Pictured: "Locust Avenue, masks on." Copyright Raymond Coyne/Mill Valley Public Library, Lucretia Little History Room
For the past four years, alumna Carol Scheppard’s seminar “After the Scourge” has examined seven pandemics, from the bubonic plague to AIDS.
That doesn’t mean she saw COVID coming.
“I have to confess that I was like everybody else,” says Scheppard, who received a master’s in education from Lesley in 1984 and is now a professor of philosophy and religion at Bridgewater College in Virginia. “It was something that was happening in China, and I wasn't paying attention.”
Plagues and poxes
Scheppard’s interest in pandemics was piqued when she learned about the bubonic plague during her PhD program in medieval religious studies.
“The 21st century has seen a lot of change in this, but (historians) have been slow to understand the impact of pandemics in massive global changes,” she says.
Scheppard began to research pandemics, their effects and their convergence with other world events.
Through her course she asks students to consider, “What happens to how people interact? What happens to social networks? What happens to economies? What happens to religious belief? How do pandemics shape military conflict?”
The answers to those questions are staggering. One example Scheppard cites is the bubonic plague, the death toll of which effectively halved the workforce of the Western world. Adding to that, climate disasters led to large-scale famine. The overall effect, says Scheppard, was a slow transition from feudalism to a capitalist system.
Pandemics have toppled not only economic systems, but civilizations. The Spanish colonization of South and Central America was a direct result of the smallpox they brought with them.
“There’s no way a relatively small number of armed Spanish soldiers are going to conquer some of the greatest civilizations that ever existed,” say Scheppard, “but smallpox did.”
The Spanish Flu, which Scheppard calls our “cousin pandemic,” hits even closer to home. Despite its name, the flu originated in the United States and has unsettling similarities to COVID-19. At the time, President Woodrow Wilson was dealing with World War I, which may account for his inattention to the disease that overwhelmed Philadelphia and killed soldiers in alarming numbers as it spread it through the trenches of European battlefields.
“(Wilson), very much like our current president, downplayed the seriousness of the pandemic,” says Scheppard. But when Wilson contracted the flu, it had even more devastating consequences. After falling ill, Wilson, who was influential in the discussions for the Treaty of Versailles, conceded to harsh restrictions on Germany, an about-face from his position beforehand. The treaty is widely considered to be a factor in the rise of Nazism and the start of World War II.
Like today, many public health officials tried to stem the spread of the pandemic. San Francisco, in particular, implemented lockdowns and required masks. Unfortunately, the masks were gauze, so not very effective. There was lots of opposition then, too.
“People would cut holes in their mask so they could smoke their cigars,” says Scheppard.
With Armistice Day came big parades and parties luring people fatigued of lockdowns into the streets to celebrate. Sound familiar?
“Once the fire is out, everybody forgets. We're not good at prevention in anything,” says Scheppard.
Past pandemics still haunt us, from cholera outbreaks in Haiti to antibiotic-resistant tuberculosis. But there have been positive changes, too.
For example, cholera “helped usher in a new era of sanitation systems” in London that then extended to other major cities. Which COVID-era changes will stick and which won’t? It’s a question Scheppard wants her students to consider.
Pandemic in the classroom
Teaching a hybrid course with some students attending remotely on Zoom and others masked in the classroom, Scheppard’s pandemic course has never been so relevant.
“They're the most interested of any students who've done this topic because they're living it,” she says.
The course raises fresh questions. What will this pandemic teach us? What will people remember? And will it make any difference the next time a pandemic threatens?
It’s too soon to tell, but Scheppard and her students will be asking the right questions.
