Why isn’t the Spanish Flu taught or referenced as often in American Curriculum?

by natonio95

Why isn’t the Spanish Flu not taught in American curriculum?

With Coronavirus and everyone referencing the Spanish Flu of 1918 as a reminder of the the how the world responds to pandemic situations, how does a global epidemic like the Spanish Flu not talked about often in schools when it killed around 100 Million people worldwide (more than WW2, WW1, Vietnam, Iraq, and the American Civil War combined) with large cultural,political, and generational implications?

It’s been a while since I’ve been out of high school, but remembering back at my high school history classes, the Spanish Flu seems to be looked over unless something has changed since I graduated in 2013.

jschooltiger

Hi there! You’ve asked a question along the lines of ‘why didn’t I learn about X’. We’re happy to let this question stand, but there are a variety of reasons why you may find it hard to get a good answer to this question on /r/AskHistorians.

Firstly, school curricula and how they are taught vary strongly between different countries and even even different states. Additionally, how they are taught is often influenced by teachers having to compromise on how much time they can spend on any given topic. More information on your location and level of education might be helpful to answer this question.

Secondly, we have noticed that these questions are often phrased to be about people's individual experience but what they are really about is why a certain event is more prominent in popular narratives of history than others.

Instead of asking "Why haven't I learned about event ...", consider asking "What importance do scholars assign to event ... in the context of such and such history?" The latter question is often closer to what to what people actually want to know and is more likely to get a good answer from an expert. If you intend to ask the 'What importance do scholars assign to event X' question instead, let us know and we'll remove this question.

Thank you!