elisi | Lockdown Update Day 200

Kate Atkinson's excellent novel Life After Life uses the Spanish Flu as a big plot point. (It's a groundhog day novel, with the main character having to die and restart her life a LOT of times, and quite a few of those are due to the Spanish Flu.)

I read Life After Life, and I don't remember the Spanish Flu in it! (I do remember the main character dying in the Battle of Britain, over and over...)

Must reread. Thanks!

I think the Spanish flu was right at the start, because she kept dying as a baby. Easy to forget, because it moves on from that and... also she was a baby, not a character making active decisions.

I remember her dying in utero, and being born with the cord around her neck and dying, and the doctor being too late to save her, and she keeps gaining ground with each rebirth. (What a concept! I love it.)

I have to reread, because reading about the Spanish Flu is so appropriate these days.

Oooh thank you! I will add it to my (somewhat endless) list. :)

Very interesting point!

And I love the calendar! :-D

Very interesting point!
It's the current avalanche of memes and adjustments and mask arguments and I look back at all the media I have consumed from about a century ago and just... nothing.

And I love the calendar! :-D
I went through my folder (I have a whole folder of stuff) and that one leapt out at me. :)

I first learned about the Spanish Flu from the 1969 children's novel Charlotte Sometimes (which I borrowed from my elementary school library). It's also a time-travel novel, in which the main character, who is a girl in a boarding school in the 1960s, time travels and body switches into the life of a girl at the same boarding school in 1918 (while the 1918 girl travels into the 1960s). The two girls communicate with each other by writing in journals. Anyway, the 1918 girl eventually dies of the Spanish Flu.

Since I was really young when I read that book, and since it made quite an impression on me, I always had a sense of the 1918 flu epidemic as something which did feature prominently in literature. But actually, come to think of it, that one book may really be the only novel I've read that references it!

I first learned about the Spanish Flu from the 1969 children's novel Charlotte Sometimes
Oooh, sounds like a good story (although with a sad ending).

Since I was really young when I read that book, and since it made quite an impression on me, I always had a sense of the 1918 flu epidemic as something which did feature prominently in literature. But actually, come to think of it, that one book may really be the only novel I've read that references it!
I know what you mean - personal reading influences a lot of my worldview as well, so I was partly wondering if it was just me never having come across Spanish Flu references, and everyone else would tell me how uneducated I was. :)

Agreed. I vaguely remember hearing about it before, but as far as it being a big factor in stories and entertainment etc., you'd think we'd have heard more about it as a daily life sort of thing than just a statistic in history books about how many people died.

It makes me wonder if the same will happen with this one in a 100 years. There are so many other things happening right now (ongoing climate change effects, rise of nationalism and expansion of dictatorships, crumbling of democratic structures, rise in climate refugees, shift in economies) that I suspect that the actual health aspects will become a footnote.

Agreed. I vaguely remember hearing about it before, but as far as it being a big factor in stories and entertainment etc., you'd think we'd have heard more about it as a daily life sort of thing than just a statistic in history books about how many people died.
The complete absence is weird. Maybe they were just more used to people dying of illness?

It makes me wonder if the same will happen with this one in a 100 years. There are so many other things happening right now (ongoing climate change effects, rise of nationalism and expansion of dictatorships, crumbling of democratic structures, rise in climate refugees, shift in economies) that I suspect that the actual health aspects will become a footnote.
I don't know... There is so much content (although that might of course also vanish), but people have engaged with it much more than they would have been able to a century ago. It'll be interesting to see...

It's referred to in various things, and there are books about it, but not that many. Most books and movies and television series tend to skip over WWI and the Spanish Flu. Downton Abbey referenced both, but didn't really focus that hard on either - or more on WWI and less on the Spanish Flu.

I think it may well be for the reasons you state above...

But it is an interesting phenomena ...

I lost track of the days sometime ago. I no longer know how many days its been since we went on lockdown. According to the Governor, 215 or thereabouts.

It's referred to in various things, and there are books about it, but not that many. Most books and movies and television series tend to skip over WWI and the Spanish Flu. Downton Abbey referenced both, but didn't really focus that hard on either - or more on WWI and less on the Spanish Flu.
It could just be me, reading a lot of books written in the 30s, but they all seem to bring up The Great War, but none of them (that I can remember) mention the Spanish Flu - it's as if it never happened. Not having watched Downton Abbey, I'm glad that it does feature.

