Flu! The 1918 Spanish Influenza in U.S. and World History

FAIN: FV-256881-17

Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, VA 24061-2000)
Tom Ewing (Project Director: March 2017 to present)

A three-week seminar for sixteen school teachers on the history and impact of the 1918 Spanish influenza epidemic, held in Blacksburg, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.

Flu! The 1918 Spanish Influenza in US and World History will provide teachers with an opportunity to read and discuss the most recent scholarship by historians, epidemiologists, demographers, and public health scholars. In addition, participants will pursue their own research topics, using online newspaper databases, archived oral histories, and documentation from public health authorities. Seminar participants will acquire a broader understanding of the role of disease and health in American and world history, an awareness of how historical precedents inform current plans for dealing with global pandemics, and an appreciation of a complicated topic that engages scholarly as well as broad general interest.