What can we learn from a historian than can help us put COVID-19 in perspective? This talk will explore positive learnings of past pandemics. Despite the tragedy, a pandemic can be a time for serious advances in science, medicine, and societal lessons. Christopher Alan Gordon is the Director of Library and Collections for the Missouri Historical Society in St. Louis. His career in the history, museum, and archives field is driven by a desire to better understand our collective history and the ways in which that history can be used to better understand the present. As a museum professional, he is dedicated to preserving artifacts, books, and documents that provide us with the resources needed to research and study the past.

As a historian and lecturer Gordon’s book "Fire, Pestilence, and Death: St. Louis 1849" explores the ways in which a convergence of urban crises —the Great Fire of 1849, a terrifying cholera pandemic, and nearly unbridled population growth— forced St. Louis to adapt and rebuild itself into a modern urban center.

For his book, Gordon drew heavily on historical sources that provide eyewitness accounts of the events of 1849. History, he believes, must be viewed through the emotions, experiences, and beliefs of those who lived it in order for us to truly understand it. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx