Living With the Flu: Public Health and Civic Life During the Spanish Influenza Pandemic of 1918

Abstract

Abstract Most studies of how United States cities responded to the first deadly wave of Spanish influenza focus on the ways public health officials and their allies reacted to the crisis. This study expands our understanding of the pandemic by focusing on how members of the public responded to those efforts to contain the flu. It does so through a close look at social and civil life in a small city in the southern Midwest during the thirty-two days the flu was epidemic there. Shifting the focus in this way brings previously obscured gaps in the public health response into the light. Specifically, this study finds that while compliance in most areas was high there were two places where it was low: activities in support of American involvement in the European War, and participation in social or civic activities. From the first day of the epidemic to the last the society pages of the local newspapers reported a stream of activities that clearly violated emergency measures. Despite the ban on public gatherings, social clubs, fraternal societies, and civic groups all regularly met. The local college football team practiced, and people continued to turn out for weddings, funerals, birthday parties, dinner parties, and extended visits from out-of-town friends and family. With one possible exception, none of the social or civic activities were carried out as protests against health regulations. Instead local newspapers reported these activities as items of social interest.