Transcripts For CSPAN3 1918 Flu Pandemic 20240711

Historical precedent . 1918 is the one that comes to mind. And we have nobody better to tell us about 1918 than my good friend christopher nichols. He is a professor of history at oregon state. Hes also director there. Oregon state center for the humanities and founder of their citizenship and crisis initiative. He also studied at harvard, waysleyan and at the university of virginia. Chris is an expert on, i would say, earliest parts of the 20th century. Of course, is he expanding out. He and i, before we came on, were just chatting about new work we have coming out on ideologies on u. S. Foreign policy. That book itself, that term, that title, was a seminole book in the field in 1987. Im really glad someone has decided to go in and update it, shall we say. Theres no better person to do it than chris. Will he talk to us about the 1918 pandemic. I would encourage you, as you look at your zoom screen, on the bottom youll see a q a button. Please, hit that button and submit your questions. In fact, you can see other peoples questions as they come in. If you like their question or were going to ask a similar question, just hit the thumbs up button and that will be helpful because it moves it up the queue. The more people like something, the higher it gets in life. Like anything else on the web. Ill also remind you, of course, there is no chat function here. We want people to focus on the q a and needless to say, but ill say it anyway. Please note one of the great benefits to doing this via the web versus dallas hall, its much easier to kick out anyone who is unruly. So keep it civil, people. I will ask that chris camera be turned on. There he is. How are you doing, buddy . Listen, i just gave you the intro. Looks like a sunny day in corvalis. Im going to turn things over to you. Chris will show us some images, walk us through as its going. Lay the questions on us. He and i will come back and have that discussion when hes done with his presentation. Chris, the floor is yours, or the computer. Yes. Thank you so much. First of all, just want to say thank you to everyone who is here with us. We had a sort of record turnout for registrations. I hope i can keep you interested. This topic is inherently interesting. You dont need too much probably but lets see if we can keep it exciting. Special thanks to behind the scenes running the webinar, zoom functions and also, of course, maybe most importantly, many thank yous to professor jeffrey engle, a fantastic colleague, collaborator and friend. We worked on a project that will be out next year. Look for rethinking american grand strategy. Jeff wrote a great chapter in that book. In any case, i want to do a few things today. Im going to give you a marchthrough of what happened in the pandemic of 1918. This is something i started studying years ago when i was studying world war i and domestic politics. When i taught it to my students they were much more bored, more interested in world war i but not anymore. We are more attuned to the previous lessons we can learn to the pandemic thats most comparable to the one here in 2020. Ill give you a brief talk about that history, and then im going to telescope out periodically to make some comparisons to 2020 and think more globally. U. S. Story with u. S. Dimensions and periodically will pause to sort of reflect on questions of comparison, historical comparisons, differences and similarities. Recently i organized a round table of some of the top historians working on this subject. We dont always agree but i was surprised by how much consensus there is about the lessons you can learn from this. Ill give you a quick, brief rundown of exactly what happens in the pandemic, 1918, and well telescope in and out. Keep your questions coming. One thing thats most important to consider, when we go back to the 1918 moment and here is where we need to look at social history, the human suffering, the human cost. We talk a little bit about the numbers. One of the crucial things to understand in this moment is the story of the people like victor vaughn. Vaughn was a fascinating figure, distinguished leader of american medicine in 1918. Dean of the university of michigan medical school. He becomes the person in charge of the army medical services. Founding editor of the journal of laboratory and clinical medicine, served as a colonel in the army. He led its division of communicaticabe iabe communicateable diseases. The worst deadly second wave of the pandemic gak began in fall 1918. September 23rd, 1918 he traveled to air massachusetts as part of a team appointed by the army Surgeon General. He got there and he was devastated by what he saw. This was a little outside of boston, camp devins. It was far worse than any other communicable disease. Theyre placed on the cots until every bed is full and others crowd in. A distressing cough brings up the blood stain is the putum. The dead bodies are stacked about the morgue like corwood. This is the sort of thing medical doctors were seeing throughout fall of 1918 and because those barracks, as part of the war effort, were so connected to the urban spaces and port facilities nearby, the spread very rapidly got to the civilian population, despite what Public Health officials and army medical officials often said. So when you think about this moment, this moment of 1918 in terms of the human cost, in terms of the humans involved and the suffering. The numbers are somewhat staggering, frankly. This is one of the things we need to think about when we think about the u. S. Case. What happened in 1918 and 1919 in the pandemic was u. S. Lost roughly 675,000 people on the order of 50 million around the world died. Although there are some differences in terms of the estimates of those numbers between 20 and 100 million, the common estimates by historians and Public Health scholars. In the u. S. , this 20 to 30 of the population was infected. In fact, the u. S. Lost more soldiers to flu and pneumonia and other diseases than in combat in world war i. And all of this, in part, was integrally connected to the war effort. Thats the other piece for us to understand and think about. How did it begin . What happened . It all began in the u. S. Context in winter 1918. In march 1918, in kansas. You begin to see widespread illness of a seemingly new type in the american troops mustering there, newly drafted, inducted or enlisted. A soldier recalled of the 12 men who slept in my squad room, seven were ill at one time. You saw 24 of the 36 major army bases in the u. S. Fill up to capacity in their medical wards overwhelmed in the spring of 1918 by the influenza virus. A couple of origin stories about the influenza virus. The spanish flu, that its sometimes called and what that meant. In the u. S. Context, a lot of us scholars now believe that the viral version that we think of as the pandemic version originated in kansas in february and march 1918. Theres some epidemiologists and others who track the virus to vietnam, to china and to france, but the version we think of when we think of it spreading around the world in 1918 comes out of kansas. You can watch that, those of us who study president ial and u. S. Political history. You can watch this move through army records in particular. Weve got amazing data on who got sick, when and why. Largely because of army data and u. S. Government census datea. When somebody says we dont have precedence for this, we dont have good information about how this flu spread in 1918 and 1919, theyre not look in the right places. Us historians know exactly where to look and you can get very finegrain analysis. When we give talks on the flu of 1918 and why its so comparable, as jeff engle said, to today, is that it went around the world. Lot of historians have made different arguments related to this that the world was effectively globalized before world war i. And you see that playing out in terms of how this virus spreads. In a globalized world, u. S. Troops in particular arriving in france are conduits of transmission. Theyre vectors of disease. U. S. Soldiers first began arriving well before the pandemic in june 1917, but the u. S. Doesnt really get its mobilization ramped up until 1918, and that roughly coincides with the spread of the flu. So, as the u. S. Troops on railroads crisscross the nation they brought the flu with them. You can watch that happen in local newspapers. Ill show you a few of those as we go. We know exactly when flu arrived in cities like portland here, in oregon, or philadelphia, or dallas, because it almost always arrived with u. S. Soldiers or troop transmissions of material and aid, civilian workers and that sort of thing. Globalized world spread the pandemic in a way that previous ones did not. The transmission of peoples, goods across borders, including from war work, even in neutral countries spread the disease as well. So if youre looking around the world in 1918, what happened . Well, if it starts in march in kansas in 1918, by may its in shanghai and china, its in new zealand. Its in algeria by june. Australia issued some pretty strict quarantine policies but by 1919, australia has it as well. Sydney was particularly hard hit. It goes around the world within a year, which is a Pretty Amazing fact. It used to be very striking to those of us who studied the pandemic. Now as we look at our current moment, its remarkably similar, again, to think about what happened from the disease outbreak in china, in late 1919, to worldwide pandemic declaration from the w. H. O. In march of this year. So, the great war, though, really helps to explain the conflict, explain the ways in which the virus was transmitted globally. It also helps us to understand a bit more about why the disease was discussed and how it was discussed and reported. What some of the Major Concerns were about talking about the virus or treating it, or thinking more fully about the possibilities for an informed public taking Public Health measures related to t as the u. S. Enters the war in april 1917, French Forces near the western front, one thing that should immediately stand out to you, this is the opposite of social distancing, right . This is the opposite of the physical distancing that is being impressed upon all of us today as an essential way to stop the virus spread. Induction camps, trenches in the western front, if you can conjure those up, images like the troops here, right, they were absolutely prone to spreader and super spreader events. One thing that should also stand out to us as we think about comparison back and forth is that between the 1918 epidemic and today, one real significant contrast is that the overwhelming majority of those who died in 1918, 19 and 20, the other whelming majority, Something Like half to a third were in the 