incredibly powerful in your life and intellectual achievement and that is at the heart of this book which really obsesses a lot over those questions of how -- i look at my own life very frankly in this book -- how sometimes you are strong and successful and sometimes you're not. >> to watch the rest over discussion go to booktv and search katie roi phe or her book, the power of notebooks. >> we're grateful to all of you for being here and for valuing the past, present and future of thoughtful reading and writing. the stories of history can teach us how to live in the present and plan for the future, and perhaps no era in our history is more instructive to us right now

than 1918, when contagion ravaged the world, shuttering schools, closing businesses and killing hundreds of thousands. here to talk with us about what became known 102 years ago as the spanish flu is katharine arnold who poured over eye witnesses accounts of the illness from it early beginningses at places like military nice kansas to it effect on a number of prominent american writers like john stein barbing and katherine porter. she read has -- she is the author of self book but the history of london and her book, the world of shake pierce's london was pushed in i simon and shoe center 2015. she union us from the uk, woman, california catharine; n tell to go your ofolk tuesdayed on first

person accounts, doctors, flurries, children. why did you take such a personal view of the pandemic? >> i wanted to write a book that people could relate to. spanish flu where people could read it and find characters like themselves. at times almost like a disaster movie, get people stuck on the titanic or whatever. the full spectrum of human personality types, people -- somebody in this book that you can relate, to very close to your own experience, whether it's their age or gender or religious background. so many people got caught up and cost 100 million people died and also because the were books bit spanish new at the flu, but thed to be largely academic, so they were very much academics for

academics. the medical side of it. or the epidemiology or even the geographical side or the economic consequences, it but less so about the lives people involved and because i'd been a novelist, still am, and a feature writer, a big reginal daily, it was important for me to really bring it alive and just to tell readers these were living, breath, suffering people just like yourself. >> host: in the book's opening pages you say it's hard to imagine a similar scenario, schools shuttered, morgues and hospitals overwhelmed. cities coping with hundreds of dead and dying today. do you still feel that way or are we seeing history repeat nit front ovaries. >> guest: it's very -- when i was writing it i had no idea we would have another pandemic. i'd been reassured by various

sources that such a thing would not overwhelm news the same way but i'll get back to that in a moment. what was curious to me when i was writing it was the day like this, a beautiful spring day, and straight to the suburb, everything seeming absolutely marvelous, and i thought suppose it was like this in the street in suburban area of maybe chicago or philadelphia, somebody is just sitting there writing, somebody is saying, hey, your next book -- you -- and suddenly out of nowhere this terrible thing strikes, and people in the streets start getting sick and dying, more and more every day. well, a scenario like that would have been a horror story. i took comfort in what i knew which i had been told on both side odd the atlantic preparings had been made to teal with just

such a pandemic. it's true to say in this country they've handled it comparatively well. but i thought there was far more in the way of government control tapping between us and total annihilation. coronavirus has been terrible and it has killed i think around 250,000 worldwide, and it's killed nearly 100,000 in the states. but nothing like the scale of 1918 when 100 million people lost their lives and almost inconceivable number, 550,000 people in the states died. that was more than the losses in the first world war. of court the circumstances are different sort this is a little taste for us, like a

minipandemic compared to what they went through 100 years ago, we're get something indication of the colassal crisis that people faced, the feeling we have not had for generations, our lives at risk from something up knowable. we live all of us with the knowledge sooner or later we have to die and well lose people but it's a big shock to be told, you lose your incarceratest and dearest or your -- louse your nearest and dearest or yourself is at risk if you step out your door. and younger people have really struggled with it. >> host: your previous work in history focused on the city of london and the royal family. how did you become fascinated with this disease? >> guest: well, my previous

