1918 Influenza on Delmarva: Manuscripts and Other Archival Materials

This letter comes from the collection of E. Sheldon Jones, whose father, I.E. Jones, was the Mayor of the City of Salisbury, Maryland in 1918. For more information on the collection, visit here. 

Jones Letter PDF

This extensive encyclopedia of archival material from the 1918 Influenza comes from the University of Michigan Center for the History of Medicine and Michigan Publishing.

The CDC’s Pandemic Flu Storybook provides readers with a look at the impact pandemic flu events have had on both survivors and the families and friends of non-survivors. These stories are not folklore, but personal recollections. This collection of stories was first released in 2008 to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the 1918 flu pandemic.

• "Spanish influenza," "three-day fever," "the flu.".

  Published by U.S. Public Health Service (1918)
  [See "Influenza Encyclopedia" at left for a large collection of digitized documents from the Heath Service on this topic.]

• Epidemic Influenza (Spanish Influenza)

  U.S. Public Heath Service Sept, 1918

• 1919 Annual Report of Surgeon General of the Public Health Service

  Extensive statistics and information on actions of U.S. Public Health Service to the epidemic
  (see Table of Contents)

• Report on the Pandemic of Influenza 1918-1919 [ Ministry of Heath, Great Britain]

• Inflammatory Diseases of Respiratory Tract (WWI)

  Medical Dept. of the U.S. in the World War- V.9 (communicable and other diseases) Chapt. 2
  GPO, 1928.

The Mary Ann Pieper Collection (2019.076) includes handwritten letters between a father working in Baltimore and his family back in Pocomoke City. The 98 pages of letters were written in 1918 and mention the impact of the 1918 Influenza on Marylanders. The earlier letters have brief mentions of friends and neighbors having colds, but the later letters directly mention the pandemic-including this October 9 letter recommending masks. All the letters are not focused on the pandemic, so you might have to dig through them.

• A Comparative Study of State Regulations for the Control of Influenza

  Public Health Reports vol. 35, no. 37, 1920, pp. 2155–2161.

• Experiences During the Epidemic at Cedar Branch (Logging) camp

  Colon, Ann, RN. American Journal of Nursing v.19 #8 p. 605-606.
  Experiences in Michigan logging camp.

• INFLUENZA REPORT OF A SPECIAL COMMITTEE OF THE AMERICAN PUBLIC HEALTH ASSOCIATION (1918)

  JAMA. 1918;71(25):2068–2073.

• Influenza Vignettes: On Visiting Nurse Services in Chicago

  Westerphal, Mary E. (Assistant Superintendent in the Visiting Nurse Association, Chicago)
  Public Health Nurse, v.11 #2 (1919) p. 129-133.

• A New Kind of Influenza

  Article from "The Lancet" 10/26/18 p. 567

• Random Recollections of Epidemic in Kimberley, South Africa

  E. Oliver Ashe, South African Medical Journal 1/11/1919 p. 6-8

• Winding Sheet and a Wooden Box

  Brief interview with U.S. Navy Nurse about her experiences caring for soldiers during epidemic
  Navy Medicine, v.77#3 (1986) p. 18-19

• Influenza-destroyer and teacher: a general confession by the public health authorities of a Continent

  Survey (Magazine) 1918;41:367–9

• Influenza-pneumonia as influenced by dish-washing in 370 public institutions

  Cumming, J. G. (1920). American Journal of Public Health and the Nation's Health, 10, 576-582.