https://www.ajc.com/sports/college/...-and-the-story-behind/XOukYT9082wGyHDyP27XVL/
On the day he snapped a photo that would be shared literally worldwide a century after he took it, Thomas Frederick Carter inhabited a world that sounds entirely familiar.
In Fall 1918, media reports provided daily updates on mortality rates of a pandemic. Schools, churches and other places of public gathering were closed. Volunteers assembled to make hundreds of masks. Businesses impacted by shutdowns waited eagerly for health officials to signal a return to life as usual.
And, as Carter himself documented, sporting events tried to find their place in the midst of the Spanish flu contagion.
“Every time I see (the photo), it just reminds me what they had to deal with it back then, and we’re dealing with it now,” said Andy McNeil, a great-grandson of Carter who has a framed copy of the photo in his home office in Atlanta. “Similar circumstances.”
McNeil shared the photo with Tech, his and his great grandfather’s alma mater, and others, and it has crisscrossed the online world through social media and sports websites. The slice of pandemic life captured by Carter, who died in 1998 at the age of 98, has caught the attention even of those in college football’s highest offices. West Virginia athletic director Shane Lyons, chair of the Division I football oversight committee, referenced the photo in a recent interview about the return of college football.
“They always say history repeats itself,” Lyons said. “Well, that may be what (the) 2020 college football season looks like.”’
[More at link]
On the day he snapped a photo that would be shared literally worldwide a century after he took it, Thomas Frederick Carter inhabited a world that sounds entirely familiar.
In Fall 1918, media reports provided daily updates on mortality rates of a pandemic. Schools, churches and other places of public gathering were closed. Volunteers assembled to make hundreds of masks. Businesses impacted by shutdowns waited eagerly for health officials to signal a return to life as usual.
And, as Carter himself documented, sporting events tried to find their place in the midst of the Spanish flu contagion.
“Every time I see (the photo), it just reminds me what they had to deal with it back then, and we’re dealing with it now,” said Andy McNeil, a great-grandson of Carter who has a framed copy of the photo in his home office in Atlanta. “Similar circumstances.”
McNeil shared the photo with Tech, his and his great grandfather’s alma mater, and others, and it has crisscrossed the online world through social media and sports websites. The slice of pandemic life captured by Carter, who died in 1998 at the age of 98, has caught the attention even of those in college football’s highest offices. West Virginia athletic director Shane Lyons, chair of the Division I football oversight committee, referenced the photo in a recent interview about the return of college football.
“They always say history repeats itself,” Lyons said. “Well, that may be what (the) 2020 college football season looks like.”’
[More at link]
