Living With the Flu: Public Health and Civic Life During the Spanish Influenza Pandemic of 1918.

Most studies of how United States cities responded to the first deadly wave of Spanish influenza focus on the ways public health officials and their allies reacted to the crisis. This study expands our understanding of the pandemic by focusing on how members of the public responded to those efforts to contain the flu. It does so through a close look at social and civil life in a small city in the southern Midwest during the thirty-two days the flu was epidemic there. Shifting the focus in this way brings previously obscured gaps in the public health response into the light. Specifically, this study finds that while compliance in most areas was high there were two places where it was low: activities in support of American involvement in the European War, and participation in social or civic activities. From the first day of the epidemic to the last the society pages of the local newspapers reported a stream of activities that clearly violated emergency measures. Despite the ban on public gatherings, social clubs, fraternal societies, and civic groups all regularly met. The local college football team practiced, and people continued to turn out for weddings, funerals, birthday parties, dinner parties, and extended visits from out-of-town friends and family. With one possible exception, none of the social or civic activities were carried out as protests against health regulations. Instead local newspapers reported these activities as items of social interest.

Waiting for the flu: cognitive inertia and the Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918-19.

This study looks at public awareness and understanding of the Spanish flu in the United States between June 1918, when the flu became "Spanish," and the end of September when the deadly second wave reached the majority of the country. Based on an extensive reading of local newspapers, it finds a near universal lack of preparation or panic or other signs of personal concern among those in the unaffected areas, despite extensive and potentially worrying coverage of the flu's progress. The normal reaction to news of the inexorable approach of a pandemic of uncertain virulence is anxiety and action. The Spanish flu produced neither in the uninfected areas for a month. The most likely reason appears to be cognitive inertia-the tendency of existing beliefs or habits of thought to blind people to changed realities. This inertia grew out of the widespread understanding of flu as a seasonal visitor that while frequently unpleasant almost never killed the strong and otherwise healthy. This view of the flu was powerful enough that it blinded many in the unaffected regions to the threat for weeks even in the face of daily or near daily coverage of the pandemic's spread.