![\"\"](\"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/files\/2020\/08\/CC-BUL-Summer2020-31-PandemicHeadlines-1024x357.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cWork was hindered somewhat last week by the precautions taken against a possible outbreak of the Spanish influenza, but now that all danger is past, the practice will be even more energetic than before,\u201d the paper wrote.<\/p>\n
Three days later, the newspaper reported that the outbreak was \u201cwell under control.\u201d Later that same day, CC canceled classes in accordance with a city ban on all public meetings. Ticknor Hall became an emergency hospital largely staffed by members of the local American Red Cross chapter, and Montgomery Hall became a convalescent ward. The paper reported that headaches, vomiting, bloodshot eyes, and a fever of 100 to 104 degrees Fahrenheit were some of the influenza\u2019s early symptoms and warned students to report \u201ceven the slightest cold\u201d immediately.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe advice is basically the same 100 years ago and today,\u201d Randall says. \u201cWash your hands. Don\u2019t get too close to people. Don\u2019t cough on people. If you feel sick, don\u2019t go to class.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over the course of the next month, there were an estimated 180 cases of influenza at CC. Eight men in the Army radio school and Physics Professor William W. Crawford died from the influenza.<\/p>\n
By Oct. 29, only seven patients were left in Ticknor, and classes resumed on Dec. 16 after the city lifted its ban on public gatherings.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn order to go to Colorado College, everybody had to get on the campus,\u201d said Fern Pring Corley 1922<\/strong> in an archived interview with Judy Finley \u201958<\/strong>. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t then leave at all.\u201d<\/p>\nOver a year later, in January 1920, the influenza returned. Though the city\u2019s board of health banned all public gatherings again, they allowed CC students to attend classes, as long as no other gatherings were held and students remained solely on campus. About a month later, the city removed the ban, and CC resumed its normal activities.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt passed, we largely forgot about it, [and] we didn\u2019t take the public health lessons from it that we should\u2019ve taken,\u201d said Metropolitan State University of Denver professor Stephen Leonard in a recent streaming panel hosted by the Denver Project for Humanistic Inquiry. \u201cSo the 1918 to 1919 flu largely faded from memory.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fast-forward to the fall of 1957, and the college was facing another influenza pandemic.<\/p>\n
On Oct. 18, 1957, The Tiger<\/em> reported that the weekly incidence of respiratory infections in the college infirmary had grown from 30% to 60% above normal over the past three weeks, and they were still rising. The pandemic was putting a heavy strain on the infirmary, and the paper reported that some cases may soon be cared for in the dormitories. A new vaccine had just become available, and the paper directed students to receive their shots at the infirmary for a charge of 50 cents.<\/p>\nAt the time, Ann Latimer \u201960<\/strong> was a sophomore living in Loomis Hall. She says that women who were ill were held in their dorms, and since many men lived off campus, they used the infirmaries. She never got sick, but Latimer says she remembers at least 12-14 people on her floor of Loomis did.<\/p>\n\u201cWe just talked to them from the doorway while they were in bed,\u201d Latimer says. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing to do with masks or anything else like that \u2014 you just stayed a distance away.\u201d<\/p>\n
The peak of the 1957 outbreak for CC was around Homecoming in early November, when over 50 students were sick and missed the events, according to The Tiger<\/em>. Shortly after, the influenza started to decline. No quarantine was necessary, and no members of the CC community died, Randall says.<\/p>\n\u201cPeople were recovering at different times \u2026 but they weren\u2019t reinfecting each other like this virus,\u201d Latimer says. \u201cSo that came and went, and then life returned to normal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though she says the flu outbreak in 1957 was different from the 1918 pandemic or COVID-19, Randall says it surprises her to see how similar today\u2019s narrative is to the narrative 100 years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no other way to get at history than what\u2019s written down and what\u2019s remembered, so it can be a comfort \u2014\u00a0it can be the opposite of a comfort \u2014 to see how similar things were 100 years ago,\u201d Randall says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The year 2020 isn\u2019t the first time Colorado College has had to respond to a global pandemic. There have been several times in our history when infectious disease affected our campus and students.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1388,"featured_media":16059,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[114],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-16250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-summer-2020","tag-features"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/files\/2020\/08\/CC-BUL-Summer2020-31-HistoryPandemic.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1388"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16250"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16489,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16250\/revisions\/16489"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}