Germ Theory and Popular Culture with Nancy Tomes
Episode 25 - August 30, 2020
Nancy Tomes (Stony Brook) talks to Merle and Lee about how Germ Theory was developed in the second half of the 19th century and how the public learned of it through advertising and other forms of mass media. Nancy also talks about the central role of women in this process alongside how ideas about germs changed over the 20th century. Other topics they discuss are the centrality of the AIDS pandemic to these later developments and how some of the ideas to reduce the spread of germs that seemed outlandish at the turn of the 20th century, have returned with the Covid-19 pandemic.
Further Reading
- Howard.M. Markel et al, “Nonpharmaceutical Interventions Implemented by US Cities During the 1918 -1919 Influenza Pandemic,” JAMA, Vol. 298, No. 6 ( Aug. 8, 2007), 644-654.
- Nancy Tomes, The Gospel of Germs: Men, Women, and the Microbe in American Life Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998. Paperback ed.: 1999.
- Nancy Tomes, “’Destroyer and Teacher’: Managing the Masses during the 1918-1919 Influenza Pandemic,” Public Health Reports vol. 125 supplement 3 (2010): 48-62.
Our Guest
Nancy Tomes,
Distinguished Professor, History Department, Stony Brook University.