becomes, about london were all about the dark side of london, the steamy underbelly, death and burial labyrinth, treatment of mental health, capital pub; the sex industry but they were centered in london, and i have written but the darkside of lop didn't, seems natural to do a become 0 on spanish flu and england. first i look at that with my agent, and as we kind of discussed it, and i began to investigate it, it became obvious to me that i had to do a book about spanish flu and then we realized it was global thing and the best way to approach it was to attempt to write about it globally. in structural terms it hat its own problems in creating a narrative. and i used so many eye witness accounts because spanish flu, like all pandemics, going on in a lot of places at the same

time. didn't sort of do a simple marry taafe of one place, china, and the united states. it was literally all over the place. and trying to come up with a narrative for it was like trying to nail jerry to the wall. that was quite time consuming and also a personal connection because my father was a great deal older than my hour and he lost both his parents to spanish flu in the last year of world war 1. so an interest in this terrible thing that happened in my family. i have no family at all on his side, nothing. nobody. and the fact he wouldn't talk but it made it even more intriguing. it kind of hung on to my childhood like a dark hole. so it became something significant to me to write about. i had a score to settle almost.

>> host: yeah. what was your research process? particular he the u.s. where did you find reliable information and getting access? >> guest: some of it was already there. some of it, pbs made a brilliant series but 30 years ago where they interviewed last surviving people who had spanyear flu or lived through it. obviously people had passed on by now so that was useful. also went through people's memoirs. i thought i'd look at memoir, anybody who lived through that period, so i did that. and i started -- and also looked into newspaper records, because obviously online there's some great newspaper resources and if you have the patience to plow through them you can fine useful material or anecdotes and also i

looked at the more academic books where people have, for instance, written learned articles about spanish flu in alaska, or investigations into trying to find the infected tissue, the infected dna of people who died from the span issue flu and some of -- spanish flu and relations inned and -- and canada as well. so a number of sources. the uk, the imperial war museum which proved useful. >> host: you mentioned that we -- that more people died from this flu than from world war i but world war i was an important vector in moving the disease all over the world. tell us about the roll of troop movements and how that influenced the way that the disease spread. >> guest: well, world war i was

terrifically influential, part by authorize the way it spread the disease and partly for the way the disease was not tackled with the same vaguer as trying to tackle coronavirus now. so while spanish flu would probably spread locally inevitably over time, world war i speeded up the process because you got -- for instance troop ships going from the u.s. to europe to fight in france and back again, and troop ships from the allied and the germans going around the world to places like capetown and bomb by umar farouk abdulmutallabbay -- and bombay and taking it with them. the only way that kept it out in 1919 was australia where they had a very vigorous in attitude towards quarantine quarantine which is only relaxed after the end of the war when it got in in

january of 1919, and around about 9,000 of these lost their lives to it. but if you think of the war, it turned the world into a giant pet petri dish with the flu being spread out. it was spread on troop ships and also spread by public transport and in the u.s., by the postal service. one researcher was trying to work out why native alaskans and native americans were dying in their hundreds, and it turned out it was because the postal service was still getting through to them. and it was inadvertently without their knowing spread by the guys delivering the mail. >> host: go ahead.

>> guest: so just that -- because it was so -- such a huge fundamentally vital event, all the focus went on winning the war rather than stopping the virus. >> host: the war also played role in news pull out the virus having been suppressed or downplayed. why would that have happened and what effect did it have? >> guest: that was a question -- to start off with, suddenly in the u.k. if a newspaper delved too deeply into report of the strange new killer that was killing people it would have been suppressed by -- other wives devaluing it or making it seem trivial was to ridicule which happened in the london

times in june when they suggested people had spanish flu which were being ineffected and we should get on with it. in september in the u.s., when it looked -- well, when she spanish flu was making a bold return after dying back in the summer, again, the military authorities were saying, well, yeah, okay, but it's not that bad really, and washington -- the last thing you wanted was the men panicking because guyses were dying on the base and you can't want a to collapse the world, particularly in states where possibly certain people could use it to their open ends and say i should have told you we should have never entered in the war, look how or guys diving you can understand why they were trying to control the information and suppress it but the same time, get at the truth,

