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American Pandemic: The Lost Worlds of the 1918 Influenza Epidemic
Between the years 1918 and 1920, influenza raged around the globe in the worst pandemic in recorded history, killing at least fifty million people, more than half a million of them Americans. Yet despite the devastation, this catastrophic event seems but a forgotten moment in the United States.
American Pandemic offers a much-needed corrective to the silence surrounding the influenza outbreak. It sheds light on the social and cultural history of Americans during the pandemic, uncovering both the causes of the nation's public amnesia and the depth of the quiet remembering that endured. Focused on the primary players in this drama--patients and their families, friends, and community, public health experts, and health care professionals--historian Nancy K. Bristow draws on multiple perspectives to highlight the complex interplay between social identity, cultural norms, memory, and the epidemic. Bristow has combed a wealth of primary sources, including letters, diaries, oral histories, memoirs, novels, newspapers, magazines, photographs, government documents, and health care literature. She shows that though the pandemic caused massive disruption in the most basic patterns of American life, influenza did not create long-term social or cultural change, serving instead to reinforce the status quo and the differences and disparities that defined American life.
As the crisis waned the pandemic slipped from the nation's public memory. The helplessness and despair Americans had suffered during the pandemic, Bristow notes, was a story poorly suited to a nation focused on optimism and progress. For countless survivors, though, the trauma never ended, shadowing the remainder of their lives with memories of loss. This book lets us hear these long-silent voices, reclaiming an important chapter in the American past.
American Pandemic offers a much-needed corrective to the silence surrounding the influenza outbreak. It sheds light on the social and cultural history of Americans during the pandemic, uncovering both the causes of the nation's public amnesia and the depth of the quiet remembering that endured. Focused on the primary players in this drama--patients and their families, friends, and community, public health experts, and health care professionals--historian Nancy K. Bristow draws on multiple perspectives to highlight the complex interplay between social identity, cultural norms, memory, and the epidemic. Bristow has combed a wealth of primary sources, including letters, diaries, oral histories, memoirs, novels, newspapers, magazines, photographs, government documents, and health care literature. She shows that though the pandemic caused massive disruption in the most basic patterns of American life, influenza did not create long-term social or cultural change, serving instead to reinforce the status quo and the differences and disparities that defined American life.
As the crisis waned the pandemic slipped from the nation's public memory. The helplessness and despair Americans had suffered during the pandemic, Bristow notes, was a story poorly suited to a nation focused on optimism and progress. For countless survivors, though, the trauma never ended, shadowing the remainder of their lives with memories of loss. This book lets us hear these long-silent voices, reclaiming an important chapter in the American past.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published March 23, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews
April 27, 2020
Regarding facts and statistics, Nancy K. Bristow’s book is a great account of the 1918 Influenza epidemic. The author has studied an impressive amount of sources and included a lot of interesting information.
However, the book’s style is dry, somewhat repetitive, and rather alienated from those years of the early 20th century it is covering.
Although Bristow presents different outlooks on the catastrophic event – of nurses, doctors, patients, and families – her narrative lacks a more insightful view of the life during the Influenza epidemic. I was disappointed to find no personal stories of Influenza victims or health professionals. The set of photographs somewhat remedies the author’s scarcity of in-depth depiction, but “American Pandemic” still promises more than it actually gives.
If you are looking for a social history of the tragic event, I won’t recommends Nancy Bristow’s work. For those who simply want facts about this period in American history, however, with many sources, “American Pandemic” is not a bad choice.
However, the book’s style is dry, somewhat repetitive, and rather alienated from those years of the early 20th century it is covering.
Although Bristow presents different outlooks on the catastrophic event – of nurses, doctors, patients, and families – her narrative lacks a more insightful view of the life during the Influenza epidemic. I was disappointed to find no personal stories of Influenza victims or health professionals. The set of photographs somewhat remedies the author’s scarcity of in-depth depiction, but “American Pandemic” still promises more than it actually gives.
If you are looking for a social history of the tragic event, I won’t recommends Nancy Bristow’s work. For those who simply want facts about this period in American history, however, with many sources, “American Pandemic” is not a bad choice.