18 to 45 age bracket. That flu, the influenza of that era disproportionately hit young and Healthy People. Their immune systems overrespond, damage their lungs, having them drown with fluid in their lungs in a horrific way. The sort of thing that dr. Vaughn in the opening quote embodied so well, that people were dropping dead awfully fast, unlike our current pandemic, which does not target the most healthy, at least in terms of mortality rate. Remember, im an historian not an especialpidemiologyist or md. Another thing thats important to think about the wartime consequences and shaping the flu responses in lots of countries, but particularly the u. S. Was patriotism. It may strike you as a contrast today or continuity and i welcome talking about this in the q a. You see the red cross women volunteers and workers making masks and that sign behind if i fail, he dies, its both a war work kind of sign, supporting the war cause and also a martial language used to defeat the virus. Weve heard that from President Trump in terms of the invivl enemy. Thats very much the kind of martial language we heard operationalized in 1918 and 19. The fight against the virus. The terming of it with a nation state kind of concept. Spain or spanish flu. Trying to make visible the invisible of the virus so people would take it more seriously. Practice hand hygiene. Accept closure policies, even wear masks. So but theres another piece, perhaps a more insidious piece to that wartime story. That is that nations like the United Kingdom had passed legislation. In this case, the defense of the realm act 1914, that censored the mail that, censored what the press could say and censored what was distributed in terms of information about a wide array of topics that might pertain to the war. Communication in this case is about limiting access to anything that might undermine the war effort. In the u. S. Context, there were the espionage acts, 1917, 1918, as this headline from the u. S. National archives says. I think its a New York Times headline. Sedition bill has been signed, to capture and punish enemy agents but another piece of that was civil liberties, talking about anything that might undermine the war effort. Why am i mentioning this . It sounds like social history or political history. It also meant that journalists couldnt talk about the outbreaks at the bases or had to minimize what was going on at the bases. If you think about 24 of the 36 largest bases having largescale outbreak outbreaks of virus, the troops were not combat effective, could not move across the country and then across the atlantic, you understand better how this possible communication about the waves of the virus and its infectiousness and its fatalities might undermine the war effort. So you saw in this moment in the u. S. , uk and other combatant nations, germany and france, sen censoring of the press. Thats a firstlevel takeway for us. One of the huge problems in 1918 was a lack of rapid, honest and continually updated information in leadership from nation states, not just the u. S. , the uk, but combatant nations as well, austria, germany, et cetera. You think about this. You could think about it in this context as well, right . Dont talk. The web is spun for you with invisible threads. That includes not just talking about elements of the war effort itself or, for instance, the draft. Another thing that Many American descenters related to war was whether or not the draft was constitutional. In world war i, mobilizing millions through the war, many folks, socialists fivetime candidate for president eugene debbs spoke out against the draft, saying everyone might not have to serve, it might not even be constitutional for everyone to serve and he, himself, was thrown in jail in canton, ohio, for saying that. Another kind of limitation, we heard this in the u. S. , ways of minimizing the virus. This was more true in march or april than it is today. But, you know, as the virus spread even into the middle of october when that deadly second wave, plurality of american deaths happened into the fall, deadly second wave in the u. S. You saw documents like this. The spanish influenza is a threeday fever, the flu. New name for an old disease. Previously there had been a big outbreak, previous pandemic in the u. S. Had been in 1889 and 1890. You see these widely distributed information coming from the u. S. Department of Public Health and the Surgeon General where he says its the same old grip that slips over the world time and time again. Dont worry about it. You see this in the fall. It creates problems because americans dont know which policies to adopt at the local, state and federal level even. But they also dont know what information to trust. So ill show you some more images from the era about that. Another piece of the puzzle is where it came from. Its one thing that lots of us historians have had to talk about lately, you know, should we call flus by their nation of origin or city of origin . What does that even mean since viruses are global or not limited to nation states . Why was it called the spanish flu . Some of you may know this. But the main reason, as i said, the wartime nations were censoring their presses. Spain was a neutral in the war. King alfonso xiii kept them out of the war effort. Although they had in their aristocracy, as a lot of other nations did, too, as you may know. The king, a number of other major figures in the elite circles in spain came down with the flu. And the Spanish Press started treating this with lots of sensational coverage. Theres accounts where they say a man walking down the street suddenly felt congested, his chest, his head, his face, falls down and is dead within a day. Although that sounds sayingal, very similar accounts we had from the u. S. Of incredibly strong people, men, allamerican football players, one of the strongest lumber jacks in the Pacific Northwest division at the army, cutting down trees with the war effort sometimes would just fall down dead. So the Spanish Press, covering this, when it came out, you saw first the British Press cover this, and they used terms like the hygiene and environment in spain were giving rise to this flu, or that the spanish werent able to deal with it because of their social because of society. These kind of subtle, racist, heavily racialized terms, then get adopted more widely in the angloamerican press. The u. S. And british spend more time calling it the spanish flu. Before long throughout the summer of 1918 into the fall its become the spanish flu. Of course, by the fall of 1918, Public Health officials in the u. S. And uk, much less around the world, understood that the origins of the flu werent in spain. But the term had caught on. It was kind of weaponized, racialized, nationalist version of the flu caught on. Another thing thats worth noting is that the spanish called the french flu. They blamed french workers coming from the war effort for that. The germans called it the russian pest and russians called it by several names, including a chinese flu. You see in this moment something weve seen today, in the near past. This kind of urge to weaponize and nationalize a flu or virus, perhaps to diminish it or perhaps to better operationalize a way forward to fight that virus. As were thinking about this moment, thinking through the conflict, you also find that the on the front, a number of places, number of french posts, for instance, british posts do have significant flu outbreaks. Throughout the spring into the summer of 1918. What most of them note is that, for instance, in the british navy, some 10,000 troops, sailors go down with the flu but only Something Like four or five die. There are a few posts of the french where everyone is sick but very few die. All of a sudden in late summer something seems to change, in the reporting, in the intelligence we get from u. S. And british sources that we can look back on now, and it changes most importantly, in the virulence of the virus. Late summer 1918 in places that were known to the u. S. And british to have very good medical care, you found widespread disease. And it was knocking out more people. Not just from combat effectiveness, but also from life itself. If they recovered and couldnt breathe well enough, they had such lung damage that they couldnt live very well or they were actually fatalities to the disease. An example of influenza patients in switzerland. What you see in this moment thats interesting to look back on is british and american Intelligence Officers are reporting back in documents that are marked secret and confidential saying things like that the disease thats now epidemic throughout switzerland is whats commonly known as black plague or influenza, although its designated as spanish sickness or grip and we must deal with this now. The affliction has resurfaced in significant form. Theyre worried about the combat effectiveness of u. S. And british troops and to take the virus very seriously. But, of course, as anyone who knows this history, who knows anything about this story, the wartime imperatives, as you might imagine and may well understand, triumphed over that. As troops bring back from france, it looks like, that virulent form to east coast port cities involved in the war, new york, philadelphia, boston. You see americans taking the advice of people like rupert blue, the Surgeon General, and Public Health officials. Despite warnings in lots of cities and lots of states, going ahead with major events. Going ahead with business as usual you might call it. 1918 is this famous moment, philadelphia parade, largest parade to date in philadelphia history. This was a moment to sell liberty loan bonds, help support the war. This was an era where the u. S. Attempted to finance its conflicts on the back of citizens through things like bonds, an interesting topic to think about as well. Here is is an image of an aircraft huddle traveling down parade route philly. Of course, what you all may know about what comes next is how horrific that super spreader event was. Doctors urged them to cancel the parade. They were really fearful of how many people jammed along the route would be a problem and, of course, it was a huge one. Two days after the parade, the head of Public Health said something as follows, ill paragraph phras paraphrase. Now present in the civilian population is some type of flu. Lets not be panic stricken on overexaggerated reports. On the other hand, the philadelphia evening bulletin a little later reported in some families there are none left to take care of burying their dead and others are unable to bury them or cannot get undertakers. Husband and infant dead in a few hours of woman dying. Really horrific. After the parade, it got much worse. The hospitals quickly fill up. They had to build