I have my theories, too, but I am also wondering if there is a systematic study and/or long-form pieces I don't know about how the 1918 pandemic got so little traction in literature, film, memoirs, etc? I got used to spending a good chunk of time convincing students it was real.
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So anyone at the event want to update us? https://twitter.com/MoatsLikeKodak/status/1254430803121012738 …pic.twitter.com/BGzxEdQsnM
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Because of the world wars.
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Yep. Flu info was actively suppressed as it was considered vital war info. That's why it is called the Spanish flu despite being first detected in Kansas.
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I think it's mostly drowned out by WWI and WWII. In my experience students know very little about early twentieth century history, and next to nothing that's not about one of the wars.
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If you haven't read it, Alfred Crosby's classic monograph on the pandemic - America's Forgotten Pandemic - has a good afterword on historical memory and the forgetting of the virus. The whole book is well worth reading.
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I was thinking that it got wrapped into WWI memory and dimmed as a result. But I also think people don’t know how to file collective memory of events without an enemy?
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Because it didn't raise questions of meaning or cultural identity. WW1 did, and that occupied all the conversational space in the relevant years.
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In my experience, American children simply aren’t taught any history after the Reconstruction. I never heard about the 1918 flu in school, I learned about it from a documentary I happened to see on tv.
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Same guess. I never learned about it in school, I happened on it by accident in a book or magazine, not sure (it was pre-Wikipedia, though not pre-Internet, but I’m pretty sure it was on paper).
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