Living through a pandemic: Canadians and Quebeckers during the 1918 flu
The goal of this assignment is to write a report on the 1918 flu pandemic that affected
Canada, Quebec and the rest of the world. More than 50 million people died in the world.
Your report will address the following questions.
-When did the flu pandemic start in Canada and in Quebec? When did it end?
-What were the symptoms of the flu? How did the flu spread?
-How many people were infected in Canada and in Quebec? How many people died in
Canada and in Quebec? Were specific ethnic groups more affected than others? Were
men more affected than women? Were old people mostly affected? Were Indigenous
people affected?
-How did municipal, provincial and federal governments react? Which measures were
implemented? Did governments impose a lockdown? Did schools close? For how long?
Did cinemas, theatres, restaurants, and businesses close? For how long?
-Did governments provide financial assistance to those who were sick? To those who lost
their jobs? To those who lost their businesses?
-How did health authorities react? What did they tell the population? How should people
protect themselves?
-Did people wear masks? Did people comply or defy health measures? Were there any
debates on what governments should do during the pandemic?
-How did religious organizations react? What did they tell their followers?
-Was there a cure?
-What were the long-term consequences?
Your paper should address the questions listed above. Please do not hesitate to include
other aspects that reveal how Canadians and Quebeckers dealt with the flu pandemic. For
some questions, you wont have to write much. However, you will write several
sentences for other questions. Although your paper should deal with Canada, you should
explain how Quebec municipalities, institutions, businesses, people and provincial
government dealt with the pandemic. You should give examples about Quebec.
How to proceed?
2
1)You should read the articles listed below. These short articles will give you a broad
perspective on the flu pandemic and one of them, Learning from Past Pandemics:
Resources on the 1918-1919 Influenza Epidemic in Canada, will give you a list of
books, journal articles and websites that you should use for your report.
The 1918 Influenza in the Canadian Encyclopedia
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/1918-spanish-flu-in-canada
The Spanish flu in Canada on the Park Canada website
https://www.pc.gc.ca/en/culture/clmhc-hsmbc/res/doc/informationbackgrounder/espagnole-spanish
Learning from Past Pandemics: Resources on the 1918-1919 Influenza Epidemic in
Canada, Active History.ca http://activehistory.ca/2020/04/learning-from-a-pastpandemic-resources-on-the-1918-1919-influenza-epidemic-in-canada/
Spanish Influenza in Victoria, Canada, 1918-1920: One citys experience of the Great
Pandemic https://spanishfluvictoriabc.com/the-plague-approaches/
2) You need to do some research and read about the flu pandemic and its impact in
Canada and in particular in Quebec. Most resources are available online. I encourage you
to look at two newspapers in particular, The Globe and the Toronto Star.
The Globe https://oculyor.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=alma991036129614105164&c
ontext=L&vid=01OCUL_YOR:YOR_DEFAULT&lang=en&search_scope=OCULDisco
veryNetwork&adaptor=Local%20Search%20Engine&tab=OCULDiscoveryNetwork&qu
ery=any,contains,The%20Globe&offset=0
The Toronto Star (View full text-Pages of the past)
https://oculyor.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=alma991033251879705164&c
ontext=L&vid=01OCUL_YOR:YOR_DEFAULT&lang=en&search_scope=MyInst_and
_CI&adaptor=Local%20Search%20Engine&tab=Everything&query=any,contains,the%2
0toronto%20star&offset=0
Once you are on the Globe or the Toronto Star websites, you will find newspaper
articles that deal with the pandemic. For instance, you can type Spanish flu, and
you will find more than 700 articles on this topic in the Globe. Do not forget to
focus on the 1918-20 period in Quebec. If you are on the Toronto Star website,
you will find more than 750 articles on the flu between January 1918 and February
1919. Good luck.
Deadline
Your assignment should be between 8 and 10 pages (between 2,000 and 2,500 words).
All sources should be credible scholarly sources and should be cited, using the Chicago
Manual of Style, in footnotes