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[Abridged] Presidential Histories - 28.A.) Woodrow Wilson & the Spanish flu pandemic; an interview with John Barry
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28.A.) Woodrow Wilson & the Spanish flu pandemic; an interview with John Barry

[Abridged] Presidential Histories

07/18/22

48m

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The Spanish flu of 1918 wasn't from Spain and it didn't start or end with 1918. It lasted for years, killed millions around the world, and it infected President Woodrow Wilson himself, right as he was negotiating the treaty that would end World War I. The costs of that infection may have been the values and world order he'd taken the United States into the war to achieve.
Join me as I talk with John Barry, Distinguished Scholar at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine and author of The Great Influenza: the story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History, about Woodrow Wilson and the Great Influenza of 1918.

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Previous Episode

Woodrow Wilson was once regarded as one of the great progressive presidents of the 20th century. Then historians took another look at his record on race. Today, he's a bit of a mixed bag. But one thing you can't argue is the years he was president changed the world.
Follow along as Wilson gives up on politics to become an academic, only to unexpectedly rise from Princeton president to New Jersey Governor to American President in two short years! Wilson's presidency will witness a raft of progressive change, a reactive retreat on racial progress, and a little thing called World War I. Buckle up. It's a wild ride.
Bibliography
1. The Moralist: Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made – Patricia O’Toole
2. William Howard Taft – Jeffrey Rosen
3. T.R. the last Romantic – H.R. Brands
4. Warren G Harding – John W. Dean
5. FDR - Jean Edward Smith
6. Truman - David McCullough

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Next Episode

Woodrow Wilson is one of the most legislatively accomplished progressive presidents in American history. His list of achievements ranges from the first progressive income tax to the creation of the Federal Reserve, an inheritance tax, a child labor law, and more. But a list doesn't do justice to the effort it took to get these laws passed or the impact they had on the Americans' lives.
Join me as I talk with John Milton Cooper, a professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of Pulitzer Prize-finalist Woodrow Wilson, a Biography, about the progressive legacy of Woodrow Wilson.

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