Image shows the structure of the neuraminidase enzyme required for virus replication from the H1N1 1918 pandemic influenza virus.

1918 Event Overview

The 1918 Pandemic was responsible for some 50 million deaths worldwide.

 

  1918 Flu from NPR Thoughtline (start approximately 6:20)

1918 Influenza Pandemic from Human Virology at Stanford University

 

The Great Pandemic: The United States in 1918-1919, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

 

1918 Influenza: The Mother of All Pandemics, Centers for Disease Control, January 2006

 

American Influenza Epidemic of 1918-1919: A Digital Encyclopedia

 

 

Spanish Flu:  A Warning from History

 

 

How Information Policing and National Propaganda Worsened a Pandemic a Century Ago

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1919 photo shows rows of tents that had been set up on a lawn at Emery Hill in Lawrence, Massachusetts

where victims of the 1918 influenza pandemic were treated.

  Primary Sources

The Deadly Virus: The Influenza Epidemic of 1918 has documents and photos from the National Archives

 

The Spanish Flu of 1918 has photos and other visual primary sources

 

1918 Flu Epidemic Oral Histories, Vermont Historical Society

 

 

Primary Sources: Plagues, Epidemics, & Pandemics: Influenza of 1918, Christopher Newport University

 

Doctors wearing masks as they treat sick patients show how similar the 1918 Influenza is to the Covid-19 pandemic

 

 

 

'Pale Horse, Pale Rider':  A Story of the 1918 Flu Pandemic, Katherine Anne Porter

 

 

Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World, Laura Spinney (2018)

 

 Laura Spinney: What Does the 1918 Flu Teach Us About Our Response to Pandemics?

 

 

 Multimedia Resources

A Death-Struck Year, Makiia Lucier. A young girl volunteers in a hospital during the Spanish flu in this young adult novel.

 

The Five Deadliest Outbreaks and Pandemics in History, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

 

History of Plague, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

 

 

Mapping the Spanish Flu

https://earth.org/data_visualization/pandemic-map-the-spanish-flu/

 

Infographic in Flu Pandemic of 1918

http://medsci.indiana.edu/m470/m470_570/docs/flu_18a_pbs.htm

 

1918 Pandemic Influenza Timeline

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-commemoration/pandemic-timeline-1918.htm

 

Influenza of 1918 Chart and information

https://www.britannica.com/story/influenza-pandemic-of-191819-chart

 

 Women's History

 

Women: The Unsung Heroes of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic

https://www.wimlf.org/blog/women-the-unsung-heroes-of-the-1918-flu-pandemic

 

How the 1918 Flu and COVID 19 Pandemics Transformed Women’s Lives

https://asm.org/Articles/2021/March/How-the-Spanish-Flu-and-COVID-19-Pandemics-Transfo

 

How the 1918 Flu Pandemic Helped Advance Women’s Rights

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-1918-flu-pandemic-helped-advance-womens-rights-180968311/

 

 

 

Other Pandemics, Plagues, Diseases and Epidemics in History

 

St Sebastian pleading for the life of a gravedigger afflicted with plague during the Plague of Justinian

 

 

Deadly Pandemics Through History, University of Toronto Magazine (Winter 2013)

 

 

Timeline of Contagion (1494 to 1948)

 

HIV/AIDS

Bubonic Plague 

Smallpox

• Link to Jeffrey Amherst and the Smallpox Blankets

Plague of Justinian

Malaria

 

 Play Pandemic II, a game in which you try to spread a virus throughout the world

 

 

The Yellow Fever Epidemic in Philadelphia, 1793

 

America's First Plague: The Deadly 1793 Epidemic That Crippled a Young Nation. Robert P. Watson (2023)

 

 Reports on the Yellow Fever Epidemic, 1793

 

 

Typhoid Mary (Mary Mallon), 1907

 

 

illustration that appeared in The New York American, June 20, 1909

 

Terrible Typhoid Mary: A True Story of the Deadliest Cook in America. Susan Bartlett, 2015