October 10, 2012
This was an interesting book, but I felt it created expectations that were not fulfilled. It was fairly readable and accurate, but I was expecting within the chapters a more intimate view of living through the influenza epidemic through various people's eyes. I felt it didn't fulfill that expectation, but I was impressed nonetheless with the amount of sources she pulled together for an accurate, if somewhat dry and detached, view of the time.
May 3, 2020
One would think that lessons were learned from the 1918-1919 Pandemic. Apparently not. Truly, apparently not. In 100 years, all the lessons learned were long forgotten and laid to rest along with the millions who died.
As you read this book you think that you’re reading about the current state of affairs from the new novel CoV19 pandemic.
It’s a fascinating read, not uplifting yet incredibly insightful and well written text from the annuals of history.
As you read this book you think that you’re reading about the current state of affairs from the new novel CoV19 pandemic.
It’s a fascinating read, not uplifting yet incredibly insightful and well written text from the annuals of history.
June 30, 2020
A lot of great stories included in this book, though its intended audience is largely an academic one. She does a fabulous job of conveying the popular reactions to the pandemic and the mix of responses that mirror what we are experiencing now.
June 15, 2012
To read my review go to my blog at:
http://maryslibrary.typepad.com/my_we...
December 17, 2020
Good pandemic history.
Too bad people don't take pandemics seriously.
2.9/5
Too bad people don't take pandemics seriously.
2.9/5
June 9, 2021
Good book terrible narration
April 7, 2020
DNF. By page 100 I was so done with this dry, boring, repetitive research paper.
October 20, 2020
This is undoubtedly one of the most boring, mind-crushing books I have ever read. I reads more like a thesis than a book for general consumption. For the almost 200 pages of text and pictures there are 52 pages of footnotes. It is almost as if the author just slid in a bit of her own words around a lot of direct quotes and called it a book. Instead of a time-line narrative the chapters are arranged around the groups who dealt with the pandemic: Influenza, Medicine, and the Public, 1890-1918; Patients, Families, and Communities Confront the Epidemic; Public Health Experts, the People, and Progressivism; Doctors, Nurses, and the Challenges of he Epidemic; Forgetting and Remembering in the Aftermath. A clue for me should have been that the book was published by Oxford University Press.
Now having panned the book in general, I did come away with worthwhile information. Foremost is the similarity of this pandemic to that of the Covid-19 pandemic we are now experiencing. For example:
>NYC's Health Commissioner, Royal S Copeland, intentionally downplayed the seriousness of the epidemic. Even as he set up an Emergency Advisory Committee, he continued to call for 'calmness' and 'coolness'. "Though Copeland was clearly an extreme case in his efforts to reassure the public, this commitment to keeping the public calm was widespread." (pp. 101-102)
Even the editors of the NYT suggested "that citizens 'should not worry too much about the Spanish influenza' and describing the outbreak with surprising nonchalance. 'At the worst it is no more, in many cases it is considerably less, than the old grippe, without the Iberian adjective, which we all endured, mostly had, say in 1893.'" (p. 111)
>Despite strong encouragement for the public to wear masks, many people resisted. "Those who pushed back against the behavioral restrictions were not unified in their motivation, but were prompted variously by disagreement with the approach chosen by local authorities, by growing frustration with government control over their lives as days turned into weeks and then months, or by utter disregard for the importance of the public health efforts." (p. 111)
>While professionals hoped for a viable vaccine, many Americans pushed back against the widespread employment of vaccines. (p. 111)
>Doctors touted remedies for the influenza even in prestigious publications as the JAMA. A "...letter writer noted that is use of injections of 'quinin hydrochlorid,' coupled with the ingestion of 'quinin bisulphate' and 'sodium salicylate' and 'a brisk flushing of the bowels' had proven 'a treatment from which my results have been most satisfactory.'"
Other interesting and miscellaneous facts:
>Why it was called Spanish influenza: "Because the Spanish government had not imposed wartime censorship and allowed reporting on the country's struggles with the disease, observers named the illness Spanish influenza, a tag that struck." (p. 44)
>Journalist/author Katherine Anne Porter suffered a serious case of the Spanish Flu and wrote about her experiences in her novella Pale Horse, Pale Rider.
