Further Lessons from the Influenza Pandemic of 1918–1919 | Christopher McKnight Nichols

In April, on the front end of this era of quarantine, Christopher McKnight Nichols delivered an engaging program on lessons learned from the 1918 Influenza Epidemic. While the reality of COVID-19 continues to evolve and effect every part of our culture, in terms of public health, socialization, the economy, foreign policy, and beyond, where are we now? How did the nation, in the post-WWI-era, manage sheltering-in-place, quarantine, and socially distancing in the name of a greater good? How did this affect broader discussions of public health in the face of a global crisis? How did the engines of economic growth respond and recover?

Join us for a discussion with Christopher McKnight Nichols (associate professor of history at Oregon State University and director of the Center for the Humanities and its Citizenship and Crisis Initiative) for a look at the six month mark of our current crisis and what we might glean from the past as we continue to navigate this challenging time.

Christopher McKnight Nichols is an associate professor of history at Oregon State University, where he also directs the Center for the Humanities and leads the Citizenship and Crisis Initiative. He specializes in the history of the United States and its relationship to the rest of the world, with a focus on isolationism, internationalism, and globalization. Nichols is the author of Promise and Peril: America at the Dawn of a Global Age (2011, 2015). In 2016 Nichols was named one of 33 Andrew Carnegie Fellows worldwide; he has also been elected a permanent member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Nichols is also on the board of the Oregon Historical Society.