supplemental hospitals. They also fill up. At one point youre getting 700plus people dieing in one day at its worst. Priests who drove horsedrawn carriages to pick up the bodies couldnt keep up. When you think about historians have been hollering about since march, and Public Health officials have, too theres a great report on the cdc website about the history of the pandemic. This is what we worry about when we think about football games, parades, largescale activities. Philadelphia could not keep up in the modern parlance, the curve could not be flattened and the city was utterly devastated because of that. So across the country, Public Health officials continued along those lines, however. Thats one thing we learned. More from philly and also about the ambiguity of that moment. Rupert blue said theres no cause for large if precautions are observed. President of the West Philadelphia medical Association Began an antiscare campaign arguing that the public should be educated to the fact that the disease is not as deadly as many believe it to be. This is eerily reminiscent of our current moment shurktsing down churches, schools, promoted an unreasonable amount of fear. You see an antispitting Campaign Among others. But you dont see, say, a mask or social distancing campaign. You see in the lower part later in the pandemic someone being brought in to the hospital by police who are masked. So you saw a lot of conflicting information. You saw people worried about very similar things to today. The question of whether or not the measures to stop the virus were worse than the virus itself. The city of philadelphia seemingly was proving that the virus was pretty terrible. Yet even in philadelphia you see this kind of information. Im often asked, historians are often asked what about the economy . Here is a great example. October 1918, the height of the deadliest second wave of the pandemic, several hundred thousand die in six weeks. Its as bad as it gets. The wall street journal, in some parts of the country, the pandemic has caused decrease by approximately 50 . And everywhere its more or less falling off. Again, the war is still on. The war doesnt end until november 11th. There has never been in this country, so the experts say, complete domination of epidemic as has been the case with this one. Why do i pull this out . At this point most cities have closures orders throughout the u. S. , but not all. War industrial plants were open, trying to make munitions, rifles, tanks and all sorts of things. In those industries, you saw reported 40, 50, even 60 of folks not showing up to work. They werent all sick, but they were taking and making risk calculation in that moment about whether or not it was worth it to go in to work in those essentially or work industries. You can imagine how other jobs that were less one of the lessons historians take from this moment you can see this in other countries, not just in the u. S. At all, theres no such thing as business as usual in a pandemic. Almost regardless of what Public Health measures are undertaken, whether theyre voluntary, mandatory. People make choices about their lives, about their loved ones who might be more prone to being sick, people who are fearful. Now, of course, some people obviously need to work. Thats another reason why in this moment, 1918 and 19, the pandemic fell disproportionately on those of lower socioeconomic status, people of color, indigenous communities. Well talk about that as well as we go. So, these are the sorts of folks that you saw showing up. St. Louis red cross motor core, teams drilling to get ready for their work. Another piece of the puzzle in 1918 and 19 was that most male doctors or many male doctors have been drafted or joined the war effort. And there were lots of nurses as well overseas. And so there was a nursing shortage and a Doctor Medical staff shortage that was part of that moment. There were lots of calls for needing more nurses and more medical care in that era. Another thing to think about, as you see so many images of the red cross in voluntary organizations essentially, although the red cross merges as a Public Private hybrid. American expectations of Public Health were very different. Americans did and sit stciti around the world, they often fell back on community resources, Church Groups and other organizations, and National State and local ones like the red cross to help out in dire times like this. The challenge was in cities like philadelphia and elsewhere, those groups were overwhelmed. Many of these groups, if you look here, you can just surmise, these are probably women 18 to 45, a demographic most likely to be hit hardest by this virus. You have lots of medical professionals, volunteers and nurses getting sick in 1918 and 19, further exacerbating and amplifying the problems that are already there and social historians have documented very beautifully and sadly, this led to a loneliness, alienation and fear by lots of other people. As the pandemic goes on late fall into winter 1919, you have lots of relatively Healthy People no longer being very willing to help their older relatives or neighbors, because they had seen how many young people, Healthy People had been stricken down and killed very fast. So, there was less volunteering. One story that comes out, the histories of jon barry, nancy bristow, for instance, is a common one across the u. S. , midwest, southwest, east coast, west coast, of people being so fearful and so challenged by this moment that they say things like here is an account from north carolina. We were almost afraid to breathe. We were afraid even to go out. The fear was so great, people were actually afraid to leave their homes. Afraid to talk to one another. Another example from washington, d. C. , it kept people apart. You had no school life. You had no church life. Nothing. It complete destroyed all family and community life. The terrifying aspect was when each day dawned you didnt know whether you would be when the sun had set that day. Internal reports from organizations sort of really amplify this. You see this in jon barrys writing in particular. The American Red Cross concluded that fear and panic of the influenza akin to terror of the middle ages regarding a black plague has been prev lant elant every community in the u. S. One thing people are seeing in other countries is that this fear of the virus has manifested itself in social relations around the world and its a kind of unique thing that we rarely see in history or world history, that everyone around the world would be experiencing something pretty much in real time. And thats something we havent paused or reflected on very much. There may be longer consequences to that. Ill keep it moving. Lets talk about nonpharmaceutical interventions. For closure policies and social distancing and all that tough. Philadelphia enquirer across the great parade, super spreader event, virtually nothing there about the disease. Few days later thats tw weeks later, i think, to be honest, we see scientific nursing, later page, halting the epidemic. Deaths on decreasing scale. Cases averaging 875 daily. An enormous number, right . What happened . You all have probably seen and thought about this. In cities like philadelphia, where you had that parade, you could see the first case then arrives 11 days before the parade and the sailors were approximate coming into the port of philadelphia. You see that super spreader event. It tracks neatly on to late september. How risk the case is because other cities. Sxls, their chief medical officer was the son of a civil war surgeon, who was obsessed with diseases, following closely as to what was going on in the east coast. Empowered by the mayor. Puts on significant closure policies rapidly in the city of st. Louis. Both the proactive rapid complete policies that happened in st. Louis and Long Duration helped to explain the difference in these two curves. And here is another way of looking at it. You can look at september 28th, right when that parade happens and the enormous uptick that comes after that, where alleys st. Louis has a much more prolonged duration but its so much lower and widely is considered a success, right . One of the things to think about is the way this will operate for us all in the fall when theres likely to be a second wave, which is just around the corner or perhaps even in the winter or spring. Its usually tlaut of as three waves, influenza pandemic of 18 and 19 and going into a second wave, assuming if ever we ended the first in the u. S. What happened in those other cities . What can we learn from them . What are the insights there . St. Louis, denver, pittsburgh, some phenomenon, new york with a another series of big events. Its a comparable moment. What happened in denver is something im going to talk about in a moment. Another piece of the puz sl what happened in pittsburgh with its big peak. One element to that which is useful to think about is they closed in a layered strategy. Very powerful catholic lobby in the city. And they wanted to keep the parochial schools open longer. Parochial schools did not close in the fall first. More exemptions for masses and other activities, sometimes outdoor, sometimes indoor, 30minute masses. The argument by Public Health scholars about this is that thats partly why you saw this first peak and then a second peak here in october into early november, that their layered strategy of closing was not a good one. The lesson that Public Health scholars and historians note is if youre going to close, you close completely and keep that on. And if youre going to open, you open in a layered fashion, in a phased strategy. You dont open completely. These are pretty clear lessons. I have the citation to a Great American medical Journal Academy comparison to this. Theres more to it than that. Lets talk about denver for a second. What happened in denver . This is what were seeing in a lot of the u. S. Today as of august 2020. There was a premature reopening. There was a set of lobby groups in the city of denver. We now call them the amusements lobby, places like billiard halls, theaters. To some extent, restaurants. They really pushed hard to reopen. And as they saw some disease going down, as demonstrated in their hospitalizations and what doctors were reporting, they thought that they could, so they start to reopen. As they reopen, the end of october into november, what you find is that they havent done enough to get rid of theyre not fully following data and disease. Theyre operating that market logic of hoping to get businesses back up and running. And thats what weve seen in a lot of the u. S. And frankly in lots had of parts of the world. Combined with one other factor no one knew was coming, november 11th, armistice day, a lot of people went out into