
Pandemic on the Prairie
A podcast about the intersection of public health, cultural history, and war in Kansas. School closures, mask mandates, infection waves, front line workers, debates over the disease’s origin, disparities in health care access, quarantine fatigue. All of these descriptions could easily apply to both current times and a century ago. In the midst of the current Covid-19 pandemic, many have started looking back to the last global health catastrophe of this magnitude - the 1918 influenza pandemic, also known as the “Spanish flu”. Approximately 50 million people globally, including 675,000 Americans and over 12,000 Kansans, died of this strain of influenza between 1918-1920. “Pandemic on the Prairie” tells the stories of Kansas and Kansans during this tumultuous time of both a World War and a global pandemic. Through learning about our past, we hope to better engage with the present.
Podcasting since 2020 • 7 episodes
Pandemic on the Prairie
Latest Episodes
A Tale of Two Kansas Cities
The invisible line that runs through the middle of Kansas City may be an important political boundary, but in 1918, like today, diseases do not respect these human divides. This episode compares the Kansas City, KS and Kansas City, MO responses...
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Season 1
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Episode 7
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47:07

Samuel Crumbine, Public Health Pioneer
Samuel Crumbine was a physician and public health pioneer known throughout Kansas and the nation for his evidence-based methods of promoting food safety, sanitation, and combating communicable diseases. Many Kansans may still tread on his “Don’...
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Season 1
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Episode 6
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48:23

Mini-episode: A History of the Haskell Institute
Kansas is home to Haskell Indian Nations University, today the premier institution of higher education for Native Americans in the United States. However, Haskell has a long and complicated history, including experiencing two deadly outbreaks o...
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Season 1
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Episode 5
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19:03

The Other Haskell
Just weeks after the March 1918 “first wave” flu outbreak at Camp Funston, the Haskell Institute in Lawrence saw a similar rash of influenza infections. Around one-third of the Native American students were hospitalized, and 17 died. In this ep...
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Season 1
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Episode 4
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34:40

Mini-Episode: Dr. Loring Miner
In this mini-episode, we tell the story of Dr. Loring Miner, a physician in Haskell County in southwest Kansas who, in early 1918, may have encountered the first outbreak of the flu pandemic. Dr. Miner was a little different than the stereotypi...
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Season 1
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Episode 3
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13:17
