The rapid spread of the COVID-19 virus in the United States and around the world leaves many of us seeking ways  to place the pandemic in historical context. The American Social History Project has compiled a list of resources to assist students, teachers, and the general public in understanding past epidemics and connect this knowledge to the present situation. We have also generated discussion questions. Please share this site widely, and check back as we plan to update and expand the collection.

Primary Sources from ASHP Sites

Smallpox and American Indian Populations

• Indian Trader John Lawson’s Journal of Carolina, 1709
  Tragically, contact between Indians and the Europeans extended beyond just trade goods; the invasion of foreign microbes devastated Indian communities well beyond the coastal region. When John Lawson visited the Carolina interior in the 1690s, he encountered the Congaree people, whose numbers and villages had been dramatically reduced by smallpox and other diseases.  This excerpt from his journal A New Voyage to Carolina details not only the native flora and fauna of the region, but also the impact of smallpox on the native communities he visited. From: History Matters: The U.S. Survey Course on the Web

Immigration and Health Concerns

• A Doctor Decries the Public Health Danger of Immigrants
  Fears of “foreign viruses” pervaded debates on health and immigration in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Some Americans––including the doctor in the following passage––feared that the arrival of large numbers of immigrants from countries in Eastern and Southern Europe was bad for society, and that these immigrants brought diseases with them that were a threat to public health. From: HERB: Social History for Every Classroom

The Influenza of 1918/19

• “Please, Let Me Put Him in a Macaroni Box”: The Spanish Influenza of 1918 in Philadelphia
  In these oral history excerpts, Clifford Adams, an African American from the South; Anna Lavin, a Jewish immigrant; Anne Van Dyke and Elizabeth Struchesky; and Louise Abruchezze, an Italian immigrant, discussed their shared experience in Philadelphia—shocked by the scale of the influenza outbreak, none could fathom the lack of respect shown for those who had died. From: History Matters: The U.S. Survey Course on the Web
   
• “There Wasn’t a Mine Runnin’ a Lump O’ Coal”: A Kentucky Coal Miner Remembers the Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919
  Kentucky coal miner Teamus Bartley was interviewed at ninety-five years of age and vividly recalled the impact of the flu pandemic on his community. With a dearth of healthy laborers, the mines shut down for six weeks in 1918 and miners went from digging coal to digging graves. From: History Matters: The U.S. Survey Course on the Web
   
• “He’ll Come Home in a Box”: The Spanish Influenza of 1918 Comes to Montana
  In this 1982 interview with Laurie Mercier, Loretta Jarussi of Bearcreek, Montana, described how people would pass through that tiny town seemingly healthy, only to be reported dead two days later. Her father went undiagnosed for many weeks and had plans to go to a nearby hot springs to rest. She believed that her father’s death was averted only because the son of the local doctor was an army doctor who recognized flu symptoms that others missed. From: History Matters: The U.S. Survey Course on the Web

The AIDS Epidemic

• “This Is Not a Gay Issue. This Is a Human Issue”: Early AIDS Patients Recount Their Experiences with the Disease
  In the mid 1980s, gay advocacy and community-based organizations began providing services and pressuring government to increase funding for finding a cure and helping victims of the rapidly-developing AIDS crisis. In the following 1983 testimony before a congressional committee, three AIDS patients described their personal experiences during the early years of the disease. From: History Matters: The U.S. Survey Course on the Web
• “AIDS Is an Illness of People of Color”: Health Service Organizations Advocate Increased Federal Funding to Prevent AIDS in Minority Communities
  In the following 1987 testimony to Congress, two representatives of AIDS health services organizations argue that the virus’ spread was disproportionately high throughout U.S. minority and disadvantaged communities. They advocated increased federal funding for prevention efforts targeted at minority communities and administered by community-based organizations. But despite such efforts, the number of minority AIDS cases continued to rise sharply, and by 1996, African Americans accounted for a higher percentage of reported adult cases of AIDS (41%) than did whites. From: History Matters: The U.S. Survey Course on the Web
• “A Time Bomb Inside of You”: Social Service Organizations Advocate an Improved Federal Response to AIDS
  In the following 1983 testimony before a congressional committee, three representatives of social service organizations sharply criticized the Reagan administration’s limited response to the AIDS crisis, advocated increased federal funding, and warned that AIDS was a societal “time bomb” likely to have grave consequences beyond the gay community. From: History Matters: The U.S. Survey Course on the Web

Online Collections

• Virtual New York City: Cholera in Nineteenth Century New York
  By the early nineteenth century, outbreaks of deadly disease had become commonplace in New York City. Smallpox, Yellow Fever, measles, and malaria recurrently plagued residents as they carved a city out of the marshes of Manhattan Island, but cholera was among the most virulent infectious diseases to strike. New Yorkers’ reactions to these increasingly traumatic public health disasters show how understandings of disease were filtered through contemporary ideas about class and social relations, conceptions of immigrants, and notions of the city government’s responsibility for public health in mid-nineteenth century New York.
  
  This online exhibit, part of ASHP’s “Virtual New York City” website, delves into the complex social conditions exposed by a historical community’s response to infectious disease.
   
• The Deadly Virus: The Influenza Epidemic of 1918
  This online collection from the National Archives and Records Administration uses records selected from the organizations vast database to, as their introduction asserts, “help the epidemic take its rightful place as a major disaster in world history.”
   
• Medicine in the Americas: 1610-1920
  This collection from the U.S. National Library of Medicine makes freely available original works demonstrating the evolution of American medicine from colonial frontier outposts of the 17th century to research hospitals of the 20th century.
   
• Contagion: Historical Views of Diseases and Epidemics
  This collection from the Harvard University Library’s Digital Collections provides general background information on diseases and epidemics worldwide, and is organized around significant “episodes” of contagious disease.
   
• Medicine and Madison Avenue
  This collection explores the complex relationships between modern medicine and modern advertising, or “Madison Avenue,” as the latter is colloquially termed. It presents images and information for approximately 600 health-related advertisements printed in newspapers and magazines. These ads illustrate the variety and evolution of marketing images from the 1910s through the 1950s.
   
• Germ City: Microbes and the Metropolis
  This exhibition website presents New York City’s battle against infectious disease. Humans and microbes have always co-habited, and their relationship has had a profound influence on human history—especially in cities, the crossroads of the movements of people, goods, and germs. The exhibition was organized by the Museum of the City of New York in collaboration with The New York Academy of Medicine and Wellcome. Scroll down to “In-Depth Stories” for an essay on epidemics throughout New York’s history.

Discussion Questions

• What connections can be made between historical epidemics and the current COVID-19 pandemic?
• What sets the current pandemic apart from previous examples?
• How has the government/medical community’s response to epidemics affected the spread of disease? What lessons can be applied to the current official response?
• How have previous epidemics and the current pandemic exposed class/racial/ethnic stereotypes in American society?
• What role does community organizing play in pressuring government/society to affect change during an epidemic?
• What are the short and long term effects of epidemics on labor and employment? What can be done to lessen this impact today?
• Using examples from the past, what methods can historians and the general public use to preserve the history of the current pandemic?