Flu Fences and Chin Sails: Answering New Questions about the Spanish Flu

May 26th, 2020  |  Season 1  |  55 mins 28 secs

1919, african-american history, american history, labor, medicine, red scare, science, season 1, spanish flu

Living through the COVID-19 pandemic raises all sorts of new questions about the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918-1919. This episode seeks to answer those questions. We look at the multiple waves of the flu, popular home remedies, who went to the hospital and who stayed home, how the federal government responded to the outbreak, the effect on the economy, resistance to face masks, and how the flu shaped the Roaring Twenties.