Publication Date
2025
Abstract
In the fall of 1918, as World War I drew to a close, a greater killer swept across the globe: Influenza. Within a year, influenza infected one-third of the world’s population and killed between 50 to 100 million people, whereas the First World War claimed an estimated 16 million lives. Yet, when we study the early 1900s, the Flu is a minor footnote and has remained largely dormant in pandemic memory until the recent COVID-19 Pandemic. Why has the Flu been ‘forgotten,’ and what untold stories challenge the established narratives surrounding it? By exploring both collective and individual memories of children, nurses, and public figures, this study examines the localized impact of the Flu in the Midwest. These perspectives highlight how locals confronted, discussed, and understood the flu illustrating why these accounts were silenced. In some cases, the pandemic's influence was most pronounced in smaller, rural areas, where public response to the disease and its effects were shaped by different social, economic, and political forces than those functioning within larger metropolitan regions. The pandemic in these areas competed with the Great War, had no clear victory with a lack of heroic figures, resulting in its deliberate erasure from cultural memory.
Disciplines
History
Recommended Citation
Turcotte-Cutkomp, Dagan M., "Behind the Mask: Unveiling the Hidden Narratives of the Spanish Flu and Unearthing its Elusive Memory" (2025). Research Honors. 15.
https://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/all_honors/15