then it's frustrating because people deserve to have known what was going on, and of course it got to the point where you couldn't really deny that this is happening because every newspaper in the united states was carrying these huge banner haven'tlines in 90-point with huge death tolls. >> host: the disease also had a profound effect on some prominent american writerses. in your book you mentioned thomas wolfe, john steinbeck,mary mccarthy, katharine ann porter. tell us what they went through and how it faked their writing. >> sure. what is interesting is there weren't more that -- only those four writers -- preeminent people i could find in the states who had gone through it or knew of it. it's quite surprising that as a

phenomenon it wasn't antiabout and mythologized the way the war was. well, in katherine ann porter's case, she was a journalist in colorado in the rockie mountain news and she was divorced, single gal, lived on coffee and cigarettes cigarettes and spent her money on clothes and living in lodgings when she became ill and her land lady took one look at her and threw her out. so that was she turned to -- he found her a hospital bed without which some ooh have died. katharine wise lying in hospital behind screens hearing doctors giving up on her. her colleagues were -- i can -- just makes me shudder to think of that.

she pulled through but she had -- she was vie left-handily ill and when she was recovering tried to get out of bed and broke her arm and then she had a -- [inaudible] -- her hair turned white overnight and never grew back to its natural color. he. but a she took the attitude and she said about -- inmer memoir. it really made my decide what i needed to. do been a quite -- i thought it was going to be a write are shy jolly well get on with it. so she had a good outcome, and she did sadly lose her lover in the flu. mary mccarthy suffered really badly. when the flu began, she was nine years old and her folks decided to go back home to i think minneapolis, and we are going to go back to midwest.

from seattle. and her father was a -- always broke, on the train they soon became sick and the conductor wanted 0 throw them off the train as a station in the middle of the prairie. so to mary's astonishment her father pulled over the conductor and -- he said i like to see you try, and they died. and mary's grandparents were there to meter testify station when the train arrived. she never heard from he parents again and was brought up by distant relative. they were just trying to do their best, but she said it changed the course of her life because she said if she stayed some we have been a normal middle class catholic woman.

married, and that would be it. but she went off and became this fine intellectual and author and contribute he to the "the new yorker" and changed the course of her life. finally, briefly, john steinbeck caught spanish flu and nearly lost a lung, recovered but he was always a bit strange afterwards. one of the common traits was that quite often spanish flu survivors had medical problems the rest 0 of their lives livesd the common one was depression and it was said see suffered from this and -- thomas wolfe, he writes about losing his brother.

imagine having done much withhis life but a description of his gradual decline and death is heart rending, and it's a very good piece of american goth thick as well, very outstanding piece of writing. you would have thought given this is a -- that produced so many other great writers in that generation there would be more but spanish flu. >> host: yeah. i was struck by the way that it seemed to have disappeared from the collective cultural memory, and i was wondering if you had thoughts on why that was. >> guest: yes. i think it was because it was just so horrible. one writer i quote in the book whose name escapes me in the moment, he subsequently went on to become the literary editor of the new yorker and worked with mary mccarthy and he said after his -- a sibling died the

world changed for him forever. something was lost. a sadness which never went away. think because fastly -- gasalier, so grotesque and something people couldn't deal with after the war. it was common to know that you man would go away to the gar possibly not come book. that was unpleasant but kind of culturally acceptable. but to lose people at home in bed from this monstrous disease was a whole lot more difficult to deal with, especially when, say in europe, people were going through four years of it in the states -- seeing their young men march off to france. so this was just the final straw of the painful experience of

war, and i think that's one of the reasons people do not want to remember it. >> host: just a reminder for those who are watching, we -- if you have a question you can type it into the q & a box and i'll ask catharine a few more questions and then we'll ask you our questions so please feel free to use that and we'll contact you via chat if you -- find out if you want to ask your question yourself. in reading the book, i was struck by a number of parallels to today but the one i found most interesting was that when the disease really did take hold in people started to say, all right, we need to socially isolate, people need to wear masks, there was resistance to that, correct? >> guest: correct, yes. this is quite late, late on, really, in the pandemic but a in

