Did you know that 2020 isn’t the first time Winchester has dealt with a pandemic? You can use the digitized Winchester Star (1901-1972) to view articles about the 1918 Pandemic (H1N1 virus), called the “grippe” of 1918. With social distancing in place, you don’t have to visit the library and use the microfilm machine to view this newspaper. You can browse, search, and view full page images of the historical Winchester Star from home. These 1918 articles below look eerily similar to today’s articles about COVID-19.
Click the images above to view the articles. Using the Internet Archive, you can also search inside the newspaper for “influenza” or even “grippe.” Enter the search item into the search bar that says Search Inside. The system will search inside the newspaper and results will appear as blue icons along the bottom of the page. You can click on the icons to bring up the articles.
Questions? Email us at [email protected] or call us at 781-721-7171 x320.