I think it may well be for the reasons you state above... But it is an interesting phenomena ...
IKR? I don't have an answer, but I wanted to throw the question out there.

I lost track of the days sometime ago. I no longer know how many days its been since we went on lockdown. According to the Governor, 215 or thereabouts.
I've managed to keep a tally due to my daily posts, but it's not *quite* accurate since we went into quarantine before lockdown officially started... Let's just go with the calendar. :)

It's mostly written about in non-fiction. But I did find an answer for you, apparently you aren't the only who has wondered about this..

https://www.history.com/news/1918-americas-forgotten-pandemic

"In 1919, the U.S. was still battling the pandemic, had just fought a war and was now in a deep recession. There were strikes throughout the country, including the first general strike in Seattle. During that year’s Red Summer, white mobs violently attacked Black communities, and Black Americans—many of whom had served their country in World War I and were tired of unequal citizenship—fought back. And in the midst of the first Red Scare, the Justice Department responded to high-profile anarchist bombings with the Palmer Raids.

Whatever the reason, Americans didn’t seem to want to talk about their experience during the pandemic. And because they were reluctant to talk or write about the pandemic, future generations weren’t always aware of it. It became, as the late historian Alfred W. Crosby put it in the title of his 1974 book, “America's forgotten pandemic.”

Pandemic Was Traumatic Event for Doctors

The first recorded cases of the 1918 flu were at a U.S. Army camp in Kansas in March 1918. By the late summer and early fall, a second, deadlier wave of the flu emerged and caused particular devastation at Camp Devens in Massachusetts. About a third of the 15,000 people at the camp became infected, and 800 died. Victor Vaughan was one of the doctors who witnessed this outbreak. Yet in his 1926 book, A Doctor’s Memories, he barely mentioned this important historical event.

“I am not going into the history of the influenza epidemic,” he wrote. “It encircled the world, visited the remotest corners, taking toll of the most robust, sparing neither soldier nor civilian, and flaunting its red flag in the face of science.”

Before 1918, Vaughan and many other doctors were extremely optimistic about their ability to combat disease. Although infectious diseases still accounted for a larger percentage of deaths in the United States than they do today, advances in medicine and sanitation had made doctors and scientists confident that they could one day largely eliminate the threat of these diseases.

The flu pandemic changed all that. “It was, for [Vaughan], a really traumatic event that made him question his profession and what he thought he had known about the possibilities of modern medicine,” says Nancy Bristow, chair of the history department at the University of Puget Sound and author of American Pandemic: The Lost Worlds of the 1918 Influenza Epidemic.

The 1918 flu is conspicuously absent from other doctors’ books, too. Hans Zinsser, who worked for the Army Medical Department during the pandemic, didn’t discuss it in Rats, Lice and History, his 1935 book about the role of disease in history.

“One of the reasons I think that we didn’t talk about the flu for 100 years was that these guys weren’t talking about it,” says Carol R. Byerly, author of Fever of War: The Influenza Epidemic in the U.S. Army during World War I. “They would say, ‘we really didn’t have much infectious disease, except for the flu;’ and ‘our camp did very well, except for that flu epidemic.’”

It was traumatizing. Unlike a WAR or say 9/11 - you can't kill a virus. But think of all of the zombie movies that cropped up and zombie stories - all about disease, trying to give it form - so you can kill it. Or vampire and werewolf films - also initially about giving a disease form - so we can kill it.

It was also boring - I mean you can't do anything. Except wait it out. It's not necessarily something people want to think about or talk about even now.

Thank you! This is all fascinating. The mention of The Red Summer pinged me, because I just read a Twitter thread about it (here) and it never struck me that this would have been in the middle of the Spanish Flu. The author didn't mention it either, which is also curious since it was only written a few days ago...

However this was the part that stood out the most:

Before 1918, Vaughan and many other doctors were extremely optimistic about their ability to combat disease. Although infectious diseases still accounted for a larger percentage of deaths in the United States than they do today, advances in medicine and sanitation had made doctors and scientists confident that they could one day largely eliminate the threat of these diseases.

The flu pandemic changed all that. “It was, for [Vaughan], a really traumatic event that made him question his profession and what he thought he had known about the possibilities of modern medicine,” says Nancy Bristow, chair of the history department at the University of Puget Sound and author of American Pandemic: The Lost Worlds of the 1918 Influenza Epidemic.

