The Spanish Flu of 1918 at OAMC

Over 100 years before the COVID-19 would impact campus, Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College experienced a different pandemic. "In 1918, an unprepared nation and Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College faced an invisible foe they never anticipated. The initial impact of the Spanish flu pandemic at the beginning of the year had been insignificant in Oklahoma. The second wave struck the campus that fall. This virulent H1N1 flu killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide and about 675,000 in the United States between January 1918 and December 1920." - David Peters, STATE Magazine In this episode, David Peters, Head of the OSU Archives, and Olivia Turner, Digital Storytelling Intern, talk about the Spanish Flu of 1918 and the impact it had on OAMC.

Read the full story "Facing Down A Pandemic. Spanish Flu hit an unprepared OAMC campus in 1918" on page 86 of STATE Magazine 

Explore the Archives Facebook page and see photos from the Archives.

The Library hosts a suite of podcasts. Amplified Oklahoma and Dear Oklahoma, both produced by the Oklahoma Oral History Research Program at the OSU Library, can be found wherever you get your podcasts.

Olivia Turner is the Archives digital storytelling intern at the Oklahoma State Library and a student at Oklahoma State University. Olivia is majoring in strategic communication because of the variety the major offers and for the once-in-a-lifetime opprtunities she has to interview creative and interesting people.

David Peters is the Head of the Oklahoma State University Archives. He has worked at the Edmon Low Library since January 1986, working in the General Reference Department, later in Special Collections, then as supervisor of the Map Room. He returned to the Archives in 2000, where he has worked since.