Fin-de-Siècle Youth Magazines and their Construction of Gendered Responses to Sickness

“…messages to young people about supposed ‘correct’ health responses offer insight into how people were expected to react to mass health events in fin-de-siècle Britain.” An example of a front page of The Girl’s Own Paper. A young woman is illustrated as reading to a young man lying ill in bed, emphasising women’s role asContinueContinue reading “Fin-de-Siècle Youth Magazines and their Construction of Gendered Responses to Sickness”

George Gissing, the Fin de Siècle, and Social Change: Understandings of the ‘Russian Influenza’

“Through realism, Gissing exhibits both sides of a cultural shift, with depictions of a man weathered down by metropolis living in New Grub Street (1891), and a yearning for a simpler time with The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft (1902).” Nineteenth-century Grub Street, as depicted in Robert Chambers Book of Days (1864), Wikimedia. This isContinueContinue reading “George Gissing, the Fin de Siècle, and Social Change: Understandings of the ‘Russian Influenza’”

Infection Within the Ranks: Examining the Way Conspiracies Complicate Public Responses to Pandemics, as Seen in the ‘Russian Flu’ Pandemic (1889-1895)

“As the epidemic developed, theories can be found which suggest that influenza was not an individual infection, but in fact simply an ‘influence’, an ‘electrical state of atmosphere’ with the ability to ‘exercise influence’ on the nervous system.” ‘A Cure for Influenza’ (1891). Cartoon satirising erroneous cures suggested during the 1889 influenza pandemic. Wellcome Collection/Wikimedia.ContinueContinue reading “Infection Within the Ranks: Examining the Way Conspiracies Complicate Public Responses to Pandemics, as Seen in the ‘Russian Flu’ Pandemic (1889-1895)”

Disparaging Doctors and Mocking Masks: Medical and Media Relations during the 1918-19 Influenza Pandemic in Southern California

Open air barber shop during influenza epidemic. Reference: University of California, Berkeley, California, Wikimedia Commons. At the Media and Epidemics: Technologies of Science Communication and Public Health, 20th-21st Centuries Conference, held at the University of Bucharest in May 2024, panellist contributions revealed the prominent position of newspapers in promulgating medical truths or untruths, of shapingContinueContinue reading “Disparaging Doctors and Mocking Masks: Medical and Media Relations during the 1918-19 Influenza Pandemic in Southern California”

New Colds for Old

‘Old Colds for New’, Punch, 18th January, 1890, p. 33. The Media and Epidemics project seeks to document, from historical and contemporary as well as trans-disciplinary and trans-regional perspectives, the role of media and technologies of communication in the making and management of epidemic outbreaks. The investigation of the British team focuses upon the transmission ofContinueContinue reading “New Colds for Old”