While browsing through vintage photographs in the University Libraries’ Online Digital Collections, I stumbled across a photo taken in 1920 depicting five University of Nevada, Reno student-athletes of the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity standing in a row in front of the old Mackay Training Grounds. I then decided to recreate this photograph by capturing five current univeristy students posing in the same manner in front of the new Mackay Stadium on the northern end of campus in an attempt to compare two pandemics separated by a century: the Spanish Flu of 1920 and COVID-19 in 2020.

In 1920, the United States was just beginning to recover from the Spanish Flu pandemic, which differs from our current situation as of October 2020 regarding the coronavirus, as my recreated photograph was taken during the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of the ongoing spread of the coronavirus, the university has set in place certain precautions to prevent the spread of the virus, which is why, in my recreated photograph, I had all my participants wear face masks and stand six feet away from each other, which, shockingly, the people in the photograph taken in 1920 did not do, even though the Spanish Flu had only just begun to dissipate.

Another change I made in my recreated photo is the variation in sex between my participants. I understand that the original photo showcased fraternity students (meaning that they would all be, by definition, male). However, I wanted to include women in my recreated photograph to show the difference between pre and post Title IX. While women were allowed to play collegiate sports in 1920, female athletes at the time were often overlooked and underappreciated, with many people even advocating for “returning athletics to the boys”.

The original photograph was taken in front of the old Mackay Training Grounds, just outside of the old Mackay Stadium. However, these buildings were torn down in 1965, and the area has since been renovated into what is today Hilliard Plaza and the Reynolds School of Journalism. Because of this, I chose to take my recreated photograph in front of the new Mackay Stadium to show the evolution of sporting facilities on campus.

The final change I made for my recreated photo was in selecting students who, for the most part, are not student-athletes at the University of Nevada, Reno. I made this change due to the fact that not many sports are being held on campus during the coronavirus pandemic, so I did not feel the need to showcase athletics. This does, however, shed light on the fact that, in 1920, despite the Spanish Flu pandemic having just begun to disappear, sporting events were obviously still being held, since these students were training (or at the very least, track and field events were still being held).

In 2020, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, the university campus is nearly empty. As all classes have been transitioned to an online format, and all sporting events are forced to be carried out without a live audience, I imagine campus life in 1920 was not so different from what we are experiencing today.

About the Author

Jonny Good is a student at the University of Nevada, Reno. He is currently majoring in Political Science and minoring in American History.