january 1919, we had what is called the third wave, because this, too, like certain other things, we hope not coronavirus, please god, came in waves so big onslaught and good back and then return again even worse. so the third wave was in san francisco in january 1919 and -- [inaudible] -- from now on if you wear a mask. i you go out you have to wear a mask. even though legally it wasn't enforceable. and police had ordered to arrest anybody who is seen out without a mask. most people were happy to comply because they had already lived through the worst of it and the last thing i they wanted wade to go back to kind of conditions they witnessed in september and november. however, as always, there's always a group of people who don't agree and this case they stopped -- called the antimask

league and composed of physicians, libertarians, and cranks. so they had a meeting in october, maybe took place outside because that would have been safer -- had a meeting and kind of sensible one said what we should do is do petition and send it to the mayors saying we don't agree with this mask-wearing, please just don't make it compulsory. but of course the more radical ones were, no, this is unconstitutional, against our rights, not what it is to be an american, and we don't want to wear this darn masks. and this went on for several weeks and then at one point an improvised explosive device was sent to the public health offices in san francisco, and it contained something like three pounds pounds of gunpowder and shot and you can imagine what would have

happened it if it had been detonated. it wasn't but soon afterwards the mayor said, right, okay, next council meeting we're going to say, masks are no longer going to be compulsory, but he did add this sort of caveat that if we lift the mask regulations, you do realize, don't you, that the death toll is going to rise. and within ten days of getting rid of masks being compulsory, 300 people died. of spanish flu. so, yes, of course, pair parallelled with the scenes in michigan some weeks ago when people were calling for the governor to be murdered. but it was extremists, sending an ied to the government offices. >> the coronavirus that we're currently dealing with has had

series of outbreaks in prison, and the 1918 flu had the -- much the same scenario there was a doctor there, who you quote in the book, dr. stanley, who had a very controversial, horrifying approach to the disease. you talk about howed proceeded through the prison. >> just bravely. i think shocking aspect what that dr. stanley used his prisoners almost -- well, as an experiment to see how easily his male prisoners would catch the virus and he would put infected men in the recreation room in the prison with people who were not infected. he conducted a number of

grotesque experiments which i can't go into in too much detail but involved castrating various people and giving their castrated general tills to other prisonersers so sigh see if thas would change -- so it's not for the squeamish, but i think it's -- it was the unethical nature of this, obviously prisons like schools are barracks or military bases are places where everybody was crowded close together and obviously the contagion and coo spread quickly but dr. stanley is an extreme example of something taking advantage of experimental quality of the disease. just exploding them. >> host: we have quite a few questions from some folks and so we'll take those in just a

second. type that into the q & a box. i just want dish want to ask you what lessons you feel the -- that 1918 -- what too you think we can learn -- particularly from this in our current moment? ...

i think we have had most signs and very little scientific and we realized it was highly contagious who's coming to terms with the idea of the virus. the electoral microscope was not invented until 1930 so the vaccine wasn't built until 1938. what were doing as we have scientists that were working night and day to try to develop a vaccine and of course it never do so it may be we have to live with this awful virus for the rest of our lifetime probably.