the streets, whether they were allowed to or not, in the u. S. , when the war ended and they partied and had fun and met with other people in places where they were wearing masks, they threw them off. In lots of cities, but especially places like denver, that had already begun a reopening, you see a second pooets peak. This is part and parcel that public scars take from this moment. Dont prematurely reopen. Youre never going to know for sure. This data suggests you need to get to lower numbers. If you havent been following it, uhuh look it up. Clearly cities like deny remember in 1918 didnt follow them in part because they didnt know them but in part because they were hoping to get back to things as usual. Here it is, beautifully graphically, is to think about what happened over these different periods, tenweek periods as they adopt strategies eventually, later in this first set. The first ten weeks from september 8th to november 23rd, cities adopt the strategies of closure policies, socalled nonpharmaceutical interventions, closing schools, closing businesses. Practicing hand hygiene. Using socalled ventilation tactics, creating more air flow. Cleaning spaces and then eventually later on into the fall, thats when you begin to see more of the mask mandates, in the fall and sort of winter. You see cities that have second peaks, for instance, or that are particularly hard hit like philadelphia, pittsburgh, as ive been commenting. And what you wont see here is dallas. Ill tell you a little bit about that shortly. You wont see too many other places. Let me leap into that story for you, special for you guys. Here you see on the left a spraying machine used to disinfect the throats and anyways passages of soldiers. These are courtesy of the dallas morning news. These were bits of information that were suggested by the Surgeon General to people presented on the front page of the dallas morning news. We know for sure what happened in dallas and texas. As the National Press was covering influenza on the east coast dallas main health official, dr. A. W. Carnes warned his community to expect that it was coming. And he wasnt wrong. Closer to home Something Like 700 cases of influenza were reported among soldiers at camp logan near houston. We saw outbreaks in san antonio, that was very slow to react. In an effort to safeguard the troops, they tried to quarantine camps. Another thing we saw in this era is that the quarantines of camps didnt work so well. The troops regularly left or perhaps got unlucky in terms of who they encountered and that then led into civilian populations. And so if you think about sports today, for instance, bubbles work, all right . And absolute quarantine. Anything short of that, even a 99 quarantine doesnt seem to work. Thats a lot of what happened in the fall of 1918. So the case in dallas was that by september 27th, so three days later, there were 15 cases in dallas, five of which were in dallas emergency hospital. As you go on by october 3rd, dallas had 119 cases, including some young folks, like a 15yearold who died at st. Pauls hospital. You had hospitals beginning to isolate their cases and physicians adopting the strategy you saw from the east coast, ventilation, air, trying to keep people apart. And it worked pretty rapidly. To call special meetings, to close schools. By the middle of october. But Public Health officials in dallas, like in lots of other places, were divide on how rapidly to close things down and as cases mounted in dallas schools and in hospitals and in social settings, thats when they started that. And so we could talk a little bit more about it. But the point is that actual ly ultimately, historians who study this really closely in the case of texas and dallas suggest that, in fact, despite variations in figures, its hard to know what the cases were, because flu wasnt a, quote, unquote, reportable disease in this moment. Some people would go to the hospital and even die of something called a heavy cold or have it be reported as the grip and not influenza. So numbers vary. However you slice them, its clear that dallas fared better than most american cities. September 24th is when they Start Talking about this and that parade in philadelphia is september 28th. Dallas officials were on the scene, thinking about this more rapidly than others, in some other cities. And so the epidemic death rates in dallas were somewhere in the range of 250 to 511 per 100,000, likely closer to the low number, and dallas weathered this epidemic better than lots of other cities, better than new orleans, birmingham and most midwestern communities like st. Louis even that did very well. All right. So some people ask questions like who got the flu . Babe ruth got the flu, among others. The world series ends a bit early in fall 1918 because of the flu. The red sox win. Then theres a curse after that, as you may have heard of. He caught it, came back from it pretty rapidly. Franklin Delano Roosevelt got the flu. Got it on a ship in september. Again, these are two, at the time, very healthy individuals, more prone to get this in this case as well, the press suggests its not that much. In 1919, Woodrow Wilson got it. Theres an argument that part of the problems of his peacemaking in paris to end world war i were related to having gotten the flu. And some also think he had a minor stroke. Theres a hypothesis that his stroke, if it was that, is related to the flu. Viruses like coronavirus, as whoa know, can lead looed to strokes and blood clots and things like that. Youre probably thinking about sports. Let me get to that. A Little University of oregon football star. So many troops, so many of the football stars of that era had been drafted, went off to fight in the war. And that was a big piece of that moment. There was no professional football at that time. College football was the main thing. Baseball season had concluded and lots of people, and like now, wanted to see football games. Unlike now, they couldnt go. Theres an example. No rooters to see the game. Actually, there were a fair number of colleges that did play. Georgia tech famously played quite a few games, home games. Games were canceled in cities that had big outbreaks like philadelphia and boston. You saw lots of teams that did not have full records. Many conferences also canceled. But they did, in fact, play. They often played without fans n some cases they played with fans wearing masks, which is an interesting dimension to that. The stanley cup, for instance, is another example of this. Until i did my research, i didnt know. Stanley cup ended in a draw. And thats because most of the canadians who were in the midst of it, number of games in, they were too sick to play. So officially on the stanley cup, montreal canadiens, metropolitans, series not completed because of the flu. This is one of the things we think about when we worry about major league soccer, football, baseball, what will happen if the number of plaers get the virus, can they continue . Baseball famously played some games in masks. Spring training january 1919. Im a big baseball fan. Don larson threw a perfect game. One totally masked game. These were in california in spring training in 1919. Although by the time the season started officially they were no not playing in masks. A couple more images and global takeaways as we get to q a. I see a bunch of questions coming in. Other comparisons to our current moment. Flu causes and cures. Saw this. How to make your own mask. Similar to our current moment, current ways weve tried to personalize and individualize, how this it done, how the press talks about what we can do to take agency in a moment of uncertainty. Heres another example of this sort of ways in which things works then. One thing we havent seen in the u. S. You saw for instance in china, largescale facilities full. Of people who are sick. New york, for instance, muttsted and built the facility. And Walter Reed Hospital in sdod. C. On the right, war marshal language. Weaponization of the flu. Endangering the prospect of flu. Dont spit, dont spread it. A kind of injunction against that. I mentioned techniques happening in that moment. Talk more about it later if you want. Tents and patients at emergency hospitals like here in brooklyn amassed or taken outside. Some because of over flow but thought of as an effective strategy. Think how were encouraged to do outdoors, socially distance, at barbecues, see our friends or have kids play is a piece of this puzzle going outdoors they knew about then. You see masked medical officials and people staying outside. Here you see other, another set of ways to grapple with it. Lower right, sort of world war i era tenement. One thing that happened in a lot of cities across the u. S. , seattle is an example. Schooled closed, teachers sent out to teach home economics. Teach ventilation strategies and hand hygiene. They knew about the germ, that they could be spread on door handles and surfaces. Open windows, ventilate spaces to try to get less sort of high dosage in the way we would think about it. Viral loads operating in small spaces. There are staff in crises. A big problem for world war i. You see here epidemic spanish influenza hampering efforts of the depot. Cant call out, groups of people, agriculture workers and folks s to talk whats going o because of so much disease in the community from oklahoma. From philadelphia, oklahoma. You saw similar phenomena related to the government and the role of the flu. You saw, again, these sorts of training. The police and the military providing the optics of mask wearing, and of a kind of patriot push forward. Also you saw this in other walks of life. Civil servants and other workers. And you saw something similar to what we see today. Mask mandates and other mandates. On the left you see a conductor telling someone not wearing a mask they cannot ride on public transit. Thats a piece of the story from that era that very much resonates with us today. Lots of what happened thats comparable happened on the west coast and is very well documented. San francisco has a great study that had court outside. Think of social distancing and spread, at least theyre outside and didnt know about viral transmission as they do today. You see court cases. Open barber shops. Now have masks, getting hair attended to, thats in berkeley. Masks inside for barber shops in cincinnati. Further into the fall people dont want to be outside in the cold. Part of why we worry so much what a deadly second wave will look like but masks and other social distancing can help and they were pu pursuing that in 1918. Classes held outside in 1918. Physics class held in adjacent to either a football stadium or Outdoor Sports rec facility. I cant imagine we professors really want to do outdoor classes but anything is possible