The last time the United States was struck by a pandemic was just over a century ago, when an outbreak of influenza in 1918 and 1919 killed 675,000 Americans.
As the nation battled the flu virus, seeds of social unrest that were growing in the years leading up to it began to bear fruit — labor groups enraged over unsafe working conditions and low wages had their biggest breakthrough in modern American history and forever changed what it meant to be a worker in the industrialized United States.
In 1919 alone, 65,000 workers sat out of work in the Seattle General Strike, 400,000 United Coal Miners workers went on strike, which eventually led to higher wages and safer conditions, and President Woodrow Wilson imposed martial law and sent U.S. Army troops to Gary, Indiana, after strikers…
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