In my time teaching history at Arts High, I have learned a lot about teenagers. They’re fascinating beings, and largely consider themselves immortal and not bound in any way to the currents of history. They certainly have a flair for the dramatic, and I’m always trying to use this factor to enrich my lessons, to “grab” them, while at the same time trying to maintain a level of accuracy. But if there is a subject that fascinates them more than any other, it’s the prospect of the apocalypse, or the notion of the violent end of the world.
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| Not A Movie: A Scene from the very real 1918 Flu Pandemic |
Believe it or not, this topic comes up frequently in the first year of American history. The apocalypse runs through the curriculum like a mad dog. Puritans made it their obsession and ruthlessly persecuted those who denied it. For Newark’s earliest Puritan settlers, humanity was but a pawn in a colossal struggle between God and Satan. Many black slaves looked at the world’s end as a form of salvation, or “Jubilee,” the day when white control over their destinies and bodies would cease. American Protestant sects in the early 1800’s published whole newspapers devoted to it, while their preachers analyzed the Old and New Testaments for a clue of its approximate arrival. When one preacher convinced many that The End was to come on October 22, 1844, tens of thousands mourned when the day came and went. Today, historians call that day “The Great Disappointment.”
Students are also surprised to learn that one does not need a supernatural pretext to believe in the apocalypse. Enter Marxism. Marx and his billions of adherents have moved whole nations, overthrown governments and killed millions of people in anticipation of it. Any Marxist, in the 1800’s or even today, would tell you that the inevitable violent apocalyptic overthrow of the modern capitalistic system is approaching. Afterwards, Marxists claim, humans will create a form of “Heaven on Earth,” where all resources are communally shared…called Communism. Well, so far, it hasn’t worked out that way.
Modern literature is absolutely obsessed with the apocalypse and its theorized “after effects,” or how the remnants of humanity will deal with it. Middle school students throughout New Jersey read about this in Lois Lowry’s “The Giver,” an epic tale of a post-apocalyptic government of control where its would be “messiah,” escapes, or at least dies trying. Ask any Arts High Student what their favorite book and movie is, and they wouldn’t flinch. Four out of five would tell you “The Hunger Games,” yet another post apocalyptic tale which involves a brutal regime that rules North America through a combination of brute force and manipulative extravaganzas.
And this list goes on and on…on any given day some of my students could be watching one of the Terminator movies or television episodes, which is James Cameron’s epic tale of suddenly self-aware machines obliterating the human world. Additionally, many students are fascinated with The Matrix, another sprawling tale of suddenly self-aware machines…you guessed it…obliterating the human world.
Perhaps this subject fascinates teens because their world is so carefully controlled and structured. Simply entertaining the idea of the Universe (or Civilization) falling apart, of mass anarchy, draws them in. How could it happen? How could the natural or technological world, in which we are so dominant as a species, simply turn on us and wipe us out in a near instant? Would we see it coming? Would anyone believe us if we did? What would it look like? Now this is where it gets interesting.
Now a good teacher wants to keep his or her kids ruminating, but only to a point. It’s important that high school kids understand this concept and its role in history – and it has a very important one – but you do not want your kids freaking out. The point is that the apocalypse has been interpreted and awaited by many groups over the course of human and American history, and this has resulted in many memorable events. Subsequently, once my students start asking me if I believe in it or not, I calm them down. “Relax,” I tell them, “I can assure you that the world is not ending next Thursday, therefore, your papers are still due.” In short, I tell them, it won’t happen. It can’t happen. We are all not going to catch some exotic virus engineered in a government lab and expire tomorrow. Our laser printers are not going to murder us in our sleep. “If history is any guide,” I inform them, “we’ll go on. Bad things happen in human history, of course, but we’ll go on.”
But if you make a careful reading of American history, and especially Newark’s history, you could justifiably claim that I am not just misleading them, I’m lying to them. Flat out lying. My Arts High seniors know this because they can handle the story. History tells us, loud and clear, that there was a near-apocalyptic “moment” in Newark’s history, when the danger from microbes presented a clear and present threat, especially to the healthiest teen or adult. And it can happen again. It was the Great Influenza of the Early 20th Century, particularly 1918-1920. It is also known by its geographically inappropriate name, The Spanish Influenza.
