Marc-William Palen
History Department, University of Exeter
Follow on Twitter @MWPalen

From the Bombay plague epidemic of 1896 to how the 1918 influenza pandemic nearly derailed the women’s suffrage movement, here are this week’s top picks in imperial and global history.

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The Bombay Plague Epidemic of 1896 and Modern Indian Politics with Shruti Kapila

The seventh episode of The History of Now, a podcast from the Faculty of History at the University of Cambridge. Listen to Shruti Kapila with Chris Clark about The Bombay Plague Epidemic of 1896. [listen here]

The Bandung Conference as global event

E-DOSSIER #2: THE AFRICAN-ASIAN CONFERENCE, BANDUNG, APRIL 1955, AS A GLOBAL EVENT

The 1955 Bandung conference was one of the most important conferences held in the twentieth century. It’s also one of the least well known. Leaders of the major independent Asian and African countries gathered at this Indonesian city from April 18-22, 1955. There, they first set in motion the concept of South-South solidarity — newly-independent countries of Africa and Asia gathering to seek common ground. It was a French writer who dubbed this group “the Third World.” It was at the United Nations where the new independent governments began to found common ground. But it was in Bandung where it began. This e-dossier tells the story of the Bandung conference through the conference bulletin and additional documents.

The African-Asian Conference Bulletin was published in the lead-up and aftermath to the conference and on a daily basis while the conference was going on. It was produced by a conference secretariat staff and published by the Indonesian ministry of information. Molly Bondan, a member of the conference information staff, recalled that much of the material produced in English at Bandung aimed at outside audiences. [continue reading]

In 1918, there was an anti-mask league in San Francisco

Covid-19 News

As in every city, it is impossible to know just how the first case of influenza was contracted in San Francisco. According to contemporary newspaper reports, however, a local man who had returned to his home after a recent trip to Chicago brought the disease to San Francisco. Learning of the case on September 23, San Francisco Health Officer Dr. William C. Hassler ordered the man to the city hospital and placed his home under quarantine. The hope was that these actions might stop the spread of the disease in its tracks, sparing San Francisco from an epidemic. However, by October 9 the city had at least 169 cases of influenza. Only a week later that number had jumped to over 2,000. San Francisco’s epidemic had started.

As the number of cases began to rise sharply, the city Board of Health issued a series of recommendations to the public on how best to avoid contracting influenza. City residents were advised to avoid streetcars during peak rush hour times, asked to not dance in public places and to avoid crowds, and instructed to pay particular attention to their personal hygiene as well as that of their children. Dance halls were closed. Streetcar conductors were ordered to keep the windows of their cars open in all but rainy weather, hospitals were ordered to only accept patients who absolutely required their care, and hospital physicians and nurses were instructed to wear gauze masks when with flu patients. As in nearly every other American city, the need for nurses was severe, and the board made the call for volunteers and for existing nurses to put in extra hours each day until the epidemic subsided. [continue reading]

The Moral Crisis of the Pandemic

Jeremy Adelman
Project Syndicate

COVID-19 has renewed the significance of locality in our lives. Social isolation and, in many places, the limits of national authority have highlighted the importance of close-to-home resources and bottom-up solutions to an invisible menace. International trade and travel have brought the virus into our neighborhoods and workplaces, but regional and local health services have had to mobilize to contain the pandemic.

Not surprisingly, we are riveted by stories of community resilience in the face of an unseen peril. We observe this acuity and resourcefulness in the daily briefings of US state governors and see it in the forbearance of neighbors and the sacrifices of health-care workers. National figures? Not so much. We continue to tell ourselves, “The world is a dangerous place. Thank goodness for neighbors and local authorities and institutions.” [continue reading]

A pandemic nearly derailed the women’s suffrage movement

Ellen Carol Dubois
National Geographic