Pandemic. Quarantine. Politics.
Sounds like familiar territory for 2021, but Case Western Reserve University junior Grace Bentley found strands of our current world in her research of university life in 1919, as the country was grappling with World War I and an influenza pandemic.
Conducting original research in the Case Western Reserve archives, Bentley, a double major in history and art history, analyzed the similarities and differences in the pandemic’s effects on student life and found it helped her make some sense of the world now.
“Reading all these newspapers made me realize we’ve gone through this before,” Bentley said. “[History] gives you a map for navigating the world nowadays and understanding what led to what.”
More than 80% of CWRU students, from all majors, take part in research and creative endeavors. How will you change our understanding of the world?