tiny deaths. the untold story of lee and the invention of modern forensics shows us several dollhouse sized crime scenes that are used in the -- he relates the story of miss lee, who constructed the dial around months in the mid 19 forties and harvard university and who helped pioneer the science and crime scene investigation. watch tonight beginning at 8 pm eastern and enjoy american history tv every weekend on c-span 3.

and 1918 a flu virus infected one third of the world's population. up next on american history tv. laura vote with the national world war one museum and memorial discusses the correlation between the 1918 pandemic and today's global crisis. she's joined by nancy, the university of -- , this event was hosted in partnership with the library system and the world war one museum which provided the video. -- about the fact we might have been here before. thank you for being part of the rsvps. you all give us over 250 amazing questions to answer.

and we are going to do our best to address some of them in broad strokes to begin with. and then to really kind of run through and do as many deep dive questions as we possibly can of the and of our conversation. again, i wanted to shout out to, there are people from across the united states. from washington to pennsylvania on. hello texas, virginia, california, nebraska, georgia, casey moe, everyone from the towns mentioned in your county libraries. hello catherine fighter. delighted that you're joining us from new york.

i think that she is working her way into our space. while she does i think i know with the first question is going to be. there you go. fantastic i'm afraid you might still be muted. >> can you hear me now? >> yes. we want to start with the question when, where, how did the spanish flu began? what caused it? >> nancy. >> i'm going to jump in really quick to suggest that the name spanish flu itself is a misnomer. this flu did not begin in spain by any stretch of the imagination. in fact it was called the spanish flu by contemporaries because the nation, the world i should say was at war. world war i was underway.

spain was not a belligerent nation. they did not have wartime censorship. so as a country of the country of the country's a comes to this flu attack, they hid the information. didn't talk about how many citizens were set because they wanted to look strong in the midst of the conflict, except for spain. spain told the story. so they got blamed for the flu when it is far more likely that we should be calling it the american flow. in fact that's, right your neighbors there in kansas. >> many of them actually say that. i think it's the first reported case. it's happened at camp fenced and. this is port riley. there's also a lot of scholars who might disagree. they might say it's one of the first reported cases coming from this space that you see in front of you. but there could be some evidence that shows that it could have started earlier, and

earlier variant may have occurred in the uk, and france. i know there's one scholar who suggests china. but the united states, this is a place that we can look at. and i have to say, we just pull this out of our archive at the national world war one museum and memorial. it gives me the key teepees right now. you can see how all of these people are really closely packed together for a football game. i believe it's going to be 1918. so right before you have this spread. this is right as this is all starting to occur. so you can see, we all know being in close proximity and the like you certainly are sharing air and germs, and all of that other good stuff that may not have been there years ago. but you end up having the first

reported cases happening. this was the picture from our event itself. this is the picture of the medical space at camp sandstone. we are right in the midst of a war. you have these individuals who don't really understand the full extent to what's going to be happening just how contagious it is. how quickly it is moving. and it is in many ways back for us in the united states the feeling of being in march, february, we don't necessarily know. people are packed together and they are moving out from the middle of the midwest. i can you can kind of see how all of a sudden you have this transporting of a virus. you've got americans who are early and again russia. americans who are serving in china. so it is really easy to see how it becomes this global, very

quickly becomes this global pandemic. it is in many ways similar to the type of travel that we've had in the modern era. it's really the type of mass movements that are occurring at the time. >> one thing i would add to that. it could be relevant as we talk about that. in the first cases and cat kansas people are not aware that there is a global pandemic about to happen. which is not how we were when we were first hearing about wuhan. it's that mobilization of the troops the take it over to europe, this is happening in the spring and summer. it's when it arrives in the western front that people start noticing that something is happening. then in late august there is a shift in the virus. that's when you get really explosive illness that we associate with the pandemic. it's almost as if there's already a second wave, but the

first we've had moved through without the same kind of severity. >> what were the public health measures back then? and where they as politicized as they are today? >> that's a really great question. i saw some of the questions that some of you asked. they were incredibly poignant as well. i think that some of you asked things like how did they cope with the stress. some really good, we've got some great questions and there. i will just show some pictures of the era. nancy, do you want to speak to some of us here in a second.

i want to start with a letter from the collection we expected to be quarantined upon arrival. it was unexpected. they had as many jets as they did on the ships on the way over. it's something that would not happen again. people did quickly learn about the disease. how about the virus. they tried to take measures to the best of the knowledge that they had at the time. it's the same thing that we've been experiencing as well. so they started off educating with the best information they had available. sneeze but don't scatter. that's really not the same version of this at all. but that's the point. right? it's telling you not to scatter. so it's almost 100 years ago the exact same thing that we tell our elementary school things to do today. there's some not so good advice. soup.

or other remedies that may not have necessarily been so helpful. you have to look a little later in the second paragraph here, there seems to be no prevention of the influence of it, there's no -- from coughing and sneezing are two of the most important causes. feel free to use the word coughing as often as you want over the next week. and think fondly of us, and how the language was used back in the day. now every man should see to it that he has ventilation. so these questions that we look to, look to today. lastly when you get ill, go see the medical officer. this is one of my favorite photographs. this courtesy of the national archives. the question that many of you had about masks.

this is the third regiment on its way to france. they're going to seattle. you do one of them had -- a offered by the seattle chapel, and a cross. and folks are trying to figure out. i believe that this is a picture from ku hospital. they're trying to figure out what's causing. them i didn't add those in specifically but doctors are really trying their very best to get to the root cause of what is spreading it and the like. you can again see some of those specific ways that folks are trying to address the public health issue. do you want to add more? >> i think you've nailed what is so important here is that on the one hand they can't see the virus. they don't have the technology, so we are in a much more

advanced position because we can identify the virus immediately. they don't have the technology. but they did understand germ theory. so they were operating sort of odd faith that these measures should help. but they cannot tell whether they were either. so it was really a tough struggle i think to get people to continue to follow these restrictions. but it was very much the same ones. closures. not a lot of public meetings. public masking. quarantining of the sick. it's just down the line almost identical to the measures that we are taking today. it is just that we know, because we have their data in fact, as well as data we have produced this time around, we know that these measures work where as they are having to use them based on faith and believe on the leadership is asking for. that's what i think is so interesting here.

