COVIDintheSOUTH
#COVIDintheSOUTH: Henry T. ClarkVoices in Crisis
News media have always held the role of informing the public of health workers’ essential work during pandemics. In this excerpt from the Southern Oral History Program, learn how hospitals in the South found an ally in the media.
Before Henry T. Clark served as the first Administrator of Health Affairs at the University of North Carolina, he worked at Vanderbilt Hospital creating the first polio ward in Tennessee.
One of ten in the United States at the time of its establishment in 1953, the ward housed its first 50 patients with no fatalities.
Local newspapers covered the opening and praised the brave staff. This media boosted morale in the hospital by letting the workers see “what they were doing was important not only inside the building, but outside.”
Find Clark’s entire account here.
Since 1973, the Southern Oral History Program has worked to capture the vivid personalities, poignant personal stories, and behind-the-scenes decision-making that bring history to life.
Photo courtesy of The Library of Congress.
#COVIDintheSOUTH: Stella Foust Carden
Voices in Crisis
As we see with the COVID-19 pandemic, families often stay together in times of crisis. In this excerpt from the Southern Oral History program we hear from a family in the rural South how they endured the a deadly flu epidemic in 1918.
Stella Foust Carden quarantined at her family’s farm in Schoolfield, VA, during the Spanish Flu epidemic in 1918.
The textile mill and area’s largest employer set up a temporary hospital in a welfare building to combat the pandemic.
She was 11 years old during her family’s quarantine. The local doctor visited daily and fed them a “little old thin soup, a little chicken soup.”
Listen to Carden’s entire oral history here.
Since 1973, the Southern Oral History Program has worked to capture the vivid personalities, poignant personal stories, and behind-the-scenes decision-making that bring history to life.
Photo courtesy of William Ferris, Professor Emeritus.