Windy City Historians Podcast

It began suddenly in the northern suburbs of Chicago and the contagion floated south toward the city like an invisible cloud.  Soon restaurants, saloons, and theaters were closed and police were given the power to break up crowds of ten persons or more.  Spitting, coughing and sneezing on the street could put you in jail.  Public Funerals were forbidden and elective surgeries canceled.  Everyone wore face masks. Was this Spring, 2020? No, it was Chicago in the Autumn of 1918. Join the Windy City Historians for this special episode as we step away from the chronological telling of Chicago history of our ongoing “Laying the Foundation” series, and instead chart the course of epidemics and outbreaks in Chicago history. In particular, we dig into the, so called, Spanish Influenza epidemic of 1918. This pandemic reveals many parallels between the events of 1918 and today's struggle with the novel coronavirus (SARS Cov-2, its new official name) in 2020.   In this episode we interview historian Joseph