MONDAY February 15, 2027 – University Memorial Center (UMC) – 1669 Euclid Avenue (at the corner of Broadway & Euclid on the CU campus in Boulder) Room 235
Thomas G. Andrews – The Great Horse Flu: A forgottn Contagion and the face of Resonstrucsion America
Thomas G. Andrews is Professor of History and Director of the Center for the American West at CU-Boulder. A specialist in environmental and environmental history, he is the author of Killing for Coal: America’s Deadliest Labor War, which won the Bancroft Prize and Coyote Valley: Deep History in the High Rockies, which won a Colorado Book Award. One of just a handful of second-generation CU-Boulder faculty members, he is the son of long-time UWC member Martha Andrews, who passed away in 2024.
Lecture
The Great Horse Flu: A Forgotten Contagion and the Face of Reconstruction America
Imagine a world without cars, trucks, trains, or tractors—a world in which nearly everything depended on horses, donkeys, and mules. Then, in the fall of 1872, those animals began falling mysteriously ill.
Over the next fifteen months, a remarkably contagious strain of influenza sickened as many as 90% of the equines across Canada, the United States, and parts of Cuba, Mexico, and Central America. The consequences were staggering.
Drawing on his 2026 book, The Great Horse Flu of 1872, Thomas Andrews will take us back to a moment when an animal epidemic brought transportation and commerce to a standstill, disrupted daily life, intensified social conflict, and even threatened the fragile progress of Reconstruction after the Civil War.
Andrews will explore the outbreak’s devastating effects and reveal how the Great Horse Flu paralyzed the American economy, intensified social conflict, and undermined the viability of Radical Reconstruction. This fascinating and largely forgotten episode offers a striking reminder of just how profoundly an epidemic can reshape a society – and how dependent nineteenth-century America was on the animals that powered it.
Luncheon Logistics
The Lecture-Luncheon doors open at 10:30 a.m. The lecture begins at 11:00 until 12:00. Lunch will be served after the lecture to encourage discussion of the lecture topic over lunch.
The price for the Lecture Luncheon is $28. If you are bringing guests you may also enter their names and pay for their lunches here. If you are bringing more than three guests please complete a second form.
If you are so inclined, you can also make an additional donation to the UWC Scholarship Program.
Looking forward to seeing you!
Deadline for reservations is February 1, 2027 at 6:00 p.m.