those days, they fund raised for the needs of perhaps the least advantaged in new york society, the poor, people who are suffering in a range of ways. Of course, in the winter holidays of 1918, they emphasized those who had come out of the flu pandemic and were still suffering. What is really interesting is when they turned back to this in the middle of 1919, they are able to tell this remarkable triumphant narrative. I apologize the slide does not work. Let me read it for you. There are three different cases. In one they suggest every member of this family had influenza after the fathers death. But thanks to the extensive medical care, a decided improvement has shown itself. Theres no further mention of the fact of the father still gone. Case 22 began, due to the care we could give the family, they recovered quickly. Case 93 is more promising, concluding this family which suffered through influenza was now a happy and healthy family. The reality was that many families were neither happy nor healthy. But that public life of the nation had moved on and people wanted a different story, story about progress, about success, about victories. So why do we care . Why are we spending this time this . Why does it matter . Some historians say it does not. Hl mencken, the noted social commentator suggested about our forgetting of the flu that the human mind tries to expunge the intolerable from memory. Just as it tries to conceal it while current. More recently john berry who wrote a New York Times bestseller on influenza concurred, arguing that the national forgetfulness, the nations forgetfulness may not be unusual that is how National Memory works. But it is the commonality that makes important, it seems to me. It is what we do so we should think about it. As a culture, the United States has exhibited a profound tendency to ignore or rewrite those parts of its past that are difficult. That constitute what edward called americas indigestible stories. We know history and public memory is something that is constructed. That we can test over it. This is something that happens with communities, with nations, with any grouping. What is important to notice is that, for the United States we routinely ignore, rewrite, or fail to tell the stories of violence, the shame of slavery, and the mythologized narrative of world war ii. We carefully walk our way through creating a path that really focuses on National Achievement and progress. But historians of memory ask us to ask, what is at stake . What we lose . If we remember one thing, what are we forgetting . That is what i want to mention briefly. Most important is the forgetting that such remembering and poses. Put simply, the simplified singular memory of the complex event keeps us from thinking deeply about the meaning of the events. When Health Care Professionals neglect to really acknowledge what took place in the pandemic, it sets us up for trouble later. Im not an expert on this but carol bierly wrote a beautiful book, called the fever of war, and she talks about the ways in which failing to take on the realities of the flu pandemic helps set up problems that will face american soldiers at the beginning of world war ii. We will be unprepared for things we could have been better prepared for. Theres another way in which failing to remember has an impact. Those of the voices that are silent that my have told that traumatic story. The voices that mightve told us about the inequitable treatment that americans face. That might have reminded us about the kinds of losses, the shattered lives people lived through. How would the sense of opportunity that i have been describing have sounded to somebody, Whose Community faced ongoing segregation or hostility . Or a family wrestling with poverty and homelessness . How would optimism have landed on somebody who had just lost both of their parents . As a side note, my grandfather john lost his parents at the age of 14 in 1920. His father john and his mother elizabeth died within four days of each other. He, like melvin frank, became the man of his own household, in this case, at the age of 14. Upbeat optimism drowned out these voices. We did not hear these voices as trauma. We know that epidemic diseases disease is not only a thing of the past, but it is also a part of our future. It is unkind of me to put this on the screen as we enter a flu season. [laughter] but i actually think it is an important moment for that very reason. I would argue, or i would encourage us, not as a historian but as a human being, that if we face another medical disaster that which raged around to the world in 1918 and 1919, that we might prove better prepared to actually admit to a tale of sorrow and loss, acknowledge the trauma that such a catastrophe leaves in its wake, and perhaps be better ready to provide the support, the understanding, and the listening ears, and those words of comfort that a motherless child, though sufferers, would need in the wake. Thank you. [applause] as always, our microphones are now open for question and answer. Thank you very much. Two questions. One is, in your research, or as a result of your research, can you speak to any backlash for the hispanic communities because it was called the spanish flu . Secondly, can you speak to the stigma associated with the service casualties if they caught the flu rather than were shot or shell fragments . Dr. Bristow great question. Really interesting the way race blame layn terms of some particular populations. People were not making the connection to latinoamericans and the fact that it was named spanish flu. That does not mean there was not discrimination against the people especially latinx communities in the seven states. Southern states. I have a colleague was in the midst of writing a book on that very subject. What is interesting about this pandemic, is the ways in which traditionally americans want to blame someone for the spanish flu, particularly calling it spanish influenza. But when authors work on immigrant communities suggest they were not targeted in the ways they sometimes are, not at the same level at least, which was a surprising finding. Your second question about dying of the flu, that is what is what is really interesting. As tremendous effort to not stigmatized. In fact those who die of influenza at camps in the United States are eulogized in the same language of martyrdom. Nurses and doctors are described as i suggested. The armed forces in blue for the nurses. There an interesting way in which people could see that no one had control over it. It was such a powerful thing. Perhaps also because it was late in the war, so many of the deaths were after the war has come to a conclusion. But i did not come into any evidence that spoke to shame or embarrassment around it. Except, not just in the military but more generally, the thing i was saying earlier about enter about gender norms. When women are sick, they write letters to each other and talk about how sick they are and how awful it was. When men are sick, they write to their boss and say i will be back at work as soon as i can. I am really ashamed to be at work when the war is going on. Theres a psychic weight that male patients have to deal with. That female patients did not. Great question. You spoke about the mortality rate being 2 and the infection rate was 28 in the u. S. Muchhose numbers hold as around