Minnesota 1918
When the pandemic was still just breaking news and before we reached total lockdown status, I was browsing a local bookstore. I stopped at the “Books About Minnesota” section and spotted Minnesota 1918: When Flu, Fire, and War Ravaged the State by Curt Brown. We had already seen and heard mentions of the 1918 pandemic on the news, so that wasn’t surprising, but the addition of fire and war sparked my curiosity. The bold “Minnesota” sealed the deal. If you are looking for a book to help you understand what happened during the 1918 pandemic in Minnesota, this is it.
IS CURT BROWN A PSYCHIC?
The author, Curt Brown, has been a journalist for more than 30 years and his weekly columns are some of my favorites. He finished writing Minnesota 1918 in 2018, the 100th anniversary of the events it details. The timing is incredible, but of course he had no idea just how relevant his book was about to become.
FLU, FIRE, AND WAR
Brown does a brilliant job of not just retelling the events that happened but answering the question of why it matters. He expands our view from just one particular incident and includes other events happening at the same time to give us perspective and ground us in the zeitgeist of the period.
I’m sure that you’ve heard about the 1918 pandemic, or the Spanish Flu, on your nightly news, but no one has taken the opportunity to also highlight how the timing was related to World War I. Few have mentioned the role of American soldiers in the spread of the virus or explained how even the name “Spanish Flu” is a misnomer - just like the “China Virus” is today. These two cataclysmic events, the war and the virus, occurring at the same time compounded the fallout and created a worldwide tragedy.
Then there were the fires. Sparks from coal-fired steam engines ignited the forests, bone dry from drought, and flames engulfed 1500 square miles of Minnesota, killing 450 people and decimating entire towns. Lucky survivors were crammed into available housing during the winter, where exposure to the flu was unavoidable. Nearly 100 additional people died from the flu.
Many survivors had nothing to go back to. The fires had completely devastated Cloquet, Moose Lake and a dozen smaller communities in northeastern Minnesota. When soldiers returned from war they found their entire families had been killed by flu or fire.
Brown shares the many accounts of long-forgotten nurses, soldiers, lumbermen, farmers, doctors and politicians from across the state and their harrowing tales of tragedy and triumph as they did their very best to survive. So many of the stories are eerily similar to today’s headlines — wildfires on the west coast, racism against immigrants, soldiers serving abroad as tensions flare with other countries, flawed disaster response by the government, and an alarmingly high number of flu deaths. There are also stories of hope — survivors helping each other in the darkest circumstances, families finding each other after long separations, and individuals making the best of the life they are given when so many others didn’t have the chance.
While I was tempted to read this book and wonder why we never learn from our pasts, I was ultimately reassured that Minnesotans have survived terrible tragedy before and that we can survive this latest crisis as well. I highly recommend Minnesota 1918 to anyone who might find reassurance in the testimonies of those who have seen the worst and found a way through.
I sincerely hope that Mr. Brown circles back and adds an afterword or additional chapters to compare and contrast the events of 1918 to our current crisis. Does history repeat itself? Have we applied any lessons learned in 1918 to today? Or are we stumbling through as blindly as they did back then, trying to make their way through the smoke?