and what you saw trying to get back to some level of normalcy in 1918 and 1919. And watching a boxing match, also all in masks. Right . Again, a really important moment. A lot of buy in from the armed forces and other agents of the government. Of course, also lots of bad information. Love to talk more about this, but trying to give you a quick walkthrough all of this. One of my favorites, this one. Flu travels through the mouth piece of the telephone. So quit talking so much. Then related to that, constant and continuous smoking ought to stall the flu. But again this gets at a more serious point, big takeaway. The Surgeon General argued no cause for alarm in cautions are observed. Later memoirs, they didnt know which advice to heed. You see you shouldnt talk on the phone, shouldnt smoke constantly. The Surgeon General telling you follow precautions. Which . Vicks vaporub, getting a vaccine . Didnt work, there on the other side . Which one is it . Is it all of the above . Proactive policies obviously were keys to thinking of that moment and why historians say its so similar to today. Nonfapharmaceutical interventions. Closing schools. Right . Making sure communities get in front of social distancing. Trying to communicate honestly and rapidly what the risks were. That came too late for a lot of the u. S. , for a lot of the suffering but its never too late, one lesson of the 1918, 1919 moment. A lesson going on in oregon. A terrible example. Watch the first soldiers from seattle bring the disease down to oregon through the camps. And on the coast, 120 cases at fort stephens got down other coastal towns. The town of coos bay, for example, one undertaker got sick and unable to take care of the bodies, and as bodies mounted up, it seemed to hit children. Disproportionately hard in the city of coos bay. In particular the city cries out they were unable to find and build enough childsized coffins. Again, historians, Public Health officials look at this moment, when we look at medical facilities overwhelmed and people in destress, this is what we think of. This civilian succumbing to the Dread Disease in numbers that meant it was impossible to carry on. Another example. Billings, montana. Order of onethird to half of the county came down with the flu in fall 1919 alone. How do you carry on . Thats what we see in account after account at this moment. One of my favorites things said in that moment that came out of it was its easier to prevent than to cure. If you follow the nonpharmaceutical interventions, have closure policies, distanced, hand hygiene, can you prevent it. Harder to cure once in your community. A little more on phaseds reopenings. As they reopened, lift and closure orders embargoes come off. Lots of cities eager to do this as weve an seen in states, and this is how we contract the data related to that phased reopening. Slowly following data and disease and not our desire to go out to restaurants and bars. Seemed to minimize spread and therefore allow places that did that more slow, phased reopening after a longer closure to exist in that way for longer. Actually cities like philadelphia come out okay in 1919 after suffering through terrible stuff and finally closing fully. So heres more examples of the flu and the phased reopenings. Flu coming off gradual reopenings taking place in chicago, for instance. Including sports. Heres other examples as we go through. How to avoid it. No reason to believe it originated in spain. Pick that out. Sometimes people think that thats true, but this is coming from the primary sources of that era, from the u. S. Surgeon general himself. All right. So ill conclude with takeaway remarks and probably all thinking about it as jeff engle noted, november is coming fast. What happens with an election in a pandemic . Is that even possible. Oh sure it is and weve done it before. There were, in fact, midterm elections in 1918. Woodrow wilson never once mentioned the pandemic. No publish speeches about the pandemic at all. He made the key the war what the Democratic Party he hoped would do in that election cycle. Prosecution of the war and bringing it almost to conclusion at that point was a lost referendum. Republicans get a bunch of seats and theres a very low turnout. As i say, reports depicted polling places around the nation as quietest. Some didnt open at all. Most did. Relatively few turnout is one key, and the election didnt map on as neatly to partisan a partisan perspective on the virus as we see today. What you see there on the left is the saloon versus the church and the ways in which the two parties were arguing which areas should get closed first or reopened first . Saloons, gambling houses versus churches. In some communities that mapped on to religious sentiment or antisemitism or anticatholicism, for instance. Because remember this is an era of rising prohibition coming out of this. So it mapped on to different areas of politics and what got privileged and not reaction to the virus itself. We can talk about that, too. And a suffragette handing out bonbons. And Warren Harding ran on the platform coming out of the the pandemic and out of world war i. Pushing a kind of restrictions to immigration, return to normalcy and return to society as we know it. All right. As we take a step back, we saw pushback, protest and reemergence in that era. You may have heard about the antimask league. It was an organized league in San Francisco in early 1919 that pushed back against mask requirements that were mandatory. And antimask league is the only really large organized one in the u. S. A number of thousands we see in that piece, 4,500 listed. You see the mayor of San Francisco say no, were not taking off the mask ordinance. Were convinced its working. If you look at the data, death and disease go down after the mask ordinances were put on. But its unclear whether and how much the masks actually mattered. The key argument for the antimaskers were, this is an abridgement of civil liberty, forced to wear anything or not, and questioned whether they were essential, that they were really doing the kind of sanitary work they supposedly did. And there was pushback. And pushback to the pushback. So if you have an ordinance, its a requirement, there were fines. In some places significant jail time, significant weeks. Significant dollar amounts. And there were a number of accounts i can talk more about, mask slackers held on disturbance of peace because they refused to wearing a masks. There were several times weapons were discharged in attempted apprehensions of those who wouldnt wear masks. And insisted on riding public transits, going into businesses, or Court Facilities was another thing people did. And the mask slacker language is worth noting because its the same as wartime concept of draft slackers. So those who didnt do their wartime duty, didnt go into the draft or join the military were thought of as slackers to their patriot duty. And the press took that same language and Many Americans talked about it in terms of mask slacking. That your duty was to wear that mask to keep your community safe. Not just yourself. This was similarly seen in a lot of great cartoons of the era. Trying to normalize that era. That behavior. Theres a great one. Come back to that, if you want. Even the horses are wearing them says that kid, as theyre walking with their masks. This is from ft. Wayne, indiana and trying to teach people and regularize and normalize, even kissing through masks even. Owe behaviors in the masks. Or trying to teach your father or grandparents is another another similar thing we see a lot in the cartoons of this era. Youre probably fairly familiar with this, phenomenon of people who wont take precautions. The mask is just one example of these. Again, very similar in the 191819 moment. Bosh, you wont catch me wearing one and then theres an urgency to wear masks. Another element if you think about going through the christmas season, holiday season, december, you see all of the shoppers wearing masks. Again, this is from indiana. What you also see are these germs, these micros. Microbes. I thought the Holiday Shopping would be our chance to get them but those infernal masks spoil it out. Here you see this being manifested in this moment. And finally, economic and political effects. There isnt that much data but as i mentioned before, merchants in other cities suggested their businesses declined 40 to 70 . There was a big increases in mine output, big increases of steel, 50 or more. And also saw significant u. S. Recessions. Significant one of the largest recessions in u. S. History in 20 to 21 with rampant inflation and more than that. So the roaring 20s of the economy is a little bit of an illusion, and there was episodic downturns in this period. Historians offer argue theres some relationship between the pandemic and election of 1920 return to normalcy, immigration restriction, wanting fewer people to come into the u. S. More xenophobia. More of an isolationist term in american politics and society, and in 1919, a rise of strikes and social tumult. People who bought into the war effort, africanamerican soldiers, white ethnic labors, pols and nationals and irish, they wanted what they were promised after the war and more hours. You see the biggest strike in history, the biggest steel strike. The Boston Police go on strike and get fired by calvin coolidge, all of them. Riots, street riots, africanamerican strikers called s in to beat up white strikers in places like syracuse, turning into racial violence up through 1921, the tulsa massacre. Historians speculate theres a relationship between the social tumult of influenza that killed 6 of the population, 165,000 americans, and the war time experience with this that came after. We often warn people and wonder, how similar is this moment . How can we get past this if possible without succumbing to worse . Final bit of data were thinking global, this moment 1919. Midaugust, 2020 data. Youre looking at the total deaths, total population of whats going on. Much lower percentage of the population has been killed lately, 0. 05 in the u. S. Thankfully, we havent suffered that much. But yet we suffered terribly. Were moving towards 200,000 u. S. Deaths in the u. S. If you look at the World Population, call it the spanish flu with quotes because we dont want to succumb to using that language uncritically, you see a kind of global fatalities in the 2. 7 range. We have. 01 globally now. Roughly speaking again, this comes from my colleague with whom i worked and wrote an article. One thing that stands out is one here. I wanted to leave it for a second and think about this as we microscope and telescope the u. S. Cases in 1918 to 2020 and the world. If you look at influenza deaths raufly 15 million, say, in the world. 