Episode 3: The Healthiest City

As the 1918 influenza pandemic tore its way across the globe, the damage it caused went hand-in-hand with the ongoing combat of World War I. The massive mobilization of troops from around the world provided the perfect conditions for the disease to spread. And with the need to keep sending troops to the trenches, and to keep morale up on the home front, efforts to slow the spread were hampered. 

In episode three of The Healthiest City podcast, Christina Grev and Katie Bischof discuss how, in the midst of war, the flu made its way into Milwaukee. Ports up and down America’s coasts had become hotspots, sending and receiving floating petri dishes filled with sailors to and from Europe. When the pandemic hit the Great Lakes Naval Station in Illinois that September, sailors going on leave almost immediately introduced the disease to Milwaukee for the first time.

For more information, visit https://milwaukeehistory.net/podcast/.