The Question:
Using the following documents, analyze responses to the
spread of influenza in the early twentieth century.
Historical Background: The influenza pandemic of 1918–
1919 killed an estimated 50 million people, many more
than the total fatalities of the First World War.
Approximately 20%–40% of the global population
became ill.
Did you read the question carefully and underline the
words that will help ensure that you fully answer the
question?
The Main Ideas:
 Document 1
- POV – Medical Doctor’s Letter to Friend – 1918
- 100 deaths per day in U.S. Army base
[Massachusetts]
- Worse than even battles in France
 Document 2
- POV – Volunteer Nurse in Washington, D.C. – Letter
– 1918
- Many sick
- Long hours to care for sick
- Shortage of Nurses
- Government encouraged people to stay home
 Document 3
- POV – British Colonial Government Report for
Leone – 1918
- Most unfortunate were from out of town
- Suffered from want of attention
- Too many sick in a house
- Or deserted by other residents
 Document 4
- POV – Sanitary Commissioner’s Report – Madras,
British India – 1918
- People from interior feared medical treatment
- Believed epidemic was a visitation of the Hindu
Goddess Amman
- Believed no treatment should be attempted
 Document 5
- POV – Editorial, Christian Science Monitor –
Massachusetts –1918
- Why should churches be shut down?
- Church can fill people with peace
- God can contend with microbes
- And if God sends pestilence [disease] for the good of
the world, then why fight it
 Document 6
- POV – Editorial – Brazil – 1918
- Lamenting the ignorance of the Public Health
Agency
- Not understanding the disease
- Letting ships enter the ports
 Document 7
- Two women recalling childhood in1918/1919 in New
Zealand - Radio Show – 1967.
- Take food to people too sick to warm their own food
- But not allowed to enter their homes – on doorstep
- Most too weak to pick up soup on doorsteps
- Fire to fumigate children to prevent spread of germs
- Kept away from crowds
- Never too books from libraries

-
Document 8
British soldier served in East Africa – 1919
Natives made coffins
Rumor spread that it was The End
God determined to wipe humanity off the world by
means of a plague more fatal than man’s
destructiveness
 Document 9
- American resident of British Samoa - published in
The Evening Post, a New Zealand newspaper – 1919
- Paper says 8,000 have died but underestimated
- Ship brought the sickness
- Within four days it spread all over
- People died everywhere
- But kept out of American Samoa
- Prevented boat from British Samoa from entering
- Five days quarantine for boat
Grouping: Responses to Influenza
First Group
Second Group
Trying to deal
Government
with the sheer
policies that aided
numbers of dead the spread of
and dying from
disease or
the epidemic
hindered it
Document 1 –
Document 6 –
Doctor at army
Ignorance of
base – 100 a day Public Health
Agency in Brazil:
Document 2 –
letting ships enter
Nurse – long
the harbors
hours – caring for
the sick
Document 9:
American Samoa
Document 7 –
preventing ship
Children bringing from entering port
soup to the sick
Document 3: Died
from want of
attention
Third Group
Religious
responses to the
catastrophe
Document 4:
A visitation from
the Goddess
Amman
Document 5: If
God sends
pestilence, don’t
fight it
Document 8: The
End of Days
Thesis Statement:
There were a variety of responses to the spread of
influenza in the early twentieth century such as
government policies that aided or hindered the spread of
the disease, religious understandings and justifications for
the epidemic, and health care professionals and
individuals who simply tried to care for the sick and
dying.
Missing Document:
Who is not present?
- An African voice
- The document describing East Africa is from a
British colonial report
- Does this report adequately convey the experiences
of the colonial subjects?
- Might they not have a different understanding of the
situation?
And do not forget Point of View Analysis:
Who said it and why it matters that such an
individual said it?