The American Influenza Epidemic of 1918-1919: A Digital Encyclopedia

FAIN: PW-50559-10

Regents of the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1382)
Alexandra M. Stern (Project Director: July 2009 to September 2013)

The creation of a digital collection of 50,000 primary sources, with contextual essays, on the 1918-19 influenza epidemic.

This is a two-year project proposed by the University of Michigan Center for the History of Medicine to create a digital collection of archival, primary, and interpretive materials related to the history of the 1918 influenza pandemic in the United States. The collection will include approximately 50,000 pages of original materials that document the experiences of diverse communities in the U.S. in fall 1918 and winter 1919 when flu took the lives of approximately 675,000 Americans. This digital encyclopedia is aimed at a wide-ranging audience that encompasses humanities scholars, social scientists, epidemiologists and public health practitioners, high school and college students, journalists and writers, and informed Internet users. The textual and visual sources for this digital encyclopedia have been acquired, and are still being acquired, by the research team at the UM Center for the History of Medicine, and they capture the breadth and depth of the 1918-19 American flu experience.