i think we have learned as i've said it was learned with gluck global conflict. i think we learned a lot about being more patient. amazed by the amount of people who will comply with the rules and if they're told to go to the supermarket to wear a mask they do so because they realize the importance not about wearing masks for themselves but there communities for their loved ones. >> a question from sandra few would like to ask your question? >> caller: can you hear me? it is my understanding this

pandemic originated in the united states. i am wondering why it is referred to as the spanish flu? also is there anything should be revealed with the tendency to associate places with the pandemic like the hong kong flu donald trump and others have been quoted calling the coronavirus the chinese virus and that sort of thing. >> guest: i'm getting a weird echo here. according to research i have looked at it's generally agreed that what we called the spanish flu originated in china was brought into europe by the chinese laborers

brought in for the war effort. it spread in the united states and europe and the uk. it was believed the according to calling it a spanish flu's a bit of a misnomer. they started calling at this because it really came out in spain in april and may of 1918. started up in spain nearly killed the king of spain was possible to discuss the flu in the press. so is neutral they could say what they liked in the newspaper and magazines. just discussing this flu in spain gave it the name spanish flu even though it has nothing

to do with the unfortunate spanish people themselves. lose the disease in the 1940s they were in madrid at the time. i agree it has come to bit of a biased when they name something after a country. like the hong kong flu, asian flu. in a way that would not be acceptable these days. recall the coronavirus. that kind of answers your question. there is a tendency to bring out groups that crops up at this time. several people blamed it on spain because they blame them for being neutral. suppose they call this the wuhan flu or the hong kong flu. various groups had different

things they said it was communist flu spread by communist. there is insight the way people name things. >> host: there is a question next from the tosha. >> guest: hi natasha. >> i am good thank you. my question is really interesting to hear how some newspaper downplayed the pandemic back then just like we see today. i'm curious i have two questions. people generally to trusting of the media? like newspaper on the radio. give the question is how do they get the public health information? especially since the science was not there is much as it is today. >> guest: the first one. you may not have been present

when we talked about this. we are in a difficult position because if they said too much about what was really happening they were basically spiked. they were told they were couldn't print certain material because it would upset national morale not so much in the states i have seen in the big headline getting known for getting information in the u.s. from the press then we were many people were in europe generally the people are trusting the press in those days. so mark devoid of these resources. now, we know in within seconds

of what happens because it goes around the world so quickly with social media. you could go for weeks and not know what's happening the next town or village. i think this is the reason it spread so quickly as people did not realize the enormity of what was happening. they did not realize how contagious and deadly this thing was. and in britain we had instances of people not knowing people were dying in their hundreds and london. there's another part of your question,. >> caller: so the second bit was how did they get their information? and where their public health campaigns by government? >> guest: yes there were. in the united states the surgeon general, and by september he was seeing the

horror of the spanish flu producing the impact it was having on the united states. he came up with a whole lot of instructions which were circulated by the newspapers by public information. all of the instructions you would expect. then as surgeon general he had no authority to oppose these things. he could only recommend. many states did was to print handbills advising people what to do. many places closed public entertainment, schools and churches to control the spread. another source of information was advertising so as long as it's advertised we are obviously in the business of making money, the information

is still of great used to the general public. if you didn't rush out and follow these a quick look at any paper would tell you this might help. aspirin might help. and above all cleanliness was a most important. one of the legacies of the spanish flu among previous generations is the obsession with cleanliness. my grandparents generation everything was being scrubbed down and rents and windows were left open i'm sure that's part of the legacy just about remembering the impact of the spanish flu. i hope that helps that that is useful for you. >> yes thank you. >> a question from tessa i'm going to read. in america there what was the known way to alert neighbors to the fact that people were in quarantine? was there a way was assigned a

post on the door? how did they get the word out? the people shouldn't come in? this was a last resort people lock themselves away and they didn't know if you got through it yourself with the way you knew if there's flu on your street is if you saw black crêpe tight on the doorknob you'd realize it was the family would have it. you could pretty much gather there are victims of the spanish flu. in the child's you'd put out aye ribbon. so soon they began to pull

polyphony rate she said that when everyone was in the street having parties the next thing she knew she looked out the window and they're all these black ribbons just hanging on the doors. it was really when things stopped and got really bad. i remember it was fast. it was so fast and its impact and half the street could go in a matter of days. >> we have a question from judy who also wants to read, for the 1918 flu where there is significant racial and economic disparities as to who caught it and who died from

