Keywords

influenza, race, pandemic, history, epidemiology

Abstract

This thesis evaluates the relationship between race science and eugenics, statistical epidemiology and Southern public health thought, African American health, and the 1918-1920 influenza pandemic. Historians have neglected the flu as an important epidemiological event in Southern history and historiography. To demonstrate the significance of the flu, this thesis makes several arguments based on research from new qualitative and quantitative evidence. The chief argument is that African Americans suffered disproportionately compared to whites in the South, challenging the consensus that the flu affected both races equally. Segregation did not protect African Americans from the flu. In some cases, African Americans died in higher numbers than whites. In more cases, African Americans suffered higher mortality rates than whites. In virtually all cases, African Americans suffered higher case fatality than whites. This thesis also makes several sub-arguments to support the argument that African Americans suffered disparities to the flu. First, the transatlantic movement of eugenics and its statistical logic influenced public health thought and the development of epidemiology in the Progressive era South; second, the rise of the state health security apparatus in the South through statistical epidemiology reinforced biological explanations for racial difference through the identification of racial disparities to disease; third, officials used racial explanations for disparities to justify segregation; fourth, eugenicists and Southern officials used biological explanations for racial difference to interpret flu distribution patterns between races after the pandemic, extending late nineteenth century racial scientific logic.

Completion Date

2024

Semester

Summer

Committee Chair

Lester, Connie

Degree

Master of Arts (M.A.)

College

College of Arts and Humanities

Department

History

Degree Program

History

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

DP0028596

URL

https://purls.library.ucf.edu/go/DP0028596

Language

English

Rights

In copyright

Release Date

August 2024

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Masters Thesis (Open Access)

Campus Location

Orlando (Main) Campus

Accessibility Status

Meets minimum standards for ETDs/HUTs

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