Outbreak killed more than 1,000 North Dakotans, writes Christopher Price in ‘Big Pandemic on the Prairie,’ published by The Digital Press at UND

Before the 21st century’s COIVD-19, there was the 1918 Influenza pandemic. Christopher Price, who earned his bachelor’s degree in History at UND in 2013 and is now a faculty member at New River Community and Technical College in West Virginia, has published a new book, “Big Pandemic on the Prairie: The Spanish Flu in North Dakota.”

“Big Pandemic on the Prairie” tells the story of how North Dakota responded to the most devastating pandemic of the 20th century: the 1918 influenza outbreak, which killed more than a thousand people in the state and millions globally. By digging deeply into local newspapers and archives, Price developed an engaging and thought-provoking story of resistance, resilience, reliance and sacrifice across the state.

In many ways, this story is uncannily similar to what our communities experienced in the 21st century, he observes.

These similarities explain the origins of this book. “I kept seeing people on TV and the Internet making claims that the COVID-19 pandemic and public health restrictions were unprecedented,” Price said. “But I’d learned a little bit about the Spanish flu from reading various sources, and I also remember Prof. Kim Porter, my committee chair at UND, mentioning a relative who had died while mustering out of the American Expeditionary Force in Florida. He had gone to Europe and survived the Great War, but he died of the Spanish flu before getting back to his family.”

The book will appeal to a wide range of audiences, from people trying to add historical context to the COVID pandemic to college students interested in the history of public health and medicine, and the intersections of local, global and social histories as well. .

The book offers some surprises for those interested in comparing the Spanish flu and COVID-19 pandemics, Price notes. In 1918, for example, “there was a fairly vocal minority who opposed vaccinations that were created and administered pretty much immediately. On the other hand, there was not the partisan divide in 1918 that was very evident with the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Moreover, the book is more than policy and politics, Price said: “The most interesting source was probably letters from the Ferdinand Shoemaker Collection at the University of Wyoming. when Dr. Shoemaker’s worked at an Indian reservation hospital in North Dakota around the time of the Spanish flu,” he said.

“Without giving too much away, his records included a story of sex, drugs and guns.”

Like all books from The Digital Press at the University of North Dakota, “Big Pandemic on the Prairie” is available as a free download and as a low-cost paperback. This is Price’s second book with the press. His first book, “The Old Church on Walnut Street: A Story of Immigrants and Evangelicals” first appeared in 2014 and then as a revised edition in 2018.

William Caraher, publisher at The Digital Press notes: “This book is another fantastic example of the press’s commitment to authors with local connections and the history of the state and the region. Price’s book makes a unique and entertaining contribution to the history of North Dakota and we’re excited to make it available to as wide an audience as possible.”

Interested readers are invited to download the book from the website of The Digital Press.