Belden Library To Host Author Talk With Catharine Arnold On The Pandemic Of 1918

From the Cora J. Belden Library:

Saturday, Sep. 12, 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM

Click here to register.

Before AIDS or coronavirus, there was the Spanish Flu...In January 1918, as World War I raged on, a new and terrifying virus began to spread across the globe. In three successive waves, from 1918 to 1919, influenza killed more than 50 million people. German soldiers termed it Blitzkatarrh, British soldiers referred to it as Flanders Grippe, but world-wide, the pandemic gained the notorious title of “Spanish Flu”. Nowhere on earth escaped: the United States recorded 550,000 deaths (five times its total military fatalities in the war) while European deaths totaled over two million.

Amid the war, some governments suppressed news of the outbreak. Even as entire battalions were decimated, with both the Allies and the Germans suffering massive casualties, the details of many servicemen’s deaths were hidden to protect public morale. Meanwhile, civilian families were being struck down in their homes. The City of Philadelphia ran out of gravediggers and coffins, and mass burial trenches had to be excavated with steam shovels.

Through primary and archival sources, historian Catharine Arnold gives readers the first truly global account of the terrible epidemic.

This press release was produced by the Cora J. Belden Library. The views expressed are the author's own.