i would argue that it is not in any way as politicized. in this iteration of a terrible global pandemic, and our nation at least split south very much around party politics and around elections. so to wear a mask or not wear a mask, is to make a political statement of sorts. there's nothing like that in 1918. to do see though is public resistance nevertheless. at the beginning of a pandemic people are anxious to do whatever it takes to stay healthy but as they realized that people around them are continuing to get sick and died there is kind of a loss of faith in the leadership because they cannot know, they don't have the idea of flattening the curve, that we can throw around. as communities go through a very serious wave in the fall of 1918 and it is followed by another wave in the winter, spring, it's much harder to get people to cooperate and that next wave, because like wait a minute, we did what you said. we are still getting sick.

i am over the whole masking thing. so that is where you end up. >> to the person who asked quite specifically the question, did the u.s. population behave themselves better before than this go around. i feel like the doctor just answered your question. thanks for running it that way because it may be laugh. it is part of our everyday experience. and for the person who asked how do you trust a person not wanting to wear ppe based on information from past history. we have information here. hopefully we have more for you in just a bit. someone else also ask a really good question. not only about good health care workers where. at the answer is definitely. yes but also about the death toll to health care workers. and if you can still see. it if you take a look at the left-hand side and you see the

woman with her arms crossed you can actually see how thin that mask is. what we benefit from is that we know the importance of having a thicker mask, and not being able to blow out a candle from behind in the light. a lot of the masks that were provided, she made it out of this gauze material, they were not as effective as they are today. it was a great question about the death toll for nurses. i can say that one of, in our museum and memorial, international museum and memorial there is a listing for the dead, in the greater kansas city area. we do have one nurse who we know died of the flu who is listed on that wall.

she is taking part, and giving humanitarian away. she didn't die of combat. but because she was there in those spaces. so those deaths absolutely are part of that sacrifice for the war effort. it also gets a little bit complicated for some of the other questions that come leader about death toll as well. >> okay. overall, how do you think that the two pandemics compare? and was 1918 overall worse than 2020? >> there's so much to be said here. don't be too -- >> you are dealing with two different viruses which is important to notice. in 1918 you were dealing with a level of exposure and infection.

the infection rates are about a quarter of the population or a third of the population worldwide. something like 5 million people are infected with the disease so it is a extraordinary number. it also has a high mortality rate at two and a half percent in the united states which is higher than what we seem to be suffering with covid although i think that the statistics are really and clear. as are the statistics from 1918. one thing that they had an advantage of in 1918 was that you weren't able -- there's no asymptomatic problem that we are wrestling with which probably helped in terms of trying to keep those who were sick away from those who were healthy. in terms of the virus itself you're dealing with something that is quite different and they do lose 675,000 americans out of a population of 100 million. so we're not yet at the death toll, were much larger today. in terms of sheer numbers at

this point it was worse and it was compressed into a tighter time terry. it almost all of the deaf takes place within four to five to six period, but then in terms of how people make their way through it there are so many similarities. it's frankly awful as a historian to watch. a lack of federal leadership in terms of the purse in the white house in both cases, woodrow wilson's never says a word about the pandemic and we know that the former president of the white house in our own time you know gave a lot of misleading misinformation around the pandemic that was not very helpful. in both cases without the leadership from the very top, the federal program, we had a scattershot approach in both cases were city to city, county to, county state to state there is so much variation. but you want most of all in a pandemic is a unified approach. not to say that each community wouldn't be indifferent faces

because we are dealing with different moments in the pandemic. but that you should have a shared plan of attack because viruses don't care about state lines. they don't care about county lines. we have that coronation from above. another thing that i think is really important just to remember is the most important thing is the same about both which is the main story is trauma and suffering. and loss of life. and that is shared across you know the sensory. it was just as dramatic and perfect for people to lose their loved ones as it is now. and criminally i would argue, today, as in those days, that is in equitably distributed in society at that for me is frankly criminal in 2021 that we could have been in place 100 years later where those same kinds of racial divides and the same costs of poverty would still be so blatant but those are the things that immediately come to mind for me in terms of similarities that are really

marked, despite the difference in the virus itself. >> okay. and i would say for mean, being a curator at a museum app to go back to the primary sources. i will read this out loud unless it is not clear on your screen. this is from the highest medical person in the land warning the country that the influenza epidemic is by no means -- all possible precautions against the disease should be taken. it was issued by the public health service. reports received by the service show a recurrence of the disease practically from one end of the country to the, other he advises the closing a public schools on the first side of the reappearance of the epidemic. i feel like that is almost, maybe not the exact words of doctor fauci but there is a real sense of this exact same

sentiment that is also just happening right now. we are in a very similar place. you can see here and eighth letter from walter, whose mother in the spring's, pardon me, the ban has stalled everything, school will begin next week, also picture and church shows, as everything has been closed for a month. we have this real similarity. this isn't new this question about tweet close schools? do we close churches? what happens economically to those future shows and the like? nancy i thought you brought up earlier, when you used to teach

this you would say imagine closing eight school for two weeks. >> that is one of the differences, it is so difficult to know what to do. because you don't know what's going to happen next. but this issue of closing schools, they were talking about something that might be in the community for two or three or four weeks. and here we are almost on a year anniversary of when my university for instance sent me home and said you are teaching virtually, which i found out on a saturday night. we were dealing with a wartime period, but didn't have computers, so we were able to stay in touch, i've been teaching -- they did not have that option. it sounds crazy to say i feel lucky but in some ways i feel the technology we have has been a real bonus. also for those who have been

sequestered as individuals. my mother is 91 so she can be upped and about but as soon as i get out of here my next stop is the families in which we do every night, i'm grateful for the technology that we have. they have to live with that in 1918. i love this point about the churches and schools. these were absolutely hot issues just as they are today. there is disagreement about whether or not a close. this their disagreements about when you should open. them and it was off in the same players that would take this imposition. so there's so much residents it's really fascinating sometimes to watch us.