>Thomas Wolfe's brother died of the Spanish Flu. He wrote about it in one chapter of Look Homeward Angel.
>"It was immediately following the war and the pandemic, too, that many Americans bought life insurance...."
The final take-away for me was in the conclusion of this book when the author considers why the 1918-1919 pandemic has faded from the American consciousness and is not commemorated. "In the wake of the influenza scourge, it seems, Americans were only acting out a process common in the nation's history, drowning out narratives of anguish with the noise of public optimism." (p. 191) "A classically American response to tragedy, then, the optimistic narrative employed in the aftermath of the pandemic was not unusual, and it may have served some people well. But is precisely Americans' repeated tendency to rewrite their past in order to make it tolerable, their continued willingness to embrace a single set of memories, to accept what is inevitably a sanitized and upbeat version of their country's history, that makes this phenomenon both important and troubling. How a people remember their past has real, lived consequences. Perhaps most important is the forgetting such remembering imposes, the silencing of other narratives the preferred storylines demand." (p. 193)
Now having panned the book in general, I did come away with worthwhile information. Foremost is the similarity of this pandemic to that of the Covid-19 pandemic we are now experiencing. For example:
>NYC's Health Commissioner, Royal S Copeland, intentionally downplayed the seriousness of the epidemic. Even as he set up an Emergency Advisory Committee, he continued to call for 'calmness' and 'coolness'. "Though Copeland was clearly an extreme case in his efforts to reassure the public, this commitment to keeping the public calm was widespread." (pp. 101-102)
Even the editors of the NYT suggested "that citizens 'should not worry too much about the Spanish influenza' and describing the outbreak with surprising nonchalance. 'At the worst it is no more, in many cases it is considerably less, than the old grippe, without the Iberian adjective, which we all endured, mostly had, say in 1893.'" (p. 111)
>Despite strong encouragement for the public to wear masks, many people resisted. "Those who pushed back against the behavioral restrictions were not unified in their motivation, but were prompted variously by disagreement with the approach chosen by local authorities, by growing frustration with government control over their lives as days turned into weeks and then months, or by utter disregard for the importance of the public health efforts." (p. 111)
>While professionals hoped for a viable vaccine, many Americans pushed back against the widespread employment of vaccines. (p. 111)
>Doctors touted remedies for the influenza even in prestigious publications as the JAMA. A "...letter writer noted that is use of injections of 'quinin hydrochlorid,' coupled with the ingestion of 'quinin bisulphate' and 'sodium salicylate' and 'a brisk flushing of the bowels' had proven 'a treatment from which my results have been most satisfactory.'"
Other interesting and miscellaneous facts:
>Why it was called Spanish influenza: "Because the Spanish government had not imposed wartime censorship and allowed reporting on the country's struggles with the disease, observers named the illness Spanish influenza, a tag that struck." (p. 44)
>Journalist/author Katherine Anne Porter suffered a serious case of the Spanish Flu and wrote about her experiences in her novella Pale Horse, Pale Rider.
>Thomas Wolfe's brother died of the Spanish Flu. He wrote about it in one chapter of Look Homeward Angel.
>"It was immediately following the war and the pandemic, too, that many Americans bought life insurance...."
The final take-away for me was in the conclusion of this book when the author considers why the 1918-1919 pandemic has faded from the American consciousness and is not commemorated. "In the wake of the influenza scourge, it seems, Americans were only acting out a process common in the nation's history, drowning out narratives of anguish with the noise of public optimism." (p. 191) "A classically American response to tragedy, then, the optimistic narrative employed in the aftermath of the pandemic was not unusual, and it may have served some people well. But is precisely Americans' repeated tendency to rewrite their past in order to make it tolerable, their continued willingness to embrace a single set of memories, to accept what is inevitably a sanitized and upbeat version of their country's history, that makes this phenomenon both important and troubling. How a people remember their past has real, lived consequences. Perhaps most important is the forgetting such remembering imposes, the silencing of other narratives the preferred storylines demand." (p. 193)
April 28, 2021
History has a tendency of repeating itself...I think I read that somewhere. If you had any doubt, then after living through the last two years, please read a copy of American Pandemic. Nancy Bristow narrates the events of the 1918 'Spanish' Flu epidemic and it bears a haunting reflection of today. (Bristow's book was first published in 2012, but seems like it could have been written yesterday).