191819, and u. S. Percent of World Population versus covid, and that is striking and founding, frankly, when you look at the comparison, the u. S. Percentage of population is 4. 2 and yet were at 21. 9 of world deaths from covid versus influenza, which is Something Like 1. 4 . Its a really staggering, striking change. I have more takeaways. More things, but i wanted to talk more youve heard a lot from me. Its a sweeping set of comparison to the presence and i think its really important for us to take account of that social history, human suffering and the political and social Public Health questions that are entailed in that. Not least the fact this disproportionately tends to fall on people with lower socioeconomic status, viral outbreaks, death and disease. Even those viruses transcend all borders and peoples, groups, races and Everything Else. And so main insights one is that where there were cancellations, postponements of large events and gatherings, school closures, anticrowding measures, et cetera, they worked well and slowed the spread, as weve seen today. Right . Most western nations were involved in the war. They attempted to control information. Woodrow wilson never spoke about the war. We had censorship. His committee on Public Information really sought to minimize and hide infections and risk in the service of the war effort. Of course, the war was won and that was a positive benefit but it came with a cost of more infection and death. This meant, too, citizens were illinformed. Right . It meant those examples i gave about people being fearful dominated their social interactions and lives in ways were seeing in some ways today. It also led to distrust of government and megging from state, federal and other officials. Although there was more trust in other Officials Say Public Health officials like mayors in st. Louis, for example, who did a good job against that of Public Health officials and say mayors in philadelphia. Loss sons we can learn. Rapid is honestly important. These layered closures dont seem to work as well. Close the door abruptly does. Whereas reopening more gradually, tracking data and disease, being ready to close at any moment is most important. And then the final takeaway i have that you all have probably experienced yourself, in the u. S. The main actions were local, mayors and governors and health officials. They werent on the federal government. Just like 2020, local government has been where the action has been. Finally, heres a set of recommended resources. Lots of great stuff. I have articles in there. But there are amazing books and arms, free influenza archive from the university of michigan its amazing. Library of congress has a bunch of exhibit. And a bunch of others. All right. So without further ado, lets see if jeff and i could have a good conversation. Hey, great. I cannot only talk but i can see myself. Great, awesome. That was great and depressing and addition stressing. We have a ton of questions and i have a ton of questions myself. I want to ask you sort of big picture, one historian to another. Why dont we talk about this . I think may half the time the word flu might come out of my mouth. At most maybe a sentens. Obviously this year ill talk about it a lot more. If more people died from this flu in the United States than the United States both lost in world war i sand world war ii, why dont we talk about this part . Thats a great question. Historians up and through the 1960s often talked about this as the forgotten virus. Crosby has a book about this forgotten moment in u. S. History. And so first of all, theyre wrong. You can look at literature. So this an article that ive put together shows how literature is full literature in the 20s, 30s, 40s, is full of references to influenza. You just need to look for it. People have trouble walking upstairs. People have particular memories of being locked inside home. Inside homes. A lot of these kinds of references to long issues or to family members departed too soon. Theyre not necessarily lost generation references to the war but rather theyre about the flu. We import into that the perspective it must be the war. I succumb to that to myself sometimes. So, one. Its there. Its not totally forgotten, but unlike the war, there are not memorials built. In the 20s, you see sports i i bet a memorial yum colosseum yi origins in world war i for playing football, for sports. We see a lot of that coming out of the flu in the closure memorializing the war, but actually doing something lost because of the pandemic. Not the war. So those War Memorials sometimes have a direct reference to the pandemic. You just need to look for it. Why else didnt we talk about it . Some of the things you said there, you heard my historiantohistorian qualified heavy language. Right . Do the tum tumult coming out of the war, are they more attributable to the pandemic or conflict itself . How do you aggregate the two . The answer is you cant so the simple, easier answer is its always the war. But it may not be the right one. Its the reason you have to say flu even when you say readjustment, demobilization or you know, the question of labor activism coming out of the war, along those same lines. Another thing thats interesting and the reason i was writing about this a few times is that my fellow historians of this era said the same. Why dont you talk about the flu . This era, first half of the 20th century, all say what you just heard, why dont i talk more about the flu . One of the things is they didnt have the resources, frankly. We didnt have the resources. So now you have the resources. Ill send you my slides. You can do 20 minutes on the flu. Ill send you my slides. You can do 20 minutes on the flu. Forget it, i will just send them this video so i dont have to teach that day. There you go. Did let me drive down about moralization, and im not going to judge the answer to this particular question, which is whether or not youve been watching the democratic and then republican convention. But Vice President pence said several times in his speech something that i thought was patently obviously false. And it wasnt what anybody else in country was worried about, except a historian. He said several times speaking to the relief workers, speaking to the First Responders of our day, 2020, we will not forget you, and i said, oh, yeah, we will. Theres no historical evidence that we will remember these people at all. Im just curious if the fact that we have our inter connected world, you think theres any reason to think thats going to change from how weve prioritized war deaths over pandemic deaths . Thats a really good insight, and you know, its sharp. I wonder, theres this thing thats happening in a lot of cities where at 7 00 p. M. People applaud and they thank medical workers. That is an International Phenomenon in the way that we didnt see that related to medical workers certainly in 1918 and 1919. I wonder if any of those kinds of practices will have a kind of long echo because weve been doing them collectively in the way you didnt in the past . The other piece of it is, you know, the incredible suffering and death is almost always localized. Right . Thats why i started with those examples, searing examples that are so sad. And because one thing thats interesting about the 1918 moment and today thats tragic. Ever since i started giving talks on this, epidemiologists have been in touch with me and talked a good bit about viral load and how that the amount of virus youre exposed to generally speaking can mean that you get a worse case. So medical folks tend to get it worse, or more likely to. And that seems very true in 1918 data. Now, we dont have enough to make that conclusion definitively, but, you know, i wonder if memorializing medical deaths im pivoting to, like, as wartime. That marshal language. Rather than the suffering of the individuals there dyeing at home or one of the worst cases in 1918 that i sometimes refer to as indian islanders, eskimos in alaska were horribly hit. There was a village of 80 people and 72 were dead. When the red cross workers got there, they found so many bodies decomposing, they werent sure who was alive or who was dead. And many of the red cross workers then got terrible viruses coming out of this, and they were also sick. So this but thats a terrible story thats only sort of in red cross histories. Its not even in your typical you know history of the flu pandemic to some extent. At any rate, so this is a longwinded way affirming your point which is to say i cant imagine we will be memorializing the frontline workers in this for very long. However, i think a very interesting narrative about this moment is the most rapid global march to a vaccine in science and development, Research Science and development and then its the production and, could very well be the story of this moment. Something we dont anticipate. You get billions of doses as fast as ever in Human History and the heroes may be whoever invents that and whoever can do the production stuff. Maybe its individuals, maybe its individuals or institutions or universities. I can imagine those people being celebrated, like salk. In poland. I can imagine the next jonah salk saying to himself, this is my moment. Yeah. Exactly. Yes. We have a bunch of questions. One of the themes that emerged from the questions is actually something youve been alluding to, which is sort of that disparate death and leavality of the 1918 pandemic compared to ours. How should we understand that . As an historian im confused i say, okay, what if they thhad antibiotics and ventila ventilato ventilators . How many people would have died . Can i really say covid19 is less lethal than the influenza of 1918, or simply we are betting at dealing with it than then . My honest answer, i cant say as a historian, and i dont think that our medical establishment can come up to a clear answer to that. Probably not until we see this out farther. So there are really good history, medicine ktsaccounts t explain the viral changes and mutations. Or attempt to talk about those for that deadly second wave, which was so much worse. The first wave all of the british soldiers and sailors are sick but very few day. The americans get sick, but very few die. The second wave that comes back across the atlantic, call it an atlantic rebound, boom, much worse, and theyre using you know, i think, at first this year i thought to myself were using the same medical treatment strategies and whats interesting in this comparison 1918 is like 1920 both in the medicine and in the Public Health measures. Right . Closure policies, nonpharmaceutical interventions and no good treatment strategies. First, remember, they were throwing everything at covid and nothing seemed to work and in fact some things seemed to be exacerbating death and