the world, or did factors like nutrition and sanitation, medical care, did that affect survival rate . Dr. Bristow it is hard to know for certain, because most countries were not actually using influenza. It was not a reportable disease yet. Even in the United States, the figures we have are kind of guesses. To the extent Public Health officers were able to collect information, they did and they sent it on to washington, so we have some figures. The reality is we dont have it figured out. But it is clear that for years we understood how any people had died. The reason is we did not take into account whole continents that at that point did not have a thriving Public Health infrastructure. We talked about 20 Million People dying because we were not talking about asia or africa. We talk about how any people do think could have died in india or china . Now the statistics are estimated from 50 million to 100 million with higher mortality rates in some places than others, sometimes in ways that are for me still completely confused. We have whole villages north of the Arctic Circle that are wiped out. Every Single Person died. And you have communities that are largely safe. There is no rhyme or reason. Again, i think that is why the work of the epidemiologists has been so exciting and interesting. Yes, inside the United States, it strange in the ways that being poor did not necessarily mean you would die at a higher rate, but it certainly meant you would be much less comfortable during that process. And that the horrors of poverty would create kinds of horrors for the family as caregivers and for the family as those who were trying to do the right thing for the sick person in their household. In your research work, did you run across any information which might lead this to have been biological warfare . Dr. Bristow oh, no. But i did come across an entire folder of people who thought it was. In new york city. This german company. You got it. Hello. [laughter] others talked about seeing uboats off the coast and they are sure thats how the virus got in. Secretary baker, lots of material written to the president himself, writing to the United States Public Health service, suggesting all the different ways they knew it was biological warfare. But no, it seems highly unlikely. What if it was, it started here, right . Because it probably has its origins in kansas. I wanted to know about your research on segregation and medical segregation. Do you have other books or sources for that . Dr. Bristow there are really, really good books. Why dont we meet up afterwards. Who doeshe person this, but it has been under research. I would maintain there are good articles, but there are no full books on race during the pandemic itself, but there are a couple that are coming. I could share them with you later. The names are going to escape me off the top of my head because its not a title. The title has changed a couple of times. There are number of very good scholars today on segregation in the Health Care System in the United States, reaching back into the era of slavery and coming all the weight to the present day. If anybody would like, i would be happy to put together a whole reading list of those. There are so many and they are really, really important work. Again, which i simply in some ways mostly borrowed from, in terms of what i was able to discover. Wonderful talk, thank you. Really fascinating. It got the wheels turning. I would hate to cause any further conflation of these two immense human tragedies with each other. But i cannot help thinking they are linked. Has there been any work done to take a look at the disease vectors . We know there are chinese working in france that are part of the war efforts. Japanese in the mediterranean with their navy. There are the indian regiments in the world. The great moats of the oceans that separated these things in the past. There is this highlevel of movement on the oceans with military people. And if you have ever lived on a ship, even modern ships, we always talk about getting the flu on the ship. You get the blue flu. Some people think the blue flu keeps you from going on the ship, but the actual blue flu is you get on the ship and at some point within the first weeks of being on the ship, you get that ships flu. I have had it for two months, for two days, for two weeks. Im wondering, what is the deal here . Has there been any scholarship on the disease vectors in relationship to all the movement of people via the sea . Dr. Bristow theres no question. And what is interesting as there is still no agreement. Now there are people hypothesizing the virus may have had its origins in asia, which is what we traditionally expect. That is were influenza viruses , the new ones often had their origins. Suggestingcholars that. There are scholars suggesting it started in 1916 on the western front. And again, the longstanding idea that it started in kansas, went to the western front with american troops on the trip ships. I almost included a picture with the crammed in people on the ship. But it was just so awful i chose not to include it. There is Ongoing Research by people, in fact, much smarter than me when it comes to epidemiology. I will plead my ignorance on this one. But yes, there is Significant Research being done on that. But a lack of agreement on the origins of it. Even the smartest people at the cdc and the army pathological institute, again, folks do not know for sure. Ladies and gentlemen, will you please join me in thinking dr. Bristow. [applause] we also need to thank her for expanding your already too long reading list. That was amazing. No, we do not, you asked a question in the lecture, i win and check the books, we do not have that particular title but it is now on our short list. Do check it out, you may find there are other great books you might like to get during the break. I have gotten a text message urgently from our incredible Public Programs specialist, who has really done so much of the heavy lifting to make this event happen. She has made one request of all of you. Just one cookie, please. Ladies and gentlemen, enjoy your break and we will see you back here promptly. Promptly for the next lecture. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] this is American History tv, exploring our nations past every weekend on cspan3. Next, our weekly series the civil war, civil war scholar Timothy Smith explores the 1863 battle of champion hill, which was part of the vicksburg campaign. He discusses how general Ulysses S Grant contributed to a Union Victory in this mississippi engagement. The event was part of historical park small battle, big results. At 8 00 eastern his lectures in history. We visit the College Classroom of professor seth jacobs to what about the vietnam war, and at 10 00 p. M. On real america, from 1985, an Allstar Party for ronald reagan, hosted by frank sinatra. Comedy program of song, and tributes with charlton heston, Burt Reynolds and more. That is whats coming up here on American History tv. We have got a great speech for our second session. Dr. Timothy smith is a veteran of the National Parks service and currently teaches history at the university of tennessee. In addition to numerous articles and essays, he is the coeditor of 18 books, including champion hill, decisive battle of vicksburg, which won the Nonfiction Book award from the