their city board of health recommended against using a streak [inaudible] to avoid crowds, personal hygiene, all surfaces to be canceled or held outside, wearing face mask. they later in forced it as a final ordinance. they did something similar in seattle has. well you could actually see a court that is being held

outdoors because they were encouraging folks to do that. it is also in san francisco that they had a scene of a pretty significant anti mask protest. and now if you are looking for similarities right here --. >> and one of the things that's really interesting about san francisco is that they had half masks and as things got better they quit wearing them at one point. but during that first time period, y:!'they still had the k ordinance in place and the mayor and the chief of public health were spotted at a boxing mask without their masks on. it completely undercut the whole masking effort in the city and it goes back to the way that sort of modeling public health, if there are restrictions, then having leadership and model those, it can make a difference in the public --'s response as to whether they feel compelled and also to follow the rules. in south of san francisco it didn't help them. they went on to have a much bigger health rate and seattle had. >> let's see, we've got a couple of other images here.

again, back 100 years years ago as today on your left hand side you actually see an advertisement for what we would now refer to as [inaudible] saying is going to keep you from getting infected. so there is that element of capitalism that we see in other aspects of our lives, and journalism as well. image here courtesy of bonnaroo springs library. cannot say when schools will be opened up again. everything depends on what course the flu epidemic takes. new cases on decline. i, again, i feel like that's a similar hit mind that you might be seeing in other spaces today. so you know, those feelings that intensity, trying to find that balance. that is exactly what people were doing 100 years ago, and are encountering again today. at the national world war one

museum and memorial we had a really wonderful teacher resource at that was put together by our school program 's manager cheree kelly and we give you the example guide. we give the example because we are still in the middle of this covid, and then asking students to kind of do a comparison between 19 ancient 1918 from history books and then taking a look at whatever your current events say at the time that you might be using this and doing this comparison between the past and the president but. the nice thing about really good teacher resources that they are hell or helpful no matter your age so i'm going to run really quickly through kind of going through these different comparisons. and again this was crafted prior to getting all your questions here together. but we'll give you a link about where to grab this and nancy,

i've got a question for you about waves of infection, later on, and again. whether or not you would say that it's three or four. actually, all just not you with that question right now. >> you know, i'm not sure. i'm not an ebay epidemiologist, i want pretend to be one. i have family that are actually medical health professionals so i have to be really careful not to say anything silly. it's hard to know. what we do know is that there's a fourth -- there is a period in early 1920 when many americans to die off influence and we know manual, and two of my great grandparents are among them. so i always assumed that they were part of the flu pandemic until i found out they died in 1920. i thought, well maybe they weren't. howard markle at the university of michigan suggested to me that there may be a fourth wave that happens in that winter of 1990 -- 1920, or it's a seasonable seasonal flu. one of the questions will get to his what happened to the fluent spanish we? while it's still around, the descendants of many of our

seasonal flu today are descendants of that fires from 1990, and 1918, and what happens is it shifts again as it did in the fall of 19 or 18, and so get becomes less deadly and less infectious and it peters out but it doesn't disappear and it continues to be part of the influenza world, so to speak. >>. >> okay. next question. how did the news report about the 1918 - 19 influenza? how different was it then that now? >> i think nancy already gave one of the best examples, which is, again, that spain did some wonderful journalism. and that's incredibly important, as [inaudible] can attest, the importance of good journalism in the world. and they wanted to get that information out there. and spain, i think it was part of the royal family that had come down with eight, and they

felt it was imperative that it was, that it was kind of their moral responsibility to let the rest of the world know that this thing was occurring. and that is not necessarily the case for other spaces that had greater censorship on their newspapers and the like. the united states doesn't have the same level of sensitive censorship as what's happening in britain or in france. so that's -- that's the first big, big council on that one. nancy, i think you've got more. >> well,, it's one of the things that's really remarkable is -- and i'm often asked this question -- that did they not just half as good of information? and it's true that information travels much more slowly, right? there wasn't a 24/7 news cycle. but even the smallest downs would have one or two weekly, so everybody pretty much most americans in the contiguous states would have had actually takes us to a newspaper, and it would include international

news, it would tell about, you know, how many people were dying in germany and england. and what happened to the queen's sister, and it would happen in your creek and what's happening down the road in white plane and it would have localized stories about so and so's daughter who moved away to maryland seems to have passed from the flu. farmer johns down the street was sick and his three children also ill. it was really closely documented in the newspapers, with a lot of really terrific information. it's before everything was digitized, newspapers were one of the most important sources for getting access into how, you know, literally what happened. but newspaper reporting has been really important and influential in our and a standing. because people still had news, it just didn't travel quite as quickly. but it was pretty good clues news, and pretty well done news, i should say. the news was very, about obviously. >> that's true.