Bristow begins with taking a brief synopsis of different flu outbreaks, like the 1890 Flu epidemic, which also has eerie similarities to today's pandemic. She makes the point that while we call this the 'Spanish' Flu, more than likely this strain of flu first appeared in Kansas.
Narrating the events of 1918 and 1919, she marks those approaches to the pandemic that worked and those did not. There were attempts at containing the flu by utilizing social distancing (not called this) and masks. Those cities that utilized these measures saw dramatically lower death tolls than those cities, like Philadelphia, that refused to enact the more stringent measures.
She narrates the attempts by medical professionals to deal with the deadly strain...and their frustration in their inability to do so. She also tells of those opposed to all types of measures: from the Anti-mask League to the churches who viewed this as a test from God, to those who denied the reality of the flu at all.
What is most interesting is her section on how America remembered (or didn't remember) the Spanish flu. While the toll was devastating on millions of people, the Spanish Flu really didn't make an impact into much of American popular culture. Only years when it was remembered, there was a positive spin placed on it as Americans remembered it as a step to more scientific advances and ways of handling the flu epidemic. America, she writes, has a habit of rewriting and remembering it's history so that it always winds up on the right side of history...this has devastating effects when dealing with something like the flu.
In the end, the lesson was that radical social means of containing the flu seemed to have work while those who ignored it suffered greatly.
Bristow's writing is engaging and keeps the reader's interest throughout. She writes in a non-technical way and is easy to follow.
I highly recommend this book for anyone who is curious as to how the country has handled similar pandemics in the past and the lessons we can clean from them. This would be a very good for someone like Tucker Carlson to read...if only he could.
Grade: B+
Bristow begins with taking a brief synopsis of different flu outbreaks, like the 1890 Flu epidemic, which also has eerie similarities to today's pandemic. She makes the point that while we call this the 'Spanish' Flu, more than likely this strain of flu first appeared in Kansas.
Narrating the events of 1918 and 1919, she marks those approaches to the pandemic that worked and those did not. There were attempts at containing the flu by utilizing social distancing (not called this) and masks. Those cities that utilized these measures saw dramatically lower death tolls than those cities, like Philadelphia, that refused to enact the more stringent measures.
She narrates the attempts by medical professionals to deal with the deadly strain...and their frustration in their inability to do so. She also tells of those opposed to all types of measures: from the Anti-mask League to the churches who viewed this as a test from God, to those who denied the reality of the flu at all.
What is most interesting is her section on how America remembered (or didn't remember) the Spanish flu. While the toll was devastating on millions of people, the Spanish Flu really didn't make an impact into much of American popular culture. Only years when it was remembered, there was a positive spin placed on it as Americans remembered it as a step to more scientific advances and ways of handling the flu epidemic. America, she writes, has a habit of rewriting and remembering it's history so that it always winds up on the right side of history...this has devastating effects when dealing with something like the flu.
In the end, the lesson was that radical social means of containing the flu seemed to have work while those who ignored it suffered greatly.
Bristow's writing is engaging and keeps the reader's interest throughout. She writes in a non-technical way and is easy to follow.
I highly recommend this book for anyone who is curious as to how the country has handled similar pandemics in the past and the lessons we can clean from them. This would be a very good for someone like Tucker Carlson to read...if only he could.
Grade: B+
October 16, 2020
(Audiobook) This is a book that was published to try to capture how the nation reacted during the Influenza Pandemic of 1918-19. That it was written in 2012 makes it all the more intriguing. In 2020, a book like this becomes more relevant and resonates more for a reader. Bristow doesn't try to get too much into the known aspects of the origin and course of the influenza virus. However, the strength is the reaction and impact of the pandemic. Take out the names and specific places, and much of what she writes would fit in for 2020 as well as 1918. The impact on families, businesses and individuals, the push-back against public health advice and experts, the social and economic fault-line the virus revealed...all are relevant aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic as they were for the Influenza pandemic.
