New Publication: The 1918–20 Influenza Pandemic in Native American Boarding Schools
In a recent article published in Ethnohistory, PANSOC Centre Leader Svenn-Erik Mamelund, former PANSOC Co-Head Jessica Dimka (now Seton Hall University), and the Co-Leader of our 2022–23 Centre for Advanced Study project Lisa Sattenspiel (University of Missouri) analyze the experience of indigenous young people at non-reservation boarding schools run by the US federal government during the 1918–20 influenza pandemic.
With Mikaëla Adams (University of Mississippi), they explore primary qualitative and quantitative data from correspondence between schools and the Indian Office of the US Department of the Interior. This rare source set offers information about pandemic management strategies and outcomes, including infection patterns and deaths.
For the most part, schools aimed to prevent infections through quarantine, preventing visits from outsiders, rather than ceasing instruction. But not all quarantines were strictly kept, and breaches of quarantined led to outbreaks of infection. In other cases, quarantine was only imposed after influenza had already arrived, limiting its effectiveness.
While reservations were hit hard by the pandemic, nonreservation boarding schools did not escape the flu and some had very high mortality rates, over 3% in several cases. The authors argue that poor pre-pandemic health in nonreservation boarding schools, a result of insufficient federal funding, was a main contributor to this outcome.