we've got again -- and these are images thanks to -- thanks to our library partners, who are -- our partners within this this evening. you've got some really good examples. you no program for combatting the flu. i think we just got one earlier. that's looking at the different, different levels of reporting, as we're going through, and the number of claims -- pardon me, there we go -- right? so you can see, in some ways, that similarity. because you get the daily update, just like we do today, right? so topeka is still in the questions of the flu, epidemic continues to spread, 100 new cases. december 2nd. december 3rd, 200 new cases reported yesterday. so you have this seeming level of pretty, pretty expensive amount of information that you can get in report within 24 hours, which in some ways isn't

bad. having a day to be able to be able to process it information is, is not necessarily a bad -- is not necessarily a bad thing. and really, to support what nancy said, there's a lot of importance and in some ways we are losing -- we are losing a real resource in information when we are losing our smaller newspapers, when they might be getting bought out and we can see different examples -- these are not necessarily all small newspapers by the way -- in case you're joining us from outside missouri, kansas area, we want to make that part clear for you here. and >> and you can notice to, all this constant conversation about what are the rules? what are you allowed to do? should we write thinking about this move soon of closing the state? a constant conversation and controversy? really, really, about what public health measures should be taken, when they should be taken, how long should they

last, when they can be lifted? >> and you can see here, speaking to what nancy was talking about earlier, about this idea of a potentially a fourth wave, right? this is february of 1920. and still how -- how it's affecting communities. because that's going along. and some of you have asked questions about globally, how is that -- what did that look like? here's another really good example of options government hurled, rates of encouraging folks to do what they needed to do what they needed to do to try to stop the spread of the -- stop the spread of the pandemic. >> okay. and how did the flu pandemic and in 1920? >> well as i mentioned before, so influenza is a fires that move very quickly. it's one of the reasons, right? that it's so difficult to get the flu shot right, because they have to decide ahead of time which virus they think

will be most important so they can produce this vaccine for us. but the time flu season comes around, that may no longer -- that virus may have already drifted off into some of the virus and the shot won't be effective at all. so it's a virus that's constantly changing, and that's what happens, is it continues to change, and at some point either, you know, with the end of the winter wave in 1919 or the end of the winter wave in 1920, it -- it drifts enough to no longer be so infectious and so deadly. because it's interest its -- interest -- off and criticize for and throckmorton viruses, i can't help myself -- they did not have modification. the one thing viruses do need to do, though, is to wrap placate them selves, which means they do need victims. they don't care whether the victim gets really sick, they don't care where the victim dies, they just need to be able to reproduce themselves. and so at some point, it drifts enough that it just ceases to be a pandemic scale virus. but it does, i say, did prove

cyst, it is -- there is a wonderful piece by jeffrey calvenberge4r -- he's one of the people who mapped the 1914 fires. he has a piece named won the once and future fires. [inaudible] the virus is still with us, it never went away fully. still needed. we've got a really nice quote here about the influence of waves in kansas. there were no waves in 1920 are part, in the disease [inaudible] but there was no armistice to celebrate as well. so whether or not so -- this comes from a kansas state board of health epidemiologist. but you can see how this actually contradicts a little bit of some of the conversation, some of the things that you are seeing a little bit earlier a -- little bit earlier there as well. so in [inaudible] quickly. thanks to the kansas state

library, we've got a very specific [inaudible] death and death tolls. and i think did you have more -- i apologize -- did you have more on that particular question, nancy no but someone has fought the attention on it, but there is something called influence out cycle pdf. it was created by scholars and university of michigan and they've done stories on 50 american cities. given that we have a audience from all over the country may be interested in what happened in new york, louisiana, or or. again 50 different cities. they have a multi paragraph story. sort of a overview of what happened. then they have a timeline to can look literally day by day by day. then they have links to lots and lots of newspaper articles

from that particular cities press. in depending on where you are, from you can find that to be a fun community to see would happen in your pandemic. it's only 50 cities but it's a incredible resource. the done a lot of the work for it. not your own hometown, perhaps you can find a town somewhere near you. >> i would be remiss if i didn't at this moment also say depending on where you are any joining us from take a look at your own local libraries. there are a lot of incredible resources there. reach out to a librarian. they are super heroes of information. they can point to into some really good spaces. always of course feel free to reach out to us, and our research center, but wherever you are located there is likely just a treasure trove of information. there may not be memorials. as a matter of fact, i'm fairly certain there are not a lot of

flu pandemic memorials around the united states. some of that makes this unique. this pandemic is a layered on top of this destructed, horrific, catastrophic global war. sometimes, i'll say this as a cabinet for some of the questions that may come up. and the real specifics -- specificity of the numbers it is hard to discern where to put a number when you are surveying, or your nation, and you die of the flu. so there is some difficulty with exact statistics. at the same time there is a whole other layer of just last that occurs in this timeframe.

>> okay. and what are the most important things, do you think that we've learned since 1918 pandemic? >> that is such a great question. i will admit, i believe there are things that we did not learn that led to i think we have not learned to take seriously prevention and preparation for this type of thing. we knew that there would be a pandemic of the sort. we expected it to be influenza, this is my own opinion but my sense is we really need to put more resources and preparation. for instance a more robust systems for developing a vaccine where you could use for instance the international laboratories. a better local plan, globally,

nationally, we did not really change our public health processes and the country, many countries, did the united states did not. one of the things that we did learn and super important is that all of the scientific research done since. so we can see viruses and, now we know how viruses, work we have a vaccine which is a stunning accomplishment, and how quickly it was done beyond anyone's guess. again that is a stunning accomplishment of the federal government for which i am deeply grateful. another thing that i think that we learned is as a result of what they went through we know some things about what to do. someone asked the question about taking care of patients was so much more prepared medically to manage the disease. that's even a lot of lives. we have antibiotics now which didn't have a 1918. so many of the secondary

infection that people died from in 1918 like bacterial pneumonia we can actually deal with now. so scientifically we have advanced so many stages beyond you know what they were all hoping for and dreaming of a 1918. so much of that we've actually accomplished. but we didn't change a lot of other things related to how we provided health care and how we dealt with the public health care system in the country. again that's a very politically -charged question i recognize. i will stop there. >> i will pick it up by saying that neither nancy or i are medical professionals. someone asked the question what is our best advice for staying healthy today. i would say it is listening to your medical professional. not your historian. as far as your health is concerned, the we are a lot of fun to listen to. a couple of folks that you might be interested and

