How do pandemics impact different people in different ways?

Summary: In this lesson, your students will look at sources from the tuberculosis, polio, and influenza pandemics to consider how peoples’ experience of pandemics can be different based on who they are.

Note to teachers:

Content: Class discussions on issues of identity can be difficult. You will know best how to approach this subject matter with your classroom dynamics.

Reading level: This topic is more document-heavy than the others in the pandemic packet. It may be difficult for students who are less comfortable with reading comprehension, especially if you’re working with your class virtually.

Start by reading the “What is a pandemic?” section aloud to your students:

Vocabulary:

• Pandemic: A disease that does not impact just one area but spreads across the whole world.
• Virus: A germ that can get inside your body and make you sick.

What is a pandemic?

It’s likely that your life recently changed due to something silent and invisible–a pandemic. A pandemic is a disease that does not impact just one area but spreads across the whole world. Did you have to stay home from school? Stand six feet away from your friends? Wear a mask in a store? This is because of the pandemic.

he coronavirus is a virus, or a germ that can make you sick. Some viruses have treatments that stop them from hurting people. Others don’t yet. Some viruses without treatment spread so quickly that they become pandemics.

Mainers have faced pandemics before. Pandemics come in different shapes and sizes depending on the type of virus. Sometimes, older people are most at risk. Sometimes it’s more dangerous for children. Different pandemics affect people in different ways, like coughing, fever, and difficulty walking. Pandemics are dangerous because they cause many deaths in a short period of time. They stop either naturally or when people find a cure.

Share information on the following three pandemics: tuberculosis, polio, and influenza. You may want to read the text to the students, and either share images you find online or the images below. Ask your students questions like, “What do you see?” “What questions do you have?” This will help prime them for the following primary source activity.

Tuberculosis

The global tuberculosis (TB) pandemic occurred during the 1800s and 1900s. When the bacteria that causes TB was discovered in 1882, one in seven Americans died from this virus. TB mainly attacks the lungs and can spread through shared air. Tuberculosis patients develop bloody, mucousy coughs, chest pains, weakness, weight loss, fever, and night sweats.

TB broke out in Maine in the first half of the 1900s. Patients were treated away from their homes in places called “sanatoriums.” Sanatoriums were built in areas with lots of open space and fresh air, away from cities. Sanatoriums were also far away from other people so that patients didn’t get their friends and families sick. Staying in a sanatorium cost money and meant you couldn’t work to support your family, which placed a burden on poor and middle-class families.

The Western Maine Sanatorium in Hebron opened in 1904 and treated thousands of tuberculosis patients over the course of weeks, months, and years. Patients received medical treatment such as fresh air, careful diets, and regulated exercise. The sanatorium was originally privately-run, but was transferred to ownership by the Maine government in 1915 due to financial challenges. When the state government ran the facility, patient bills were limited to $5 a week. Wealthier Mainers could afford to go to private sanatoriums that were more like resorts. The Western Maine Sanatorium closed in 1959 due to new drug treatments and a larger movement away from state-operated treatment institutions.

Polio

Polio is a recent pandemic—you might have a relative who remembers it. During the early 1900s, polio was a huge issue across the world. The virus is spread through infected human waste. It can cause permanent disability and even death. Some people who survived polio as children still have medical issues decades later. Polio mainly impacts children under the age of 15. This made the virus even scarier, especially to parents. Some people with polio-related disabilities used crutches, braces, and other supportive devices to help them walk.

Polio existed long before the 1900s, but the largest polio outbreak happened in the more modern, cleaner world of the 1900s. With better sanitation, people were less likely to be exposed to polio as infants. Young babies no longer developed natural immunities when they still carried antibodies from their mothers. Rather, they were exposed to the virus as children. Then they were more vulnerable.

Polio spread quickly in the summer months through carriers without symptoms (children who looked and acted healthy). This caused lot of fear amongst parents, because they didn’t always know how to protect their children. Children’s swimming time was limited because parents worried that their children would get the virus from public water, like swimming pools. In some places, tanker trucks sprayed people with DDT, an insecticide known for its harmful environmental and human impacts, as a preventative polio treatment.

Polio reached Maine in 1916 and Mainers dealt with back-to-back outbreaks in the 1940s and 1950s. However, breakthrough vaccines developed in the 1950s and early 1960s helped stop the virus. Wealthier countries with better healthcare options were able to stop polio faster. As of 2016, polio is still active in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In modern Maine, polio survivors recently spoke out against a 2020 law that would have allowed more Maine people to choose not to get vaccinated.

One well-known polio survivor was Justin Dart, Jr., a leader of the international disability rights movement and a renowned human rights activist. He is widely recognized as the father of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The ADA is a 1990 a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability, and still has a huge impact on life today.

Influenza

The influenza pandemic, which is often referred to as the “Spanish flu,” was the worst pandemic in recent history. Its outbreak lasted only one and a half years, from 1918 to 1920. However, it infected one in every three people in the world. Like during the coronavirus pandemic, people wore masks. Many public buildings like schools were closed.

The Spanish flu came in waves, or time periods in which the virus was worse. The first wave was milder. However, the second and third waves were extremely deadly even to healthy, young people. Patients died within hours or days of developing symptoms like blue skin and suffocation.

Soldiers fighting in World War I were more likely to get influenza. This was certainly the case for Mainers. Half of the Mainers that died during World War I died from influenza, not fighting in the war.

All three of these pandemics impacted different kinds of people in different ways. Think about how people get sick today. It might be harder for some people than others, based on how old they are, their gender, how much money they have, and other factors. Think about that as you explore these primary sources!

Facilitate group conversation about the images you passed out. Prompt your students to tell you what they notice in the images.

The Lesson:

1. Students look at the primary source and complete an Analysis Worksheet it, using only information from the source itself. If they are not ready for analysis and writing, this can be completed as a class or small group.
2. Discuss the source as a class. What did you learn from them? What questions do you have? How does the source connect to the theme?
3. Present source label information to the students. Were you surprised by what you learned?
4. Optional: use the recommended activity prompts and reflection questions for further discussion.

Optional Activity:

• Explore the idea of “identity” as a class by completing the following educational activity from GSLEN: https://www.glsen.org/activity/identity-lesson-grades-3-5
• As a class, come up with a definition for the word “identity” together and write it where everyone can see it.
• Next, discuss the ways that students’ identities might relate to their health. Does something about their lives and who they are mean they are more or less vulnerable to sickness?
• Now move beyond your classroom with your discussion! As a class, investigate what kinds of people have been harmed the most by coronavirus. Find an interesting news article and go through it together.

Reflection Questions:

• The child’s crutch shows how children had problems because of polio. How are pandemics different for people of different ages?
• The tuberculosis handout talked about how some people might want to stop their treatment because they couldn’t afford it. Do you think pandemics have a different impact on people based on how much money they have?
• During a pandemic, what would a poor family have to worry about that a rich family would not?
• Who do you think the woman is in the “Hints for a Sickroom” image?
• Why do you think the image shows a woman instead of a man?
• Who takes care of you when you are sick?
• In 2020, Americans learned about how African Americans and Indigenous peoples were more harmed by coronavirus than white Americans. Can you do some research as a class to find out some reasons why race matters when it comes to people’s health?

Pandemic Primary Source Sets developed in collaboration between the Maine Historical Society, Maine State Archives, Maine State Library, and Maine State Museum.