E. Thomas Ewing

E. Thomas Ewing

Contributor

E. Thomas Ewing is a professor in the Department of History at Virginia Tech. He teaches courses in Russian, European, and world history. His research on the history of epidemics, including Russian flu (1889) and Spanish flu (1918), has been published in Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses, Current Research in Digital History, Computer IEEE and Medical History. At Virginia Tech, he coordinates the Data in Social Context program that sustains an interdisciplinary approach of data analytics, computational skills, and critical thinking in the humanities and social sciences. He has received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities to run workshops on the 1918 Spanish Influenza, Images and Texts in Medical History, and Viral Networks.E. Thomas Ewing is a professor of history at Virginia Tech, with research interests in the history of influenza epidemics. He has published essays in Nursing Clio on preventive measures during the 1918 pandemic, including a ban on kissing, a ban on the liquor traffic, mask fashions, and Stockton health officer Minerva Goodman (the latter two essays with Jessica Brabble and Ariel Ludwig).

History

Wear a Mask or Go to Jail

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In the fall of 1918, seven young people were photographed wearing masks lined up near a railroad track in Mill Valley, California. One woman wore a sign around her neck: “Wear a Mask or Go To Jail.” The catalog record associated with the photograph lists the date, November 3, 1918, the photographer, Raymond Coyne, the… Read more →

History

Our Work is Not Complete Yet: The Tuberculosis Nurse Training Program at Virginia’s Piedmont Sanatorium

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In May 1940, the Piedmont Sanatorium in Burkeville, Virginia, graduated eight African American nurses with advanced training in tuberculosis care. A “Class History” and “Class Prophecy” presented at the commencement ceremony articulated the value of educational attainment, individual determination, and collegial support. As discussed in the Nursing Clio series, Beyond Florence, the history of nursing… Read more →

History

A Complete Halt to the Liquor Traffic: Drink and Disease in the 1918 Epidemic

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When the annual Pennsylvania convention of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) began on October 4, 1918, delegates “rejoiced” that the state Board of Health had closed all saloons, and most other sites of public assembly, as a preventive measure against the influenza epidemic. The most influential organization advocating for prohibition, the WCTU pressed for… Read more →

History

“Kiss Via Kerchief”: Influenza Warnings in 1918

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Just over one hundred years ago, New York Health Commissioner Royal S. Copeland responded to the threat of “Spanish” influenza reaching the United States with the reassuring, if completely misguided, prediction that “there is nothing to be alarmed about so far as I can see.”1 Yet the part of Copeland’s warning that “went viral,” to… Read more →