following, michael osterholm from the university of minnesota, and -- are both epidemiologists who do work in this area. and they also focus on history, as well -- actually had a lecture recorded two years ago called influences threat. then and now. couldn't recommend it more highly. it's also terrifying when you get to the last part. i sat through it the last time live, and you appreciate just how spot on the doctor was. so you can find that on our youtube channel, which is if you go to our world in the upper right corner you can delve into what we could've learned from the science perspective. they -- if you go to our page, on the upper right hand corner there

is a youtube link. click on that. it will pop up. that is one of those from me as well, one of my favorites and i'm afraid i won't quote it correctly, or directly right now is actually wonderful, i believe his name is earnest mackay. that could be how it is pronounced. it's this wonderful series of letters that he is writing back and forth to his wife and daughter, he served overseas and then he comes back. they are debating whether or not he should come and visit over the holidays. he literally starts off the letter with i am not sure if you do this. if you do me sure to get the best car you can. wear a veil. it is just wonderful. that we have these letters.

so i would say that one of the key things so that we can learn is how important it is to tell the people we love that we love them. and to be sure to engage in that. i should also say from the museum prospective keeping those diaries. capturing your personal experiences. that is how all of this informs all of these at the bucks. the book that nancy wrote. all of this comes from these personal experiences. as we are losing some of our amazing local newspapers, as they might be bought out by other spaces, we don't have access to. that certainly there are other spaces, and technological spaces for you to share that, but take the time to share that information, and the like. i think that's a really important thing. >> if you're a local historical society, your local archive is

doing a collection and invited to your story of the pandemic. don't hesitate if you have a story to tell. that's been one of the things that is uplifting to me is getting the story recorded during the pandemic precisely because we realized how many voices we did not have from 1918, and try to avoid that this time so on my little island where i live, the historical society until we got into the most recent -- we were doing oral histories and force the medical providers. people doing testing. who's doing work at the grocery stores. all those voices that 100 years from now would be really helpful as people are trying to make sense of it from the future. so tell your story. >> okay. and are there any additional resources that she would recommend for people who want to find out as much as possible about the pandemics? >> absolutely.

i'm going to kick this one off. and i would say that one of you is going to have to kind of, you are the person, if you are still watching this -- you watch and preparation for this. we have a resource called how world war i changed america. world war i changed us thought orgy. we have a whole series of seven minutes or less videos. as well as teacher resources. podcasts, lesson plans, primary school stuff you can sign for them to do from home. if you would like that's available. there is a lovely resource list that includes nonfiction and fiction that is on next kansas

.org. one of you asked did the flu influence the art as much as the war did? really good question. it's difficult to really pull apart because those two events layer on top of each other. i would say that certainly the war influenced some rioters, in a very different way, you've got winning the potato can, all of these folks, you spent, time there reading is a way to process their experiences as well. you've got some wonderful things to be looking at as well. if you are in and around the kansas area thank you so much for emailing me about this. take a look at pandemic on the

ferry. it's a podcast about the war in -- you can see the web address right. there nancy if i'm not mistaken you were one of the first episodes. >> yes. i believe that john is also a part of it. they are i suspect a couple of other scholars. >> take a look at. that also take a look at nancy's. buck american pandemic, the last world of 1918 in influence. we also talked about a couple of other things as well, hopefully you are getting that in the facebook live chat as well. nancy, other resources you suggest. >> i popped my two favorite pieces if you want to get a sense of the lived experience of it, there are two autobiographical memorabilia that are just terrific. one is william maxwell's became

like swallows. he went on to be a well-known editor of the new yorker for years and years. he was a child when his family face the pandemic. i would just say that. he tells the story from the perspective of different family stores and it is a powerful, powerful, beautiful buck. a journalist at the time living in denver, she also has influence and she does some autobiographies about her illness and her beloved, adam. it's very effective on these sort of mental phase. the psychological complexity of how hard it was on the patient in terms of what it did to their minds, those are my two favorite, favorite pieces. great reads and not very long. a lot of good scholarly books out there. if you are interested in the search for the virus itself, her book, flew, deals with

that. given that it starts on a military camp and the camps are hit hard by it. carrie has a good book called fever of. war it deals with the pandemic in the ranks of the military as well. and laura's, -- horse, which is one of the newest books that came out, and international history, a beautifully done book by a internationalist. she hails from paris. she wrote this beautiful book. one of the newest books i think on the pandemic. >> i have not had the opportunity to read. these two other things that were suggested to me from maryland, she wrote some great books from kansas history, if you are looking for more of the kansas angle on this. also somebody asked, a couple of people actually asked some really good questions about orphans and and around this

time frame. we would specifically encourage you to look at -- the says that she put out in 2019. a defining characteristic in the life of the american family, if you are around the kansas city area i would encourage you to take a look at the strawberry museum, they've got really nice information about things specific to to our region. >>,,. -- --,. . ,,. . , five days from between

february 24th and 29th, he lost two parents. a 15-year-old who goes from just being a kid with a family and over the course of less than a week it becomes an orphan and an adult i'm. i mean, and just, he's one of literally thousands of young people to whom that happened but. >> good lord, somebody just put in the chat. i talked to someone 140 years old who lost both of their parents on the same night. can you even -- oh my god! you guys can all see why i always enjoy having conversations with doctor nancy bristow. so a couple of other questions that i see here we, we've got just a moment or two, has anyone stated to transfer our property and other assets that occurred because of the? and there's a lot of good economic questions that were asked.