disease. I think the my sense of the data from 1918 is the disproportionate death of Healthy People versus our ability today to cordon off our most atrisk people the biggest difference. And so should a Large Society in the world today not be able to cordon off its most atrisk people . You might see much higher results. And thats also part of the flattening the curve. The philadelphia story, if all of your hospitals are full, youre going to have more death, and shouldve enough, they did. Interesting. So one of the other things thats emerged from our questions has to do, of course, not surprisingly, with the politics of this. Two questions in effect. As you like. Interrelate that as you like. The first is this does not become a partisan issue in 1918 in the same way it does today. Explain. But secondly, i want you to say more about trying to interpret the 1918 election in this context. Because, obviously, you know, again, i tell the story where i think almost all the foreign res guys tell the story is radioed droe wilson campaigns on vote for me in your Congressional Election in order to ratify my Foreign Policy and he loses. Judging from our other experience now, people are not happy right now and when people are not happy, they take it out on the incumbent, period. Right. Absent the flu, is there a chance wilson is able to do Different Things with at least the numbers in the senate . Ooh. Thats interesting. Yeah. First well do the partisan thing. One of the things that surprised me the most in this moment, although it shouldnt as a historian of politics and Foreign Policy is how partisan this Public Health moment has become. In part because of the history of Public Health asterisks have not been particularly participate destine. You can think about fema and political appointees not being up to the task. Thats one thing. The response would map on to Party Politics at the original level, though. My position to social distance or deny any close correlation to my party correlation or voting patterns. Its not necessarily logical. Talk about it that way. Being diplomatic about it. And the 1918 moment is indicative to something i said, perhaps buried a bit, the Public Health expectations of citizens were much lower than. So they werent thinking the Wilson Administration would be the leader on this. They were, people worried, as my account suggests, uncertainly how to respond because they got so much different information, and, of course, they were suffering particularly in the places where it was worst before the election. But the main piece of the puzzle is what you said. Which is, the war. Right . So famously wilson campaigned in 1960, he kept us out of war. World war i was not popular in the u. S. In roughly 11 states the National Guard was called out because there was that much draft dodging going on, which is why you get that draft slacker kind of concept, which then maps on to the mask slacker concept doing your patriot good. The lack of the popularity of the war, the war was not over by the election. November 11th is armistice. 3rd, 4th, we finish that election cycle. Theres that piece. Absence the pandemic i wonder perhaps, certainly, it depresses turnout depending on which Political Science analysis you look at. You see depressed turpout between 10 and 40 in fall 1918. So very significant, but not that remarkable compared to the midterm election. So by 1920 youre back to pretty normal turnout. Despite the fact theres still lingering flu in that season. Thats not usually thought of thats usually thought of as the first continual wave of this version of the flu as opposed to another wave in and of itself. Its the first season, if you will. So thats interesting. And then what was the second part . How do i pivot from partisan mapping on so complete its not even that counterfactual, ridiculous po postlately. If the American People are not suffering through a flu, and theyre about to win a war, the war was in its final days, or at least it seemed like it, closer to the end than the beginning, lets put it that way, that sounds like a recipe for voting for the party in power. And, of course, the party in power gets voted out for all intents and purposes. Right. So is it just the misery of the American People that makes that critical delta . Its interesting because its close. Its not that many seats that the republicans win but theyre on their way back to taking over with harding in 1920. You know, for me, the big part you know im primarily dealing with u. S. Ideas and Foreign Policy. One of the reasons i got interested in this topic is i was writing on dissent politics in the south in particular. The interesting overlap between socialists in the south who were rejecting the war effort and antiwar southern democrats, who were, you know, firebreathing, segregationists, usually democrats. There are some republicans in these ranks, who also are against the war and they think its against American Interest and they dont want to send their offspring or constituents out, and they have a hard time reconciling that with the kind of marshal sensibility the sort sort of southern honor cull they are that certainly comes out of as we think of, like, the civil war. So its very it was very odd for me to see one problem was you couldnt hold as many rallies late into the fall. So the kinds of campaigning, at least at the grass roots level that you need president s didnt campaign much back then, as we know. Right . But lower level politicians went out a lot, and you couldnt do as much of that because of influenza pandemic. So you wound up being, you see republicans win. In my opinion, win more and be more appealing and democrats be less appealing because of kind of of disillusionment with the war and a broader set of beliefs that also doesnt tend to make it into our lectures, for instance, our survey classes at least. Which not only is the war really unpopular but americans really question the role of the u. S. As a world leader. And so from my perspective in studying that, that helps explain why the Senate Rejects the treaty of versailles, doesnt want the u. S. To be in the league of nations. Theres some reason to think that americans like the abstract idea of the league. What triggered that victory without power. But once americans hear more about that and wilson campaigned on that, they reject it. For me the flu is a piece of that, but the war and not taking a leadership role in the world being embroiled in politics is a bigger piece of that story. Lets talk about wilson for a few minutes more. Sure. You know it is amazing that he is not remembered in any way for the flu. Though as you point out, maybe we shouldnt be surprised about that, because its, a, something he doesnt mention and, b, its something nobody expected him to mention. So the fact we expect federal response today, and the fact we expect the imperial president to have an opinion on everything that goes on in every locality today, no matter what the state constitutions say, is that just simply a growth to only tell us if the federal government and the president has become more powerful over time and that federalism itself has changed in the american perception . Great question. What perplexed me about this moment when i first started researching it, this is the most powerful the u. S. Federal government arguably maybe have ever been. Right . You can say maybe the union in the civil war. So the Wilson Administration has price controls, troops mobilized. The federal structures that we think of the imperial president are much more present in the Wilson Administration than under teddy roosevelt, or mckinley, as they expand in the spanishamerican and cubanphilippine war, et cetera. That they dont exercise that power, that wilson doesnt exercise that power is fascinating, that there wasnt an empowered Surgeon General and General Health structure at the federal law is interesting and useful. Coming out of the pandemic, heres a good comparison international. Canada develops a Public Health infrastructure and a head of Public Health. U. S. Does not. Coming out of world war i, u. S. Demobilizes so fast, the classic anecdote as youre calling the Agriculture Services sector in d. Nebraska and nobody picks up the phone, because thats how fast the u. S. Demobilizes. The small federal government ethos continued in Public Health disasters and in wars right after and is indicative of the moment in general. It still shocks me just to say it out loud, Woodrow Wilson did not ever issue a public speech about the pandemic. Its killing hundreds of thousands of americans. Hes just laserfocused on world war i. Hes the first president to travel abroad, you know, during his term. He goes into paris. Millions of people come out. All he cares about is really the war at that point. And Everything Else falls to the wayside. So i think he deserves a lot of scorn, frankly, if you want to judge harshly, you absolutely can for not handling this better. In fact, heres a really telling detail. When u. S. Troop ships arrive in france in late summer and fall, theyre met by ambulances and hearses because of the number of american troops who suffered and died on the course of going across the atlantic. That was never publicly reported in that period. Partly out of censorship, partly out of patriotism. Right . You can understand why that would happen. But thats how tragic it is. And the same is true when theyre coming back from france. Theyre coming back even being decommissioned or getting leave and being met by ambulances or being quarantined like outside of the port of philadelphia. Then you see it come in. Somebody gets leave, right, a couple mps come in for the night, suddenly virus is everywhere. Again, thats a place where you can really judge harshly, the Wilson Administration. And thats all for the war effort. You know . But one thing that is surprising and one reason i emphasize the war on marshal language so much, it does eventually get imported into the Public Health response but its surprising that the Wilson Administration doesnt rapidly pivot saying, its your patriot duty to close your business, pay your employees as much as you can. The other thing that amazes me is the contract and its devastating sometimes, in six to eight weeks, a lot of the virus burned out in the u. S. Either because it just ravished the population or because they took pretty good proactive preemptive measures. That we havent been able to accomplish that in this viral pandemic is just as really disheartening to me. Thats why youre depressed about hearing this history. Its way worse in terms of total deaths per capita and per total suffering, but we should know better. We have access to this history, that we havent acted on it in a more appropriate way disappoints me as a historian and a citizen, regardless of