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COVID-19 pandemic

epidemics
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Cover and pages of "American Redux" book about housing.

The Rich American Legacy of Shared Housing

A visual journalist remembers a time when "housing was more flexible, fluid and communal than it is today.”
by Ariel Aberg-Riger via CityLab on May 2, 2023
Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) and Jim Jordan (Ohio) during a House select subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic in Washington. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)
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Pandemic Origin Stories are Laced Through With Politics

Efforts to pinpoint early cases have been complicated, and in some cases compromised, by distractions and diversions.
by E. Thomas Ewing via Made by History on April 19, 2023

A Lost Operatic Masterpiece Written By White Men For An All-Black Cast Was Found And Restored

Can it be produced without controversy?
by Fredric Dannen via Billboard on March 27, 2023
Two photos of children being vaccinated.

Vaccinating Kids Has Never Been Easy

Uptake of COVID vaccines for kids has been slow, but it has been slow for other vaccines too.
by Sarah Zhang via The Atlantic on March 10, 2022
Elijah Muhammad, who was then the leader of the Nation of Islam, speaks to a crowd in Chicago in 1966.

What Do the Nation of Islam and Marjorie Taylor Greene Have in Common?

Stuart compares the shared values of Christian nationalists and the Nation of Islam in the 1960's and today.
by Joseph Stuart via Religion & Politics on March 8, 2022
Black and white photo of a beach with a wooden row boat beached on the shore.

The Pandemic Has Given Us a Bad Case of Narrative Vertigo; Literature Can Help

In the work of writers like W.B. Yeats and Virginia Woolf, we can find new ways to tell our own stories.
by Elizabeth Outka via Washington Post on January 25, 2022
A picture of George Aumoithe in a hallway of concrete walls.

Learning From Decades of Public Health Failure

A historian of global health explains how the lack of ICU beds in low-income communities is the result of government spending cuts dating back to the 1970s.
by George Aumoithe, Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins via The Nation on January 19, 2022
Demonstrators holding signs during a student walkout over coronavirus pandemic safety measures at Chicago Public Schools.
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Students Are Protesting Covid Policies — And the Adults Who Won’t Listen to Them

For a century, student activists have demanded a say in their schools.
by Jack Hodgson via Made by History on January 18, 2022
Pile of US paper currency.

Austerity Policies In The United States Caused ‘Stagflation’ In The 1970s

U.S. government policies must continue to support physical and social infrastructure spending amid the continuing pandemic to avoid ‘stagflation’.
by Andrew Yamakawa Elrod via Washington Center For Equitable Growth on January 11, 2022
Biden speaking at a podeum, in front of a vaccines.gov logo.
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Will the Supreme Court let OSHA Enforce Biden’s Vaccine Mandate?

Corporate deregulation has long curtailed OSHA’s power to safeguard workers.
by Alexander Ian Parry via Made by History on January 7, 2022
Collage illustration showing many faces behind a zig-zagging line graph.

Without Context, COVID Tallies Are Misleading

Counting both uninfected and infected people helps us better understand a pandemic.
by Jim Downs via Los Angeles Times on December 19, 2021
A painting by Alfred Touchemolin showing French army recruits being inoculated with cowpox to protect them from smallpox, circa 1895

The Deep Roots of Vaccine Hesitancy

Understanding the battle over immunization—from the pre-Victorian era onward—between public health and the people may help in treating anti-vax sentiment.
by Mark Honigsbaum via New York Review of Books on December 14, 2021
Advertisement during the 1918 Influenza Pandemic.

Political Accountability and the 1918 Influenza Pandemic

Why do some political incumbents adopt aggressive measures to slow the spread of infectious diseases while others do not?
by Yuri M. Zhukov, Jacob Walden via Broadstreet on December 10, 2021
Surgeon General Vivek Murphy, Texas Children's Hospital chief pathologist Jim Versalovic and first lady Jill Biden visit with kids before they receive their coronavirus vaccine shots on Nov. 14 in Houston.
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History Shows That Passing School Coronavirus Vaccine Mandates Could Require Exemptions

Enacting vaccination mandates demands political give and take.
by Elena Conis via Made by History on November 19, 2021

Neoliberalism Died of COVID. Long Live Neoliberalism!

How the predominant ideology of our time survived the pandemic.
by Eric Levitz via Intelligencer on October 14, 2021
Rural front lawn with a Trump sign.
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Our Urban/Rural Political Divide is Both New — And Decades In The Making

Policies dating to the 1930s have helped shape the conflict defining today’s politics.
by Guian McKee via Made by History on October 8, 2021

The South’s Resistance to Vaccination Is Not As Incomprehensible As It Seems

The psychological forces driving “red COVID” have deep historical roots.
by Angie Maxwell, Rebecca Onion via Slate on October 1, 2021
Elvis receiving polio vaccine

Elvis Presley Gets the Polio Vaccine on The Ed Sullivan Show, Persuading Millions to Get Vaccinated

In 1956, Elvis Presley was vaccinated backstage at The Ed Sullivan Show in order to encourage teenagers to get the polio vaccination.
by Josh Jones via Open Culture on September 15, 2021
Self-Portrait, by Jessie Tarbox Beals, 1904.

Midwestern Exposure

Zooming in on the places where early women photographers could build a career.
by Kim Biel via Lapham’s Quarterly on September 14, 2021
An artistic syringe with RNA sequence in it

The Tangled History of mRNA Vaccines

Hundreds of scientists had worked on mRNA vaccines for decades before the coronavirus pandemic brought a breakthrough.
by Elie Dolgin via Nature on September 14, 2021
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COVID-19 in History

Living through a momentus time has prompted many reflections on what the past has to teach us about why the pandemic took the shape that it did – and how we can better respond to it.

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