nancy, dubai jones have a? >> i don't. it's a wonderful question, and the issue around the economics of the pandemic and its aftermath are just now being started with obviously significant interest. there were some early studies that suggested that the same communities that had low death rates also recovered economically more quickly. this was very preliminary or, so i don't know if that's been borne out over the last few months with additional research or not. but the questions around the economic economics of this early pandemic will be of even greater interest now. but no, i'm not well skilled in that, i'll be honest. he unevenness often economists than i am and epidemiologist. >> bob johnson asked, what u.s. city fared the best, with the fewest death from 1918? which also kind of begs the question, is the one that feared the worst? >> the worst is, is, is -- probably pittsburgh and or philadelphia. both had just disastrous, catastrophic experiences with it. and philadelphia is's always

the story that's told. because they hold the liberty loan parade, just as the pandemic is hitting them. and so like three days later, they have 600 plus new cases, and it's the beginning of a terrible experience with the pandemic in philadelphia. in part, that's not their fault. they were one of the really early cities. so in general, western cities do better than eastern cities, because they have more time and they have the experiences of other cities to look out. some of the cities that do really well -- milwaukee, wisconsin's does really well -- they had a really good quote progressive, as in the progressive era, public health system that they develop of the proceeding ten or 15 years, so they were really well prepared for it. put a lot of messages in place and had a low death rate. seattle did really really well. and several cities in the midwest that did really well. and several cities in the east, that as i said, had really catastrophic experiences. >> and all right. a couple of other fast questions and then doctor willie [inaudible]

we can officially close, but then answer a few more of the in-depth questions that we have here. andrea asked, how were individuals with severe respiratory conditions tweeted, since they couldn't wear masks? >> i would say that in many cases the, masks weren't as -- we just weren't made of the same material that they are today. so they weren't as effective, but also, if someone had a really significant respiratory issue, that wouldn't necessarily have been a problem, . i happen to think of -- your question triggers something like gas, sort of, damaging things along that line. and most likely, that's not somebody who would be going out and about and doing some of those other things. it wouldn't need to be -- they wouldn't be out, trying to -- or being those spaces, i think [inaudible] those ordinances. i could be wrong, and i haven't really delved into some of the protests of masks. nancy, do you have more? >> though, only that again,

because you are either sick or how -- do i put this? those who were really sick often you'll see that the caregivers are wearing masks, but those who the -- patients often are not. i don't know the story, like, behind that. but this is a respiratory respiratory illness but the idea of putting a mask on people who, literally if you are dying from the spanish flu, you are drowning in your own bodily fluids. so breezing is so belaboured that those people would not have generally been wearing masks is my sense, at least from looking at these photographs. that's what the photographic record seems to say. >> and jericka asks, or says, it would be lovely to have a list of all the recommended readings mentioned in this program. we will do our best to get those together. and we have several librarians who are a part of this conversation here tonight. so i'm hopeful that someone has been tracking all of the different things that we have also just kind of thrown out along the way. and somewhere between 11 where it's -- county public library,

that is one of the spaces that is showcasing this on facebook right, as well as the national world war i museum and memorial facebook page, we will certainly do our best. sometime soon, to get that information out here. all right, well as it is a oh three we want to officially thank all of you for being part of our conversation. i think lindsay, are you available for a few more months to take questions? >> yes. >> fabulous! would be willing [inaudible] to be surprised, i'm often late. >> to all of you who have joined us, thank you. the most valuable thing that you can share with us is your time. and we are so appreciative that you use your time to engage in conversations of history and on the enduring impact of world

war i. those lessons that we can learn. because in some ways, we have been here before. and there are things that have occurred in the past that can help inform and create gracious interesting, funny conversations for the president and inform our science and how we keep moving forward. and i apologize that i keep hitting my key part. i also want to take saying thank you to our libraries, who i will not name all of them, but for those, you all -- if you belong to one of the libraries, i must say, you've got to be so proud. it is such a delight to be able to work with them all. they work together so very well and you are truly lucky, and wherever you are, if you do not have your library card, go get it. you most likely have an incredible treasure right there, and so, do renew that, check

out doctor nancy the ritze's and you have the resources that are available. and [inaudible] post conversation we are going to address a couple more of the questions. again, thank you also very much. for joining us for our conversation all right. so i think we do have a couple of more. thank you for those of you who are saying on. a man, there's a lot of you -- 100 press 50 plus of you -- who are staying on with us. that's delightful! all right, we've answered jericka's question -- stephen right there. dean dunn asks, are there any records of mental health cancer [inaudible] in the pandemic. >> such a great question that i think we know much less than i wish we did. but it's very clear that mental

health was often as well -- it was often a consequence of this pandemic, that this particular illness would be to depression for many people. sometimes, i suppose it was situational, because many terrible things were happening. we were in the midst of a war, we were in the midst of a global pandemic. we all know how difficult that is to manage. but there also seems to be a physical physiological connection to mental health. a lot of mental trouble in the aftermath. i think one of the things that we didn't understand then was post-traumatic stress disorder. and i think that caregiving. chris and this was a dramatic disease to witness. it was an ugly disease, to be blood. i won't go to the grossness, but trust me, it was an awful thing to see. so we don't have an awareness, so there's not a recording of that, and that's one of the things i wish i could go back and [inaudible] it's one of the things i'd like to know more about. it's a wonderful question. and i like the way you framed it, because i think it's one of the things we can be thinking about now. that's something we can do better, i think, then we did in

