Tag Archives: First World War

200,000 Dead Already: COVID-19 versus the Spanish Flu

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Think about it, people

Conditions in the United States of America are on track to allow deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic to surpass those from the Spanish flu outbreak. The Spanish influenza pandemic is often held up as metric of comparison against the current pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. Think about it, people: an estimated 400,000 Americans dead in one year from COVID-19 versus 675,000 Americans dead from the Spanish flu across four waves in three years. Continue reading →

Did the Spanish Flu cause the Great Depression?

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Covid-19 is causing a severe recession after an economic boom built upon a foundation left shaky by the Great Recession. Similarly, did the influenza pandemic of WW1 lay the groundwork for the Great Depression after the even-shakier Roarin’ 20s boom? What’s next now? And what can we learn?

Construction booms in Seattle, the once Emerald City now known as the City of Cranes. Yet high rates of homelessness left over from the Great Recession and the Occupy revolts has led to a dead-end of cynicism, apathy, and despair ravaged by an opioid epidemic. The increase in employment masks over the high number of jobs considered dead-end, part-time, low-wage, reduced benefits, or regions scarred by stagnant economies and dead industries. So many barriers to progress! Even in a boom city! Foto by the Author, Monday 2 April 2018.

Was the “Spanish flu,” a disease pandemic whose awful memory was shoved aside by the Roaring 20s, a so-called Invisible Hand? A negative, indeed a “dead” invisible hand of capitalism at that? What lessons are relevant for us today as the new coronavirus recession arrives so soon after the Great Recession? If history does tend to repeat itself, then it helps to remember what’s often forgotten.

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100 Years after the Armistice

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Granddaddy in the First World War with Contemplation, Tribute, … & a Warning

The horror of World War 1 ended with a ceasefire 100 years ago today, although people continued to die by the millions in the numerous revolutions, civil wars, and ethnic conflicts left blazing on every continent except Antarctica while the Spanish flu pandemic burned grimly around the globe. My paternal grandfather, Carroll Melvin Bass, served in the United States Navy in those terrible times. He fought in the North Atlantic hunting German submarines. His ship chased and sunk subs full of sailors from the other side. Born on Sunday the 9th of April 1893, he turned 24 years old three days after the U.S.A. declared war on Imperial Germany. He achieved the rank of MM1, Machinist’s Mate 1st Class, short for Machinist’s Mate Petty Officer First Class, USN.

I remember asking him what it was like way back when I was a preteen lost in fantasies of glory. Pop, our name for him, struggled to describe his experience. He didn’t say much, and he died of cancer on Wednesday 10 March 1971 seven weeks before my 12th birthday. My paternal grandfather’s gravestone is dominated by references to his service in the U.S. Navy during World War I. In death his experiences during the Great War seemed to have formed the defining, even pivotal period of a life lived across nearly eight decades. All I can recall, however, were impressions as if splashed with black and red paint and cold, cold water.

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