In the Archives: Pandemics Past and Present
Centenary’s preparatory department summer school, photograph taken a few months before the fall 1918 influenza pandemic.
One hundred years after a global pandemic, how will people know the ways it affected Centenary? In the midst of Covid-19 reshaping campus life, the Centenary Archives turned to its holdings to investigate how the 1918 influenza pandemic impacted the College. As it turns out, echoes of that past experience remain on our campus today. A selection of the material described below appears online thanks to the efforts of Archives student workers Celeste Muniz, Tori Reich, and Chris Willie. View the 1918 Flu Pandemic in the Online Exhibit section here.
On October 8, 1918, Centenary’s President R.H. Wynn visited the office of the New Orleans Christian Advocate, a weekly newspaper published by Louisiana and Mississippi Methodists. The paper ran a short message that Wynn “reported that Centenary has a fine attendance and that the school work is moving along smoothly.” A much different situation unfolded over the following days. The Shreveport Times reported on October 10 that following guidance from Louisiana officials, “All schools, churches, theatres, picture shows and other places in Shreveport, where people congregate, were ordered closed yesterday afternoon.” The Advocate again relayed news from Centenary, this time in a stark message from Wynn published October 24: “[S]chool work has been suspended during the influenza epidemic. Professor J.G. Sawyer, the efficient dean of the college, has had a severe attack of the influenza, but is regaining his strength.”
Details are sparse about Centenary during the subsequent days, though local newspapers did carry news of students “spending the quarantine vacation at home” in such nearby communities as Ida and Kingston. A few weeks later, it appears Centenary resumed operations. At their November 1 meeting, the faculty approved “that class periods be lengthened to one hour instead of forty-five minutes to make up for lost time.” Few additional resources seem to shed light on Centenary during the 1918 pandemic. However, the first edition of the Yoncopin yearbook, published in 1922, does have the graduating class reflecting on their first year of college, which began in fall 1918. In a section titled Senior Class History, the yearbook notes, “As freshmen our path was darkened by two external events. Quite a few were called from our class to military service during the great war. […] It was during this year that the influenza plague swept over our country, and because of the gaps made by this scourge our ranks were weakened.”
One trace of a 1918 pandemic casualty remains visible on Centenary’s campus to this day, and it happens to be connected to a relative of this author. A plaque hangs in the Ellis Horn Brown Memorial Meditation Chapel, a room adjoining Brown Memorial Chapel. Ellis graduated from Centenary in 1917 and enlisted in the Tank Corps in June 1918. Four months later, he died from influenza at Camp Colt near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. In 1955, Ellis’s brothers memorialized their parents and him with the dedication of Centenary’s chapel.
For those reading this article in the year 3020, what resources might you use to study how Covid-19 affected Centenary? The College’s webpages devoted to Covid policies, line graphs showing reported numbers of infections on campus, and rules outlined in the Forward Safely Promise? Social media accounts documenting student life? Policies enacted by the faculty? Photographs of classes held outside? Emails from administrators identifying Covid testing and vaccination locations? Posters with reminders to stay six feet apart? Video recordings of online meetings? Centenary branded face masks? Future archivists and student workers, I wish you luck in using the preserved digital files, paper documents, and ephemera to tell our story!
— Chris Brown ‘01
For more information about the project, contact Centenary archivist Chris Brown at 318.869.5462 or archives@centenary.edu.