Documenting “The Blue Death” in Montana
Three History professors and four Public History interns worked with Dee Garceau on a documentary film, Blue Death: The 1918 Influenza in Montana, which premiered on Montana PBS in March 2024. The film also earned awards at film festivals in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Toronto. The documentary featured six individual stories, including that of a child who worked as an orderly in an emergency hospital, a Crow law school graduate who volunteered as a nurse, a Finnish rancher whose family fragmented and regrouped, a Blackfeet couple who established a chapter of the Red Cross, an Army nurse who served the Student Army Training Corps at ϻ, and an African-American entrepreneur who nursed black and white alike.
Public History interns Kym MacEwan, Kevin Mobley, Chad Keller, and Ginger Duncan researched the topic using archival sources, conceptualized the dramatic arc using storyboards, and participated in film shoots on campus and at Fort Missoula. During summer/fall 2024, Producer/Director Garceau toured the film across the state, funded by a grant from Humanities Montana. The film tour invited discussion with audiences, led by contributing scholars, indigenous elders, and oral historians.
Within the film, Professor Anya Jabour reflects on changing gender norms during the Progressive era, World War I, and the 1918 pandemic. Professor Leif Fredrickson comments on the politics of public health during World War I and how pandemics reveal the fault lines in a society. Professor Tobin Miller-Shearer places the life of Rose Gordon within the contexts of African-American settlement and activism in Montana. Blackfeet elders Leon Rattler, Cheryle Zwang and Kevin KickingWoman discuss the Browning Red Cross as an expression of Blackfeet values and culture. Crow elder Reno Charette reflected on the hazards posed by an epidemic, as well as the challenges faced by a Crow law student in 1918. Penny Redli and Gordon Dean shared family histories from their Montana ancestors.
To view this documentary, click on the following link:
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