# Media/fiction about the 1918 flu pandemic? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 24, 2014, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/media-fiction-about-the-1918-flu-pandemic/696391 "2014-08-24T18:01:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2014, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/media-fiction-about-the-1918-flu-pandemic/696391/1 "2014-08-24T18:01:44Z")
[It](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu_epidemic) was the last – to date – of the great plagues of human history; no disease epidemic since comes near it in death-toll. It infected 500 million people and killed from 50 to 100 million – 3-5% of the global population. (World War I only killed 10 million.) You would think that would be remembered as an epochal historical event. Yet I’ve never heard of a novel or film or anything about it or using it as a setting. Did everybody just want to forget about it afterwards? Is it, perhaps, something that would be better remembered if a world war had not been going on at the time? ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2014, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/media-fiction-about-the-1918-flu-pandemic/696391/2 "2014-08-24T18:13:58Z")
In addition to the war, and the civil war brewing in Russia at the time, disease was rife back then; every summer, you could look forward to a new polio epidemic. A one-off pandemic like this, horrible as it may have been, wouldn’t have been seen as anything out of the ordinary. (How often do you hear the cholera epidemics of the 19th century mentioned today? Such things were so commonplace they were just a fact of life.) Had the flu killed on the scale of the Black Death in the 14th century, yeah, it might be more of a landmark, but it never threatened to wipe out whole populations. From what I’ve read, it was particularly shocking because of the speed with which it spread; that was entirely due to the AEF being shipped to Europe, where conditions for a pandemic were ideal. Had it not been for that, it might have been confined to a small town in Kansas. ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2014, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/media-fiction-about-the-1918-flu-pandemic/696391/3 "2014-08-24T18:54:28Z")
In British period pieces the Spanish Flu it always crops up to kill off a character that needs killin’ through no moral fault of their own. See, Downton Abbey; Upstairs, Downstairs ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2014, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/media-fiction-about-the-1918-flu-pandemic/696391/4 "2014-08-24T22:19:07Z")
> [@Hello\_Again](#): > > In British period pieces the Spanish Flu it always crops up to kill off a character that needs killin’ through no moral fault of their own. > > See, Downton Abbey; Upstairs, Downstairs And occasionally mentioned in various Agatha Christie mysteries - I seem to remember any number of brothers/sisters/mothers/fathers/whomevers mentioned as having died in the Flu Epidemic [along with killed in combat] typically as a reason that someone unexpected is getting an inheritence. [URL=“[http://www.pinterest.com/pin/create/extension/](http://www.pinterest.com/pin/create/extension/)”] ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2014, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/media-fiction-about-the-1918-flu-pandemic/696391/5 "2014-08-24T22:54:27Z")
Barbara Hambly wrote a novel set in 1923 Hollywood, _Bride of the Rat God_. One of the most important characters in the book, Norah Blackwood, was an English woman who had lost almost all of her family to the flu epidemic. And her husband had died in the WWI trenches. Not a media story, but my grandfather was living in Kansas City Missouri in 1918, and he told me about seeing troop trains full of sick soldiers coming in to the station. Hospitals had no beds left. The boarding hotel he lived in had a cot behind the counter, where the clerk was desperately trying to take care of a relative who lay there with the flu. ---
**Author:** ![Snooooopy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Snooooopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snooooopy)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/media-fiction-about-the-1918-flu-pandemic/696391/6 "2014-08-25T02:53:29Z")
I remember an early episode of _Numb3rs_ used it, and so did a later episode of _Leverage_. I want to say that _House_ at least mentioned it in passing, even though I’m fairly positive that it never was the disease of the week. ---
**Author:** ![Lsura](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7993a0/32.png) [@Lsura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lsura)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/media-fiction-about-the-1918-flu-pandemic/696391/7 "2014-08-25T11:24:26Z")
For books, I’d suggest searching WorldCat for fiction titles, specifically using the subject heading **Influenza Epidemic, 1918-1919 \> Fiction**. [This](http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=su%3AInfluenza+Epidemic%2C+1918-1919+%3E+Fiction&qt=advanced&dblist=638) is a search just for that subject heading, but should give you an idea of what’s out there in libraries - I’m sure there are other books out there that aren’t represented there, but this is a starting place. ---
**Author:** ![Soul\_Brother\_Number\_Two](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/soul_brother_number_two/32/3515_2.png) [@Soul\_Brother\_Number\_Two](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soul_Brother_Number_Two)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2014, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/media-fiction-about-the-1918-flu-pandemic/696391/8 "2014-08-25T23:02:33Z")
It figures prominently in Willa Cather’s “One of Ours.” ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2014, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/media-fiction-about-the-1918-flu-pandemic/696391/9 "2014-08-26T00:02:50Z")
Some movies/TV: > **[1918 (1985) - IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088645/)** > > 1918: Directed by Ken Harrison. With William Converse-Roberts, Hallie Foote, Rochelle Oliver, Michael Higgins. The moving story of a small Texas town in 1918. Until an influenza epidemic hit and several broken young men returned from the war in... > **[Spanish Flu: The Forgotten Fallen (TV Movie 2009) - IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1473802/)** > > Spanish Flu: The Forgotten Fallen: Directed by Justin Hardy. With Bill Paterson, Mark Gatiss, Charlotte Riley, Kate Ambler. During the first few months after the deadly First World War, a virulent, dreadful flu breaks out. Point of perspective from... > **["Nova ScienceNow" 1918 Flu/Mass Extinction/Papyrus/Profile: Cynthia Breazeal...](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0943703/)** > > 1918 Flu/Mass Extinction/Papyrus/Profile: Cynthia Breazeal: Directed by Chad Cohen, Vincent Liota. With Chad Cohen, Neil deGrasse Tyson. What caused the greatest mass extinction nearly 250 million years ago?1918 Flu: The 1918 flu virus is revived and... [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0485475/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0485475/) > **["American Experience" Influenza 1918 (TV Episode 1998) - IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0325619/)** > > Influenza 1918: Directed by Robert Kenner. With Alfred Crosby, John De Lano, Shirley Fannin, Cathryn Guyler. The great influenza pandemic of 1918 - the worst epidemic ever seen in the United States. > **["Secrets of the Dead" Killer Flu (TV Episode 2003) - IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0917960/)** > > Killer Flu: Directed by Bill Lyons. With Liev Schreiber. Scientists investigate the Spanish Flu, an unusually severe and deadly strain of avian influenza that caused the 1918 flu pandemic which killed almost 100 million people around the world. > **["Upstairs, Downstairs" Peace out of Pain (TV Episode 1974) - IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0738016/)** > > Peace out of Pain: Directed by Christopher Hodson. With Jean Marsh, Gordon Jackson, Lesley-Anne Down, Simon Williams. While James is convalescing, Richard proposes to Mrs. Hamilton, Edward comes home, and Hazel comes down with the Spanish flu as the... [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1590238/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1590238/)