1918, and that's to really attend to the well-being of those of us, in our communities, who have suffered. we've gone through a lot. who've been sick themselves. and have the steps space to listen to them, to feel for them, and with them. i think it would be a really important role that all of us can play as we come eventually into the aftermath of this. so i really appreciate that question. >> nancy asked, were schools still in session during the 1918 pandemic because they didn't have the ability to online school? you know, they were in session, and then at times they were not in session. somewhere upwards of, i give the example with the countless letters, upwards of a month for some schools. so it really does depend on your different, your different community. lovely [inaudible] thanks for that. >> and chicago and new york did not close their schools, because they believed, given the population and the large number of recently arrived immigrants, in particular, that the best way to get public health information out to the

public walk through the school children who were english speakers. and so both of those large school districts decided to stay open because they thought that they could do better public health education through those school districts than they could if they closed them down. very controversial, always a huge debate in every community about whether to close or stay open. it was for a much more fine at length of time, so it made it possible to close down. the other thing is for many communities, it was during the winter holiday. it might have fallen over the christmas new year's period. often that was when there was some of the worst wave, or they could be closed and extended for a couple of weeks because they were already on holiday. >> and so a teacher asked about their resource. this is the copy of it right here. so you can email education at the world war .org and beth carnegie, we were prepared for portion of this question about [inaudible] we didn't have a chance to dig into that very specifically. feel free to email specifically

or someone else has a question about this to education at the world war .org. sheree kelly did some specific deep dive for you on some of this, and we would love to share that with you as well so thank you for those questions runcie i think you heard a couple of questions as well. >> i do. one of them is -- what was the overall of the pandemic in 1918 on the u.s. economy? was it as bad as now? or -- >> such a hard one, because you can't separate out the war and the pandemic. so we have the demobilization from the war and you have what was always described as a post war recession. and now we are asking ourselves to what expand that was a post pandemic post war pandemic recession? in other words what was that the pandemic clay? i don't think we know the

answer to that question yet, but it's really important one. one thing that again is really different is things just weren't closed for as long of a time period. so the kinds of economic impact were different than they are today. and much more of a localized economy, much less often international economy. so again it's a really different situation and one about which i know very little. >> okay. >> and one question i have is did president wilson actually have any kind of a medical expert like doctor fauci, who he could get advice from, or speak to journalists to try to explain what was going on? >> yeah, doctor rupert blue, the surgeon general, was instrumental. he was the primary voice for the spreading of public health information during the pandemic. and that would be complemented by state and local public health leadership. the thing that's so strange

about wilson is that he literally never speaks about it to the american public. so he may be getting information. but he's certainly not sharing it. he is getting information, because he talks with people about whether to cancel the liberty loan, whether to slow troop movements. but he's unwilling to slow down because the wars in its closing stages, and he is determined to get the war done. >> okay. >> and here is a really good example of how surgeon general glue does not use woodrow wilson as soon as speaker and he is going to see is going straight to journalists to share this information and again a really good question from, one of our participants. and i would like to ask this questions -- and that is going to be has to beat you -- it's a very first question we got. mary [inaudible] as a believer cell on, thank

you so much for that. so she asks this very specific question. so when we say 675,000 died then, of course that is just 48 states, correct? what about other u.s. territories? i assume those were added somewhere else and of course we didn't have hawaii and alaska. great question. i'm going to start by saying, it's a real honor to work with the anchorage museum over the summer, and we had a -- an expert, who is also from a tribe, as well, who spoke to this specifically. you can find out more about that later and go to our youtube channel. just type in "flu" and it will pop up. and you can find out about the alaska experience. that is just the resource i can give that is a lot more comprehensive than what i can

speak to, that nancy -- you know a lot more about it is this than i do. >> a great question. again, one of the things that is hard is but the record keeping was different in 1918 than it was. now as you showed, us each communities keeping truck but influenza was not a reportable disease when the pandemic begins. so the numbers are, really the 675,000 is almost a complete guest but it is really a key estimate, as are the worldwide figures. we just don't know for sure. you're absolutely sure we are talking about the native takes one configured at the time. it's not including the philippines, cuba, these places that at the time were annexed by the united states and were american colonies. those are not i soon included in the figures. i'm not sure i know. the other thing is that figure 675 needs to be handled with care because in any traditional

here more than -- would have died from influence anyway. so it's 500,000 excess deaths. so about half 1 million people died more than would have normally died from the flu. so again the numbers are really sketchy. they are best gases. people have been really hard work to make good guesses. but again we do not have information from a lot of places. >> go ahead. i think i cut you off before. so i was wondering, as far as how covid-19 has affected different different demographic groups such as race, income level, age, is that also the case in a 1918? >> that's really hard to know if it's the case because

depending on what public health report you read you can get arguments that say that african american started higher numbers and african americans died at lower numbers. what we do know is that access to health care was deeply influenced by the jim crow system, so we know that people of color and general didn't have the same access to emergency hospitals or public nurses that would have been going door to door to help out families. we know that poor families without a social safety net were much more likely to end up homeless, having to put kids in orphanages when parents were still alive. we don't have data on death rates that is secure enough to trust. yet there seem to be reports that suggest that the black community had a lower morbidity and mortality rate. some people suggest that could be accurate enough to work with.

then you have to ask questions about what is that about? there are all kinds of guesses having to do with segregation, having to do with rural populations, having to do with people already infected early in the cycle. we just don't know very much so we just don't have the same data. what we do know is that the experience of it was much harder if you are a person of color or american or best-case an area two of those things. >> that we know definitively. >> there was a great question from dan about how does the disease in adults rapid -- again that is a really difficult thing to address because like today, where we have our pandemic and a variety of other things occurring at the same time, you have this

pandemic, also this catastrophic war, this fear of socialism, the rise of the red scare, these things are economic, political, social, all of these things might be contributing to peoples beer. so that is a really good question, and a typical one to answer. there's also a question from will who is joining us from facebook live, boots is asking a question about nursing. how did nursing change as a consequence of the 1918 pandemic? i am first going to say that some of it is because of all of the tremendous changes that occur in nursing because of world war i. i want to expand the question just a little bit because that is a moment that vastly changes the profession. i was very lucky to work with the medical son turned in george thompson, to help bring a symposium.