politics. Im completely with you. Actually, its made me reconsider how i understand time itself. You and i could have a conversation and say oh, yeah, pandemic 1918, 19, its 14 months. Ah, its not that long. No big deal, and here we are in month six and were all tired of it, and done. Living through much history is much less pleasant i have to say sometimes. So bigpicture question then, you know. Its been 100 years. Is there anything that we have learned that is actually being usefully applied in the ways that were dealing with this today . Because it seems, you know, were doll the same sorts of things, but i dont see necessarily were doing the same sort of things, social distancing, et cetera, wearing masks, because of the experience of the flu. It seems like were doing those things because thats how we think disease works. Is there anything particular to the 1918 pandemic that left its mark in terms of how were doing things today . Yeah. I think one thing that was speculated about in 1918, and i think about a lot, and i encourage everybody watching to go the same, what practices we had before the pandemic will endure after or return and which ones will go away or be harder to accomplish . Both personally because of fear or new patterns, or because of new behaviors based on what we think is possible. Right . So handshaking or masks. You look to the recent past, sars immersed, mostly Asian Countries hardhit and developed a culture pattern of mask wearing they have done better in this current pandemic. So thats what then the u. S. Or modern western society is likely to do now . And you look back to 1918, one thing alluded to but didnt mention and im a sports fan so i add good sports in there and thats fun to see, but partly because it reflects partly culture patterns or behaviors that are international or transnational. So the king of spain, alfonzo xiii, one of the things he missed most was soccer. So he commissioned in 1920 a new Football Club that becomes real madrid. You see coming out of the pandemic a lot of people missed collective, large gatherings and they want to create space for that. Partly those memorials to world war i that have become large coliseums for football teams, baseball teams, they are a product of that experience of sheltering and worrying about crowds, and then thinking what are the leisure pattern behaviors we want to have, including being outside. So a different kind of appreciation in 1921 about being outside from 191819, which also maps on to the war. Right . Having to sacrifice for the war effort and that sort of thing. What other things . In some way as everything in my talk is the foundation for every federal governments response around the world. Right . We know that nonpharmaceutical interventions work. If you clamp them on fast, if you really trace and track. I mean, this goes way back in pandemic history. The term quarantine literally comes from the 40 days you were supposed to sit off coast of ports, from latin and italian. So venice, famously was big on its quarantine policies to keep out the plague, for instance. These are longstanding behaviors in combating germs and infectious diseases. Youre right to say whats new from 1918 . Hard to say for sure. But in some ways everything that weve done is part of that matrix. And the reason i said historians at this moment are so kind of shocked is that its so eerily similar and the responses in 2020 mirror 191819, especially in the u. S. The pushback of lack of leadership for a variety of reez rens, which we discussed. Nonpharmaceutical interventions, gradual nature of this, the lobby groups that pushed for things. One of the things i was studying in my progress was religious groups and the way they advocated for exemption saying this was essential First Amendment civil liberty question, we need to worship. Right . And the Public Health conundrum, yes, but we also want to make sure you live. Right . And then we also want to make sure that people who maybe dont worship where you do or in the way that you do arent expose d perhaps to what you transmit. And that was something that they debated quite a bit back then. One thing thats interesting as a comparison between then and now is that there was more reverence for and trust in experts to some except and hierarchies. Whats striking is that there was pushback in lots of cities and states with ordinances of various types for closures. But at the end of the day, people tended to behave. They tended to follow. They said okay, hes m. D. S, these politicians have said we need to do this for the public good, we will do it. What weve seen in the u. S. Has been sometimes a much more scattered sense, and in some ways if you compare the two, a kind of emancipation of individual right by politicians saying, its up to you. We free you to take your individual concerns into your own account. Maybe you do wear that mask with loved one who is compromised but you dont wear it out to a grocery store. Where as in 191819, you see this and see far fewer of people not doing that. As i showed you, by no means is that universal. Plenty of people pushed back. But that strikes me as Something Different there would be a referendum on fauci and theres distrust of him in some ways not just because of partisanship questions, but as a kind of expert who might have his own agenda. The 191819 moment was not one where Public Health officials were dismissed because of their own agendas. You know i think this is why the comparison is perhapsed doubly feignful for we historians. Yes. On the one hand we like to think expertise should be respected at some level. The other thing we always talk about ourselves as historians looking towards the goddess of history as cleo. Uhhuh. Sometimes i think we should look towards cassandra and say, you know, the real lesson for historians is nobodys going to listen to you. So why bother . One last question, because i have to be cognizant of the time even though were video. You showed a remarkable picture from love field in dallas, of antiseptic being sprayed into the mouths and noses and so on. I have to ask, was that bleach . It was not bleach, sir, no. Okay. This antiseptic, they were often saline based or had alcohol in them. Yeah, i did a little of the Dallas Research to make sure we got our texas in. And dallas in. And i can highly recommend different resources on that. But one thing thats interesting about that moment was the army tried really hard to make sure they were a calming effect. You can just guess this is true. They tried a lot of different treatment strategies, including throwing everything at the wall in terms of different vaccines. None of which worked. But they produced several million doses of vaccine. They rushed them across the country to try to get them to bases where there were outbreaks or they thought outbreaks were going to happen. They used gargling and saline solution and sanitizing procedures, which also seemed to have very little effect, obviously knowing what we now know about viruses. But they had a Pioneer Medical military Public Health policy that then were the kinds of things you could see, like the cdc much later using as lessons for what they would try to do to vaccinate troops before they go to certain places. Right . We think about this in terms of malaria and other diseases where theyre deployed in the field but its also true that the army needs to take account of the fact that theyre or the u. S. Military more broadly, u. S. Troops can be vectors of disease in the u. S. Right . Which is a weird way to sort of think about this. When i came to this research, i never thought about that, the military would be concerned about its own transmission in the country in a way they do wind up worrying. And thats why we have incredible records of this. Because, you know, u. S. Military doctors are copious notetakers, like other bureaucrats, right . But also they care very much about the people suffering and as i started this talk, so many troops were coming down and dyeing. Right . The really healthiest people were having lungs filling up with fluid. Their immune systems were going nuts. They were turning blue. Asphyxiating really fast. It was really terrible. And another piece of that puzzle thats really interesting it was what was going on at love field and other places because they tried to quarantine them but they had imperfect quarantines. So a lesson thats been learned, and theres recent reports by other folks talking about whether or not quarantines really work is that you have to be so certain that youve got 100 . And anything short of that doesnt work out. We can look at that, even the records of 1918 to show how u. S. Military quarantines almost never worked. That they almost never kept the flu from civilian populations, despite all the quotes i showed you of Public Health Officials Sayi saying, we can keep it away from the civilians. No. They couldnt do that. But dallas took proactive action. The cities and mayors and Public Health officials took proactive action and kept those strictures on longer did better bottom line. I mean, thats one of my main lessons from this moment. Thinking about the fact that the quarantines for the army didnt work, its almost as though 18 to 22yearolds dont do what we tell them to do. Right. Just leave it out there. Yep. So, listen, chris. This has been wonderful. This is amazing and enlightening and could not have kicked off our season better. I wish we didnt have to talk about this topic but im glad we had you to listen to. Oh, thank you. I dont know how we get people to applaud you if they cant hear or see, but i will. [ applause ] so well done, sir. Weeknights this month peach featuring cspan3. In the 2000 president ial election Texas Governor george w. Bush defeated Vice President al gore in one of the most highly contested races in u. S. History. The outcome was not decided until five weeks after voters went to the polls. When the u. S. Supreme court stopped a florida recount. This ultimately awarded the states electoral votes and presidency to governor bush. Tonight we begin with al gores concession speech from december 13th, 2000. Followed by george w. Bushs victory remarks later the same evening. Watch beginning at 8 00 p. M. Eastern and enjoy American History tv every weekend on cspan3. Every saturday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on American History tv on cspan3 go inside a Different College classroom amend hear about topics ranging from the american revolution, civil rights and u. S. President s to 9 11. Thanks for your patience and for logging in to class. 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Up next, author and National Public radio correspondent pam fessler discusses her book carvilles cure lepsy, stigma and the might for justice looking at americans with l lepro