If they came away with a feeling of failure, it's more easily understandable why they'd want to put it behind them. For us, the failure has been in leadership (especially the UK, the US and Brazil), the science has been quick to respond. You have places like New Zealand or Vietman who have done incredibly well. This time the mood and challenges have been very very different.

Oh, I spoke to my mother about the Spanish Flu today - turns out that I lost a family member to it (a great great Aunt) - that I did not know about, and it almost killed my maternal grandmother when she was a baby. It was horrible. People rarely spoke of it. My great grandmother apparently told my mother a little about it when she was young.

The next time my mother calls I might ask her. Not sure if she'd know, but I think my uncle is compiling a family history so there might be information somewhere. Of course it's possible that no one spoke of it...

That's because it largely killed off the generation that would have made art about it - the young, who were also fighting in the war

the previous generation of artists remained largely unaffected, but there's some self-portraits Edvard Munch painted during and after his illness

That's because it largely killed off the generation that would have made art about it - the young, who were also fighting in the war
That is a good point. But they still wrote about the war. The war is everywhere. The flu seems to have vanished.

the previous generation of artists remained largely unaffected, but there's some self-portraits Edvard Munch painted during and after his illness
Damn, I have definitely seen the first one before, just didn't realise the context. (And again, it might be that what was created was obvious at the time, but now we don't realise.)

I do think it's interesting - we have family letters which show the same kind of sadness and helplessness about Cousin Lizzie who died of flu at 18, poor girl, as Cousin Walter who died as a POW at 38. Which is what you'd expect, of course, but it seems like much less of a cultural event outside the family.

I wonder how much of it is us not picking up on muliple passing "x died of flu" references all adding up to the impact of the pandemic. It still doesn't equal big war-type novels as a focal point. But epidemic disease wasn't rare, of course - TB was killing people all over, still. Though that does have a lot of literary references - that's what a cough means in books for a long time, so maybe the flu wasn't

Of course, someone who does use it is Egon Schiele, who painted his pregnant wife dying of it, shortly before dying himself. Which is just ghastly.

!! That is horrible, but I will have to look him up. Thank you.

I do think it's interesting - we have family letters which show the same kind of sadness and helplessness about Cousin Lizzie who died of flu at 18, poor girl, as Cousin Walter who died as a POW at 38. Which is what you'd expect, of course, but it seems like much less of a cultural event outside the family.
*nods* I don't recall any family history regarding the flu, but I feel it should be there?

I wonder how much of it is us not picking up on muliple passing "x died of flu" references all adding up to the impact of the pandemic.
This, very much. The WW1 iconography is instantly recognisable, but someone sick in bed does not scream 'pandemic', just 'this person is poorly'.

But epidemic disease wasn't rare, of course - TB was killing people all over, still. Though that does have a lot of literary references - that's what a cough means in books for a long time, so maybe the flu wasn't
I was wondering about this too. One of my favourite books is The Plague and I and is about TB. Maybe the Flu just got caught up in all the other illnesses...

As a fan of historical events, especilaly the interwar years, I too find it disconcerting that nothing I have read so far has mentioned the Spanish flu pandemic just after the Great War. Mind you, if I come across anything that mentions it form my reading of hsitory books I will let you know.

Thank you. It's this weird gap, and I wonder why... For example I read this fascinating and horrifying thread on 'the "Red Summer"' - which was 1919. And the Spanish Flu is never mentioned. I didn't even connect the dots until someone else brought it up - it all happened during a pandemic... (And it was written a few days ago.)

You rarely hear anything about the Asian Flu of 1957-8 either - yet it killed around 1.5million people.

It is my first memory, aged 2 - lying in my cot and everything being covered in spiders; I was hallucinating because of the fever. My parents and grandparents were all just as ill, but the hospital was full, and I was told that they took it in turn to go downstairs to get water to drink, and to sponge me down. I was lucky though - my cousin, a few years older, died.

You rarely hear anything about the Asian Flu of 1957-8 either - yet it killed around 1.5million people.
Good point. (And I couldn't have said when it was...) I guess it's maybe because illness is such a passive thing?