I tell my students over and over that Newark’s history is America’s history, and in this example, it’s a perfect fit. Newark during World War I was a major gathering and embarkation point for troops shipping out to Europe and beyond. Healthy men from all over the nation poured into the city in 1918, bringing with them their local strains of disease. By 1919, with the war’s end, tens of thousands were returning from Europe with new and/or altered microbes. One of these was a strange and rare form of flu now known as “Spanish Flu.” This particular strand of flu had nothing really do to with Spain, but it had everything to do with the apocalypse. Unlike other strains, scientists now believe it posed more of a threat to healthy people. In a strange way, the virus seemed to “target” the vigorous. Perhaps because of the over-reactive response of a healthy body to infection (just one theory among many), fatalities were much higher amongst the fit.
Every doctor knew in the early 20th century that Influenza had been around for a long time, and that there were many strains. Most strains were not especially dangerous to healthy people. While flu could (and still does) kill infants and the elderly, both then and now, doctors would recommend bed rest, warmth and liquids. When the first victims of the Spanish Flu got sick in Newark and all over America in 1918, doctors told them to ride it out at home. It was catastrophic advice.
By the summer of 1918 this new, vicious strain was ravaging the nation, and the world. No part of the globe seemed safe from it, no one knew how to avoid infection. Young people got it, went home, and in days, or a week, died. Globally, the strain would kill an estimated 100 million people…but probably more due to the pneumonia that frequently followed infection. And this was a before antibiotics.
So as you could imagine, by September of 1918 the city of Newark resembled the opening scenes of an apocalyptic epic. Police officers fell ill; many could no longer walk their beats. Judges got it and died from it, seizing up the courts. Some schools closed. In October the state authorities ordered all businesses and institutions shut. Newark’s mayor added to the confusion and panic by openly defying the state’s Board of Health. The mayor demanded – even ordered - that all public institutions remain open. In the meantime, people kept getting infected. Teens and young adults keep dying. It was the beginning of mayhem.
Accounts from the time are filled with anxiety, and it wouldn’t take much to imagine why. How many people panicked while shopping on Market Street, downtown, when a passerby sneezed? Imagine walking past Newark’s opulent City Hall…and your eyes suddenly started to tear up. Was it nothing, or were you finished? Should you go home and rest…or would you wind up inadvertently killing your entire family for a moment of comfort?
Officials kept bickering. As more and more city employees feel ill, and fear spread, municipal services foundered. Newark’s residents weren’t safe anywhere. All previously-believed indications, theories and beliefs meant nothing. Mother Nature had thrown out the rules, and for some perfectly logical city residents – probably a lot – the entire situation, locally and globally, was pointing in a single direction: The Apocalypse was at hand. This was, clearly, the beginning of the end.
October 1918 was a long, dangerous month for the city, and the nation. Thousands in Newark were afflicted; hundreds died. Incredible and terrifying stories were coming over the telegraph wires: tens of millions infected in Asia, whole communities wiped out in British India. All in all, more than a half million probably died in the U.S. alone.
And then it was gone.
In an almost supernatural moment, or month really, the Spanish Flu had receded. Today, immunologists and other medical professionals debate why. Did the virus mutate into something less fatal? Did the disease “burn” itself out by killing too many hosts at once? Was a change in climate due to the Flu’s decline? Were human immune systems adapting to it? Was it because of more hand washing or mask wearing? The truth is, we don’t know. Experts don’t know.
And so, the greatest near-apocalyptic calamity in the city’s history has since faded into memory. Today, most of Newark’s residents know nothing of it; they walk the city’s streets confident that life will suddenly stop due to some unseen germ. Adults know that scary things happen, but apocalyptic events? From the naturalworld? Come on! There’s a pill – or an app – for everything.
Let’s return to my amazing and curious Arts High students. I do remember telling them that there was no reason to stop working on their research papers, as civilization will be here, indeed, next Thursday.
Perhaps I should have added that if they saw a lot of people sneezing in front of the palatial Prudential building on Broad Street, they should hand their papers a bit…earlier.
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