Scope and Content Note
The Brett Riggs Influenza Pandemic Archive spans the years 1891-1945, with the bulk of the material dating from 1918 to 1919. The collection includes correspondence, artifacts, clippings, diaries, ephemera, newspapers, pamphlets, periodicals, photographs, postcards, printed matter, publications, and reports relating to the 1918 Influenza Pandemic, chiefly in the United States. Also included are advertisements for assorted treatments including Borden's Malted Milk, Ec-To Balm, Hill's Cascara Bromide Quinine pills, and Kolynos Dental Cream.
The collection documents the effects of the pandemic on the lives of ordinary Americans and on American sailors and soldiers during World War I. This includes outbreaks in local communities and at army camps throughout the United States, on United States naval ships, and among troops serving in Europe. It also documents the effects of the pandemic on civilian and military hospitals, hospitalizations, the implementation of quarantines, bans on public gatherings, the closures of schools, churches, and places of business, the wearing of masks to limit the spread of the disease, and deaths as a result of influenza and its complications. In many instances within the collection, the Influenza Epidemic is referred to by correspondents and in printed matter and advertisements by the misnomer "Spanish Influenza."
Riggs provided an inventory of the collection items that includes numbers he assigned to each item and the accompanying research he conducted. All information on the inventory was supplied by Riggs. A copy of this inventory is included in box 1. Item numbers corresponding to the inventory are recorded on the folders throughout the collection.