it? >> guest: yes sadly just as it is today with coronavirus. the communities who suffered worse they were high-profile examples of those who died. [inaudible] generally more deprived died. they were in chicago philadelphia it's the word that was used for poverty-stricken conditions in subs standard housing the but it was very difficult there is not sufficient sanitation and water. it did seem this other in community the jewish community, the polish community the african-american community seem to suffer

unduly. i think most of it is economics. as in south africa it was the native africans who died at a much higher rate than the white settlers. i think in new zealand there is a much then similar white settlers. we are trying with the postal service we have a question from bill asking about conditions on native american reservations and the first nation reservations in canada? >> guest: two things came out of this. the canadian example and there's an alaskan example.

people who looked at and researched as community they hated the idea of isolation. it's a two-pronged thing. first of all they did not have the immune system to cope with the spanish flu, nobody does. but they were particularly vulnerable. they lived in communities and not separately. he said don't go out the distinction to them was to be on your own was worse than being dead. together as a community, so many people told them to stay in their cabins, just died. the people who were forced to

self isolate had problems. it seemed to me, this was an extreme example. this is a community where you were alike we are peers but once you are single you were as good as dead. >> host: we have a question about the thomas wolfe a book that was mentioned. i wanted to make sure asset and we have a question from jonathan that you indicated that if no vaccine is developed we may have to deal with coronavirus for the rest of our lives. absent of medical cure is there any time for it to run

its course based on your research? >> we are in the dark is much as people were back in 19181 thing about the virus we can't just say this is a normal flu pandemic because it's not really a flu at all. it's. [inaudible] there's a book out about this in a recent article she said we can have social isolation for the next two years and maybe that no vaccine becomes available. this is worst case scenario, it may be something it is the not knowing that gets to all

of us. it's the pain and suffering everybody has to go through and bring to a lesser extent. the people who can't pretend on their deathbed and plan their funerals. i think they thought it was a huge crisis and i don't think we will go through it anytime soon. but i guess we will learn to live with it as we've had to live through that and terrorism. something terrible that we acknowledge the way our grandparents managed it. >> host: how did the spanish flu, how the 1918 flu, how did it end? >> guest: good question. everything i have looked like that died by attrition and became weaker and weaker and it sort of absorbs the population. you could say it was an

example of herd immunity that is a discredited notion that we should just allow coronavirus to be unleashed in the population. it's kind of the do or die. general understanding was it became weaker and weaker and died away. but obviously don't think that will happen with coronavirus. with this spanish flu lived on until about 1920. jon barry apparently said someone in his family died of it in 19209 so it's quite remarkable it stayed until that point. and i'm not able to examine that in detail i would like to.

sue went last question we are going to take is from kerri. knowing that your book is so reliant on first-person accounts, have you been keeping a written record of your experiences in the current pandemic for the future? and what do you encourage people write about so that future historians will have the type of personal accounts that help to write the book? >> guest: that's a excellent question. a lot of companies are encouraging people to do that. i keep a diary and i just put down little snippets is a something i've seen at the grocery store or scandal that has been reported to deal with it. after this i don't think i want to write about it in a

significant way. i want to say thank you for publishing my books and you guys have the list. i think it is great of people can keep a dryer anyway. there's a project called my conservation in the uk people were in factories, offices, schools and churches were encouraged to talk about what life was like they had research and so i did have a diary because if you want to leave it as part of your family tree for someone to read and people look back over it in ten years time you might

want to use it as a basis of a story. so yes keep record of it, i do. >> host: thank you very much your insights and for the book itself which you can order via the links we dropped in the chat earlier. little put that link back up again for those joining us and kathryn thank you for joining us for being here with us, thank you everyone for coming we have enjoyed this conversation. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> book tv continues now in cspan2, television for serious readers we're going to talk with chris rose, whose new book the kill chain. high-tech warfare