• Login
    View Item 
    •   DSpace Home
    • SUNY Brockport
    • Events/Conferences
    • Master's Level Graduate Research Conference
    • View Item
    •   DSpace Home
    • SUNY Brockport
    • Events/Conferences
    • Master's Level Graduate Research Conference
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Browse

    All of DSpaceCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsDepartmentThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsDepartment

    My Account

    LoginRegister

    Statistics

    Most Popular ItemsStatistics by CountryMost Popular Authors

    "The Grim Reaper Visited:" The 1918 Influenza Epidemic in Rural Western New York

    Thumbnail
    Date
    2014-04-26
    Author
    Pomplas, David A.
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Abstract
    An epidemic worse than the Black Death, the 1918 Influenza pandemic killed 400,000 Americans and millions worldwide. While most histories of this tragedy focus on the large number of deaths in urban areas, this paper begins to fill in the missing pieces of this tragedy by examining the rural areas of western New York. Using primary source documents, an understanding of how local citizens dealt with grief, reacted to emergency measures, and made sense of the massive loss of life emerges. The evidence suggests some differences from the histories told based on urban evidence. Citizens in towns such as Bergen, Holley, Brockport and Clarendon faced disruptions to their lives as they grieved and endured local mandated quarantines with surprising patience. Many citizens in the local area turned to religion as a way of understanding and coping with their loss. Faced with church closings due to quarantines, local Christians used the epidemic as a way of putting their religion into practice. This paper concludes with an examination of the ways survivors put their lives back together and dealt with their memories of the epidemic. Using evidence from small towns and villages provides a human lens through which to understand the tragedy of families destroyed and children orphaned that urban based studies cannot provide.
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/1951/72398
    Collections
    • Master's Level Graduate Research Conference [446]

    SUNY Digital Repository Support
    DSpace software copyright © 2002-2023  DuraSpace
    Contact Us
    DSpace Express is a service operated by 
    Atmire NV
     

     


    SUNY Digital Repository Support
    DSpace software copyright © 2002-2023  DuraSpace
    Contact Us
    DSpace Express is a service operated by 
    Atmire NV