i think we have two lectures on the website, on the youtube channel that specifically unpacks this. that's my short answer. my other answer is that there's another expert that you can do a deep dive with, on our youtube channel. nancy you have more answers. >> mine is a higher level answer. it's less about the practice of nursing, then it is about the status of the profession and women's experiences as nurses. one of the things that's really important to remember is that gender norms were much stricter and 1918. so nursing was almost exclusively a female profession and medicine doctoring was a almost exclusively medical moment. for physicians this was a disastrous episode. really crushing professional pride for some physicians because they can't do what they are supposed to do with this fix, stop it, kill people. for many people it's a

disillusioning and depressing situation. whereas for nurses it is fastening to read letters, diaries, school yearbooks from nursing schools where they will talk about some awful disease and sick people. it was really awful but it sure is good to be a nurse. i really feel like a woman has arrived. they can feel good about what they were doing. they were fulfilling the role as a nurse and as a woman through that nursing. so for many nurses in the nursing profession, it was a boost in a sense for them professionally. they had just a very different sort of overarching experience of what they did and what happened during the pandemic. i think they lead the war and the pandemic combined with higher status. nurses are being talked about as being just as brave as soldiers in the trenches so

there's a fair amount of cultural, and also political status that is gained as a result of the war and the pandemic together. >> can i ask if -- where they're people who insisted that the flu was a hoax? from a museum memorial perspective, i don't have any archival sources that suggests that. we have resources that say that people did not want to, they did not want to abide by ordinances and the same kinds of intention a rise about where were you, just priorities,, where do you take the opportunity cost. but i do not have any evidence of or killers evidence. it looks like, yeah nancy. >> the one thing you do see is

there is one population. for christian scientists actually, they believe it's not a hoax but they believe that it is being caused, the fear itself is causing the illness because they understand. here i will be very careful because of not a christian scientist. but they use the language that christians science is it is christ scientist in the churches name. right? so the belief has to do with having the right relationship with god, which is a very studied relationship. how one stays healthy. so it's because that relationship has flaws. people are not in the right mindset with god. that is what causes illness. so they believe that all the public health measures are actually making people worse. but they're wearing of masks is causing people to get sick. and it had letters for instance between a mother and a son or things published in the christian science monitor, and also published in local newspapers about the resistance of christian scientists to the restrictions, and they're believe that all those restrictions --

that's a very small population. [inaudible] >> allen broom asked the question, at some point we get like to know what primitive efforts were -- >> i would say potentially one of them that was effective that we have come back to is this desire to be back outside, be in open spaces. i think that all of us have experienced a lot more time in our city, national state parks recently, and those were celebrated and you at the time. so i think that there was a greater emphasis on being a outdoorsman or a door woman. which we are coming back to. that is one of the few things that i might be able to go to

as far as preventative, interesting things that folks do with food as well that might not have been as effective in trying to prevent the flu they also encourage you not to over eat. so not overdrink. both of those are probably sound, not necessarily, again, against the flu pandemic. did it also suggest to not just people you didn't know all that well. so again, effective, but i don't know if that is -- is not really speaking exactly to your -- question. >> yeah and. the other thing that's going on, right, is this is the year our patent medicines, right? so things that the week before the spanish flu arrives is being sold as something that will ease your joint pain, when the flu hits, suddenly it's being sold to solve, that is going to cure influenza or that it's going to make you better quickly. and there's just scared of these newspaper articles -- or advertisements -- for instance, that will save you from the

free, which of course it didn't. and then the folks traditions that laura was speaking to earlier. there is the largest a rain from reading in the fumes breathing in the fumes of boiling red peppers. two asafoetida necklaces to a diet only off of onion, and you could go on and on of things that people [inaudible] and i don't know what's did or didn't help and part of it is going to be psychological and the fact that you were able to do something that you feel a bit better, i don't know. so i would, i want to white people chose to do if it made them feel a little bit more hopeful and less depressed, go for that unindicted if you need. [inaudible] you can go and hadn't eaten onion, right? sorry, but my nephew had covid and lost his sense of taste and smell and sent me a video of him eating a raw onion, whole thing. it was so awful, but he could do it. so he's proving host he was just by sending us this video. they were doing that in 1918,

two. >> not ending videos. they were not sending videos in 1918, but eating onions, absolutely. and if you want to find that onion soup recipe, that is available on our online collections database. you just look at online cookery. i actually know all of our cookbooks, all of our recipes, there's a really great to molly recipe as well. if you start digging in our online collections database. but the cookbook that the onion soup comes from, [inaudible] is really delightful. we also have an online exhibition called warfare. it's a culinary investigation of world war i. a blueberry can't, big chocolate cockpit recipe, we have you covered. but it is almost 30 minutes past time. so nancy, i cannot begin to thank you enough for sharing your expertise, your time and your humor with us this evening. >> laura, thank you. you know, anything i can do for the public libraries, i'm always available. and i really mean that, the public libraries and the

librarians that run them are, are our national and local treasure, as is the world war one memorial and museum. so again, it's just an honor and privilege to be with all of you don't have a chance to talk about these things that all of us are thinking about and worrying about. and the chance to be together, i think it lifts the spirits in a bit. so thank you very much for including me. >> thank you. and ramsey, thank you so much, not only for being part of the conversation and being the spine of our questions, but also for the work that you do as a journalist in the community. as a historian, i can say it is so important to have these stories, to have have those facts and information, and that it is published in communities around the nation, so thank you so very much for what you are doing at the plot county citizen to. >> thank you very much you. >> and to all of you who are listening, again, thank you. i'm actually going to give the last word to an epidemiologist i know -- dr. john [inaudible]

the last word goes to an epidemiologist in cincinnati the cincinnati ohio suggests the string a joy for the three things. cut out close places with poor ventilation, crowded places, with many people nearby, and close contact settings. as such as close range conversations. it's the type of thing that you could see in a [inaudible] back in world war i in so many ways, but good advice stands the test of time. ladies and gentlemen, again, thank you so much for joining us, whether it's life or in the recording, we value being a part of your life in conversation. have a wonderful, wonderful evening.

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