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Pierce County, Washington: The 1918 Influenza Pandemic And Public Health, Colton Abbey

History Undergraduate Theses

As of 105 years ago this October, the deadliest pandemic of the twentieth century arrived in Tacoma and the greater Pierce County area, putting its residents and officials in an arduous position. The choices made in October of 1918 were not made lightly, as the potential for a public health crisis weighed heavily on the minds of those in the face of the “Spanish Flu.” With a public health lens, I have used local newspapers, health reports, military history books, the transcripts of the Pierce County Medical Society meetings, and adjacent scholarship to analyze the influenza policies of 1918 Peirce …