She caged her analysis of the 1918-1920 pandemic through the prism of how Americans respond to significant negative events, and how aspects of those events are glossed over or modified to fit the American mythology. However, this book has to be re-examined through the prism of COVID-19 and what a pandemic does to an entire national society. Worth the read, if for no other reason to see how a historic review of a pandemic could have foretold of what we would face in the next (now current) pandemic.
She caged her analysis of the 1918-1920 pandemic through the prism of how Americans respond to significant negative events, and how aspects of those events are glossed over or modified to fit the American mythology. However, this book has to be re-examined through the prism of COVID-19 and what a pandemic does to an entire national society. Worth the read, if for no other reason to see how a historic review of a pandemic could have foretold of what we would face in the next (now current) pandemic.
April 11, 2021
The introduction and the conclusion are the best parts of the book for me. I appreciate the author's attempts to organize all the research, but the narrative was awkward and could have been streamlined to include fewer repetitive examples. Since we are currently in the middle of a similar pandemic, i found it fascinating that reactions are almost identical to those in 1918, personally, scientifically, civically (sp?), and politically. Somewhat discouraging to realize that no matter what we do, hundreds of thousands of people will die. All we can do is try to avoid it for ourselves. The book and its bibliography underscore the importance of personal, contemporary record-keeping to help document for the future. I would like to read a comparative history about American and other country's treatment and reactions to the 1918 pandemic. The author's postulation that America's "official" narratives tend to gloss over tragedies to put them behind us, without fully absorbing them, is well-taken; I wonder how other nations treat such tragedies.
Overall I would recommend the book, particularly for those interested in the history of medical professionals, but it is not a quick read.
Overall I would recommend the book, particularly for those interested in the history of medical professionals, but it is not a quick read.
December 9, 2020
Appropriate information for 2020
This book caught my eye. I am like everyone else caught up in Covid 19. As historian for my church and another organization, I was challenged to discover what I could about pandemic in 1917-18. Found nothing. This book explains in detail - in fact a bit too much detail - how various segments of country responded to the Spanish Flu as it was called. There was a tendency to disregard some parts of U.S. History and this pandemic is among them. Even in family histories it is often overlooked. The book is well researched - in fact the last half of the book is footnotes and resources. I admit to skimming some parts; but overall learned quite a bit. Very interesting considering we are in the midst of Covid pandemic. Would be interesting to compare some of the responses then and now.
This book caught my eye. I am like everyone else caught up in Covid 19. As historian for my church and another organization, I was challenged to discover what I could about pandemic in 1917-18. Found nothing. This book explains in detail - in fact a bit too much detail - how various segments of country responded to the Spanish Flu as it was called. There was a tendency to disregard some parts of U.S. History and this pandemic is among them. Even in family histories it is often overlooked. The book is well researched - in fact the last half of the book is footnotes and resources. I admit to skimming some parts; but overall learned quite a bit. Very interesting considering we are in the midst of Covid pandemic. Would be interesting to compare some of the responses then and now.
June 14, 2019
the large and tragic flu epidemic in 1918 is covered with anecdotal recitings of experiences with contracting the disease, dealing with the experience of the disease, dealing with prevention, attempts to blame it on any number of things, coverage in literature, etc.
All kinds of treatments were proffered including Christian Science, chiropracty, baking soda,
hot environments, and on and on. Prevention was aided by masks, nurses, doctors banning of group meetings, prohibiting spitting,
Not a pleasant time. Author then talks about amnesia or the public forgetting of how it was
similarly with more recent disasters that seemed to have been too grim to think about, to remember.
All kinds of treatments were proffered including Christian Science, chiropracty, baking soda,
hot environments, and on and on. Prevention was aided by masks, nurses, doctors banning of group meetings, prohibiting spitting,
Not a pleasant time. Author then talks about amnesia or the public forgetting of how it was
similarly with more recent disasters that seemed to have been too grim to think about, to remember.
April 18, 2021
Much has changed in terms of evolution of science and medicine but very little in terms of human behaviour. We should consider ourselves a little bit luckier, as the Spanish flu has wiped out entire families and thousands of young, healthy people, children, chances of survival were really slim for everyone. Today we have a much stronger scientific community which at least tries to save as many as possible, we have a better diet, living conditions and way better medicine and vaccines but we still need to be cautious as the last waves of Spanish flu were indeed much deadlier and Covid is not over yet.
