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- Walt Disney. “The wonderful world of Disney,” was not so magical when Walt was afflicted with the influenza virus. During World War I, at age 17, Walt Disney, in a patriotic gesture, or perhaps more of an escapist adventure with a friend, was eager to serve his nation.
- Edvard Munch. Today, the Norwegian artist, Edvard Munch, is probably best known for his 1893 portrait, Der Schrei der Nature (The Scream of Nature), more popularly known as The Scream.
- Katherine Anne Porter. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Katherine Anne Porter mostly wrote short stories, and her first and only novel was Ship of Fools, published in 1962.
- David Lloyd George. In September 1918, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom encountered the influenza pandemic in Manchester, England, the city of his birth.
- Edith Coffin (Colby) Mahoney
- Franklin Martin
- Violet Harris
- N. Roy Grist
- Clara Wrasse
- Leo Baekeland
- Dorman B.E. Kent
- Donald Mckinney Wallace
- Helen Viola Jackson Kent
From theMassachusetts Historical Society
Between 1906 and 1920, Edith Coffin (Colby) Mahoney of Salem, Massachusetts, kept “three line-a-day diaries” featuring snippets from her busy schedule of socializing, shopping and managing the household. Most entries are fairly repetitive, offering a simple record of what Mahoney did and when, but, on September 22, 1918, she shifted focus to reflect the pandemic sweeping across the United States. Four days later, Mahoney reported that Eugene had succumbed to influenza. “Several thousand cases...
From the National Library of Medicine, via research by Nancy Bristow
In January 1919, physician Franklin Martin fell ill while traveling home from a postwar tour of Europe. His record of this experience, written in a journal he kept for his wife, Isabelle, offers a colorful portrait of influenza’s physical toll. Soon after feeling “chilly all day,” Martin developed a 105-degree fever. Added the doctor, “When the light did finally come I was some specimen of misery—couldn't breathe without an excruciating cough and there was no hope in me.” Martin’s writing dif...
Violet Harris was 15 years old when the influenza epidemic struck her hometown of Seattle. Her high school diaries, recounted by grandniece Elizabeth Weise in a recent USA Todayarticle, initially reflect a childlike naivete. On October 15, 1918, for example, Harris gleefully reported: Before long, however, the enormity of the situation sank in. The...
Fort Devens, a military camp about 40 miles from Boston, was among the sites hardest hit by the 1918 influenza epidemic. On September 1, some 45,000 soldiers waiting to be deployed to France were stationed at the fort; by September 23, according to the New England Historical Society, 10,500 cases of the flu had broken out among this group of milita...
From the National WWI Museum and Memorial
In September 1918, 18-year-old Clara Wrasse wrote a letter to her future husband, Reid Fields, an American soldier stationed in France. Though her home city of Chicago was in the midst of battling an epidemic, influenza was, at best, a secondary concern for the teenager, who reported: Quickly moving on from this mention of disease, Wrasse went on to regale her beau with stories of life in Chicago, which she deemed “to be the same old city, altho there are lots of queer things happening.” Sign...
From the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History
Inventor Leo Baekeland, creator of the world’s first commercialized plastic, “documented his life prolifically” in diaries, laboratory notebooks, photographs and correspondence, according to the museum’s archives center, which houses 49 boxes of the inventor’s papers. Baekeland’s fall 1918 journaloffers succinct summaries of how the epidemic affected his loved ones. On October 24, he reported that a friend named Albert was sick with influenza; by November 3, Albert and his children were “bett...
From the Vermont Historical Society
From the age of 11 to his death at 75 in 1951, Dorman B.E. Kent recorded his life in diaries and letters. These papers—now held by the Vermont Historical Society, where Kent served as a librarian for 11 years—document everything from his childhood chores to his views on Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal and his sons’ career progress. Of particular interest is Kent’s fall 1918 diary, which contains vivid descriptions of his own bout with influenza. On September 24, he wrote (as mentioned ab...
Partially transcribed by Lisa Powell of Dayton Daily News
Donald McKinney Wallace, a farmer from New Carlisle, Ohio, was serving in the U.S. Army when the 1918 pandemic broke out. The soldier’s wartime diarydetailed conditions in his unit’s sick bay—and the Army’s response to the crisis. On September 30, Wallace wrote: On October 4, the still-ailing farmer added, “Not a bit well yet but anything is better than going over to the hospital. 2 men over there have Spanish Influenza bad and are not expected to live. We washed all windows and floors with c...
From Utah State University’s Digital History Collections
When Helen Viola Jackson Kent’s children donated her journals to Utah State University, they offered an apt descriptionof the purpose these papers served. Like many diary writers, Kent used her journal to “reflect her daily life, her comings and goings, her thoughts, her wishes, her joys, and her disappointments.” On November 1, 1918, the lifelong Utah resident wrote that she “[h]ad a bad head ache all day and did not accomplish much. Felt very uneasy as I found out I was exposed to the ‘flu’...
- Meilan Solly
People also ask
Why was the Spanish flu called the 'Spanish flu'?
Did the Spanish flu originate from an avian virus?
What was the first story about the Spanish flu?
Was Spanish flu a real disease?
- It struck in three waves across the world. The first wave of the 1918 pandemic took place in the spring of that year, and was generally mild. Those infected experienced typical flu symptoms – chills, fever, fatigue – and usually recovered after several days.
- Its origins are unknown to this day. The 1918 flu was first observed in Europe, America and parts of Asia, before rapidly spreading across every part of the world within a matter of months.
- It did not come from Spain (despite the nickname) Despite its colloquial name, the 1918 flu did not originate from Spain. The British Medical Journal referred to the virus as “Spanish flu” because Spain was hit hard by the disease.
- There were no drugs or vaccines to treat it. When the flu hit, doctors and scientists were unsure what caused it or how to treat it. At the time, there were no effective vaccines or antivirals to treat the deadly strain.
Sep 27, 2017 · September 27, 2017. American Expeditionary Force victims of the flu pandemic at U.S. Army Camp Hospital no. 45 in Aix-les-Bains, France, in 1918. Wikipedia. Nearly 100 years ago, in 1918, the ...
The 1918 Spanish flu pandemic was one of the deadliest pandemics ever. On October 27, 1918, Dr. Guillermo Cergueda sent a letter from Tamaulipas to the Oaxaca governor with precise instructions to ...
- Pendiente Este Autor
The 1918–1920 flu pandemic, also known as the Great Influenza epidemic or by the common misnomer Spanish flu, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus. The earliest documented case was March 1918 in the state of Kansas in the United States, with further cases recorded in France, Germany and ...
Apr 30, 2020 · John Barry, the author of The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History, talks about the lessons we can learn from the 1918 Spanish Flu and answers listener questions.
