It came as a shock when I was teaching Edna Ferber’s short story “Long Distance.” The hero, a shell-shocked World War I veteran, is rescued by a good woman, and he’s on his way to happily ever after, when I noticed . . .
It’s 1918. In real life, the Great Influenza would be on its way.
We never learned about it in school, though it devastated the world. Empires fell. Five hundred million people died, a third of the world’s population.
Sure, history is written by the winners, who cover up their sins. Slavery, genocide. But with that pandemic, there’s no one’s reputation to preserve.
In 1918 Americans were told to keep distances and wear masks. They did. It was the law.
If we’d been taught that – as we were taught about the patriotic sacrifices in World War II – we might have jumped to put on masks, to save each other’s lives. We might have known to ask, first, what we can do for our country. We might have loyally done it.
Those who don’t know history are condemned.
