Kansas is home to Haskell Indian Nations University, today the premier institution of higher education for Native Americans in the United States. However, Haskell has a long and complicated history, including experiencing two deadly outbreaks of the 1918 influenza pandemic (as told in Episode 3). In this mini-episode, we talk with Prof. Eric Anderson, chair of the Indigenous and American Indian Studies Department at Haskell Indian Nations University and an expert on the history of the institution. how did a boarding school that for many decades promoted assimilation into Euro-American culture, forcibly stripping students of their indigenous cultures, eventually become a university that celebrates and promotes Indigenous sovereignty and Native American culture in all its diversity?
Jan 21, 2021
19 min
Just weeks after the March 1918 “first wave” flu outbreak at Camp Funston, the Haskell Institute in Lawrence saw a similar rash of influenza infections. Around one-third of the Native American students were hospitalized, and 17 died. In this episode, we’ll talk to historian Mikaëla Adams about this early outbreak of the 1918 flu at the Haskell Institute. And we’ll examine the larger context of Indian boarding schools in the U.S. and the failure of public health programs for Native Americans. And what can the Haskell Institute experiences tell us about medicine and discrimination in both 1918 and 2020?
Dec 6, 2020
34 min
In this mini-episode, we tell the story of Dr. Loring Miner, a physician in Haskell County in southwest Kansas who, in early 1918, may have encountered the first outbreak of the flu pandemic. Dr. Miner was a little different than the stereotypical country doctor. Dr. Miner was "gruff" and one who "didn't suffer fools," but he also was extremely dedicated to his practice, traveling over hundreds of square miles to attend to patients. He loved the classics and read the great works of Greek literature … in Greek! He embraced the germ theory of disease and built a home laboratory complete with a microscope. We'll hear from historian John Barry explain why Dr. Miner was such an unusual doctor given the state of medical education at the time.
Nov 10, 2020
13 min
Did the deadly 1918-1920 influenza pandemic begin in Kansas? While this pandemic is often called the “Spanish flu”, there is a strong possibility it originated in Camp Funston, a training camp for WWI recruits at Fort Riley. We will follow the paper trail to trace the origins of this theory. So how did it get to Camp Funston? To help answer this question, we’ll talk with historian John Barry about his work on the Kansas origins of the flu pandemic. Finally, we’ll explore the question of why and how it matters where a pandemic started.
Nov 3, 2020
34 min
Welcome to Pandemic on the Prairie, a podcast about the 1918-1920 influenza pandemic in Kansas and what local stories tell us about the American experience more broadly. But before we explore local stories, for this episode we zoom out and get an introduction to what was happening a century ago. Why was this influenza pandemic was so deadly, how did it affect people across the country (in fact, across the world), and what are some of the ways in which it was remembered - and forgotten - by Americans? We to try to answer these questions and more with the help of historian Nancy Bristow.
Oct 9, 2020
35 min