November 20, 2020
Another very good look at the 1918-20 pandemic which has a different focus than The Great Influenza. That one dealt a lot with the medical advances that were relatively new before the pandemic hit. This one focused more on the human experience and responses. It wove the war with the pandemic pretty tightly, which she contends is a big reason why the pandemic was forgotten- it didn't fit the narrative of what America thought of itself. The individual stories of pandemic deaths and survivors were compelling. I also have to read Pale Horse, Pale Rider, which she reviewed pretty thoroughly also.
October 2, 2021
Written by my former colleague at the University of Puget Sound a decade ago, I see so much of the story of the 1918 flu epidemic arising again in the present Covid pandemic. While the over a half a million Americans who died died in a shorter timespan (basically the fall and winter of 1918/19) in a country with a much smaller population, the same American traits exhibited in the present pandemic slowed the response to preventing and treating that earlier pandemic. We didn’t learn, people. Will we ever?
January 21, 2022
Listened to this book as an audiobook. The narrator (Karen White) was not one I want to listen to again. There were parts of this book that helped me to understand some about the 1918 pandemic. The author's biggest concerns seems to be more about the "American amnesia" about the 1918 pandemic and other tragedies in the United States history. One portion of the book has the narrator reading for about 20 minutes from a novella titled, "Pale Horse, Pale Rider." I found this totally unnecessary. I'll look for other books on the 1918 pandemic.
December 22, 2020
This book was written in 2012, but is so timely. One of the more interesting take aways was how there were not really memorials to the Spanish Flu victims and that caused it to be relatively forgotten by the average American not too long after. It will be interesting to see how much covid-19 sticks in everyone's mind after it happenes, because right now in 2020 it seems very hard to forget.
April 17, 2021
This should be among your pandemic-educational series although you should know going in it's a little sciencey. Read Viruses: A Very Short Introduction (Crawford), Quammen's Spillover, and the flu books by Kolata and Spinney. Oldstone's book, also sciencey, is also a good resource.
Then you will start to put the covid pandemic, which is kind of wimpy as pandemics go, into perspective.
Then you will start to put the covid pandemic, which is kind of wimpy as pandemics go, into perspective.
June 20, 2021
If I didn't know better, I would have thought that this book (published in 2012) was about the novel coronavirus pandemic instead of the 1918 influenza epidemic. Same problems, same mistakes, similar excuses, same lack of funding (where it counted), and same lack of accountability. Well-researched review, but not an engaging presentation.
September 18, 2021
This is the only book I know of that recounts the social and cultural impact of the 1918 pandemic. The author provides countless quotes from her sources that provide the reader with an in depth understanding of America's attempt to deal with and make meaning of the most destructive event in its history.
July 2, 2022
Very informative, covers allot of view points I would not have considered or thought of. Uncanny parallel to the current pandemic. It was interesting to see how much this led break throughs in science and medical professions as well as changes in government funding research. However, there was allot of repetitive information which seemed to draw the book out to long.
June 15, 2021
Really excellent history. Written a few years before the current pandemic, it assesses several other societal trends and changes that occurred within the experience of the pandemic, reflecting on gender, race, the medical profession, etc.
February 24, 2022
Amazing to see how history repeats itself more than 100 years later.
The book is difficult to follow at times. Lots of interesting facts and quotes but jumps around a lot. Perhaps not the best organized work but
The book is difficult to follow at times. Lots of interesting facts and quotes but jumps around a lot. Perhaps not the best organized work but
May 7, 2020
102 years later and nothing’s changed
Reading this book is like listening to the evening news today. Amazing the similarities when over a century has passed.
Reading this book is like listening to the evening news today. Amazing the similarities when over a century has passed.
September 2, 2020
One of the best books you could read concerning the areas affected by a pandemic. The 1918 mirrors the 2020 in many ways.
October 28, 2020
A book with critical lessons for the future and those of us struggling to combat COVID19.
December 30, 2020
1918 pandemic looks very much like 2020 pandemic.
May 3, 2021
A little too much detail for me, but good. Written Pre covid.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews