Influenza and Inequality: One Town's Tragic Response to the Great Epidemic of 1918

by Patricia Fanning

The influenza epidemic of 1918 was one of the worst medical disasters in human history, taking close to thirty million lives worldwide in less than a year, including more than 500,000 in the United States. What made this pandemic even more frightening was the fact that it occurred when death rates for most common infectious diseases were diminishing. Still, an epidemic is not merely a medical crisis; it has sociological, psychological, and political dimensions as well. In Influenza and Inequality , Patricia J. Fanning examines these other dimensions and brings to life this terrible episode of epidemic disease by tracing its path through the town of Norwood, Massachusetts.

By 1918, Norwood was a small, ethnically diverse, industrialized, and stratified community. Ink, printing, and tanning factories were owned by wealthy families who lived privileged lives. These industries attracted immigrant laborers who made their homes in several ethnic neighborhoods and endured prejudice and discrimination at the hands of native residents. When the epidemic struck, the immigrant neighborhoods were most affected; a fact that played a significant role in the town's response―with tragic results.

This close analysis of one town's struggle illuminates how even well-intentioned elite groups may adopt and implement strategies that can exacerbate rather than relieve a medical crisis. It is a cautionary tale that demonstrates how social behavior can be a fundamental predictor of the epidemic curve, a community's response to crisis, and the consequences of those actions.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

186 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2010

Reviews

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in the time MA the as hard hit, living in the town on which this book is based. As much about the influenza pandemic (and its second wave) in 1918 as it is about the segregation of ethnic European immigrants in an English dominated New England town. To this day, the area I live in Norwood has a more diverse population and people still refer to areas of town by their old names for the people who had tended to congregate there in ethnic/national groups. Would not have been as interesting had it not been for the 2020 pandemic and the insights this boom gave to the socioeconomic treatment of disease.

[Rae · Rating 2 out of 5]

1918 influenza pandemic. Immigration. Social prejudices. Urban planning. Read like a dissertation.

[Bruce · Rating 4 out of 5]

I put this on a lot of shelves because it can be seen as pertaining in at least some small way to all of them. The book is more about the towns reaction to immigration than to the actual causes of the epidemic. The epidemic struck the immigrant community in September wiping out a goodly portion. With immigrants crowded into substandard housing with lousy sanitary conditions,the town hierarchy, i.e. the upper and middle classes blamed the victims by saying the cause was unsanitary living conditions. Being the investors or friends and family thereof, they did not direct their outrage at those who profited from the immigrants living conditions. When influenza came back in winter and hit the middle and upper classes the theory became it was caused by airborne stuff.

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for my Urban Disasters course - Discusses the 1918 Spanish flu outbreak; focuses on the impacts in the town of Norwood, MA. Guess who suffers the most?