It is my first memory, aged 2 - lying in my cot and everything being covered in spiders; I was hallucinating because of the fever. My parents and grandparents were all just as ill, but the hospital was full, and I was told that they took it in turn to go downstairs to get water to drink, and to sponge me down. I was lucky though - my cousin, a few years older, died.
How awful. And just... unknown. :(

My grandmother lived through the Spanish flu and never mentioned it. I think the First World War loomed so large that anything else was dwarfed by that. Probably talking off the top of my head here but in recent years many diseases that would have killed us in the early years of the 20th century have been controlled by mass vaccination, so we are less used to the idea of very infectious diseases. You have to be well over 50 now to remember the experience of even having measles, mumps and rubella which were common when I was young.

My grandmother lived through the Spanish flu and never mentioned it. I think the First World War loomed so large that anything else was dwarfed by that.
*nods* I think that's probably one of the reasons. I'm guessing that when it was over they just wanted to move on.

Probably talking off the top of my head here but in recent years many diseases that would have killed us in the early years of the 20th century have been controlled by mass vaccination, so we are less used to the idea of very infectious diseases. You have to be well over 50 now to remember the experience of even having measles, mumps and rubella which were common when I was young.
Definitely something there. The Plague looms so large all these centuries later because it was so viscerally horrific, but people got sick all the time generally. Austen heroines get a cold and end up in bed for weeks. It might just be one of those points where the worldview has changed so much that it's hard to get our head around it.

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Woo! 200th post is a success. ;)

It killed a character in Downton, but I agree, it's a huge void. Possibly WW2 was just so much bigger in memories by the time I was growing up that nobody thought much about a forty-year-old pandemic? And WW1 lives on because of the poetry of trauma, while the Spanish flu was less of a communal trauma? Dunno, just guessing here.

My paternal grandparents were young adults during the influenza pandemic, but they never really talked to us. About anything, really. My maternal grandparents were only 16 and 14, so perhaps less aware of it.

I do wonder if the massive sense of societal disintegration in Eliot's The Waste Land owes something to the impact of the pandemic, particularly the imagery of disease and contagion.

It killed a character in Downton, but I agree, it's a huge void.
This is where my lack of Downtown watching comes in...

Possibly WW2 was just so much bigger in memories by the time I was growing up that nobody thought much about a forty-year-old pandemic? And WW1 lives on because of the poetry of trauma, while the Spanish flu was less of a communal trauma? Dunno, just guessing here.
I think it must be something like that. As well as illness being more common?

My paternal grandparents were young adults during the influenza pandemic, but they never really talked to us. About anything, really. My maternal grandparents were only 16 and 14, so perhaps less aware of it.
I don't remember anything ever being told about it within my family...

I do wonder if the massive sense of societal disintegration in Eliot's The Waste Land owes something to the impact of the pandemic, particularly the imagery of disease and contagion.
That's an interesting idea. Hmmm, I shall have to think on that.

My mother's family has a lot of 'story' - Welsh mining/engineering stock. One great-aunt died as a toddler, possibly of diptheria; she wasn't referred to very often, but as frequently as the flood which led to my grandfather being rescued from the house by boat and recalling his 18-month younger brother as 'the baby' being handed out of a window. If stories were passed on in that much detail, you'd have thought something might have been mentioned about the Flu.

My father's family were much less interested in passing on stories.

Did you know about the Canadians who died of it in North Wales, BTW? I knew nothing about it until I visited my Mum during one of her frequent stays in Bodelwyddan (Glan Clwyd) Hospital and stopped to have a look at the church.

Edited 2020-10-08 22:52 (UTC)

If stories were passed on in that much detail, you'd have thought something might have been mentioned about the Flu.
Good point... I wonder if there is an answer, or if anyone has written about it.

Did you know about the Canadians who died of it in North Wales, BTW? I knew nothing about it until I visited my Mum during one of her frequent stays in Bodelwyddan (Glan Clwyd) Hospital and stopped to have a look at the church.
I did not! Thank you. Also love how carefully they explain what QR codes are, must have been just introduced. (Although I never knew what 'QR' stood for, so I have learned many things today.)

I think the Great War overshadowed everything for most people, but I do wonder if some of the images of devastation and disease in various 30s media (poetry, novels) owe something to the influenza pandemic.

A sort of lingering aftereffect, more of a mood than anything specific...

Contributing to the general sense of malaise, post-apocalypse and an empty world, yes.

Isn't it nice how things have changed...

Those who don't learn from history etc. etc.

Here's a nice positive post to counteract that though

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

That's going in today's post!

Lockdown Update Day 200

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