Therbligs in Quarantine

How Would a “Genius in the Art of Living” Shelter In Place?

When I wrote out my 2020 reading list, I had no idea that come mid-March I’d have plenty of reading time on my hands. I had hoped that reading 20 books from the Jazz Age would be a nice escape from “real life.” Kind of like the cocktail dress I wore for our Roaring Twenties New Year’s Party-fun for the afternoon, but nothing I would want to wear every day.

Then came COVID-19. Suddenly my reading list started to feel a little too much like reality.

This threat of illness is reminiscent of the 1920’s, too. The Spanish flu had swept through the nation as recently as 1918, only coming to an end in the summer of 1919 when those infected either developed immunities or died. Summers in the twenties would have also been overshadowed by the constant threat of polio, a disease that often struck children. Polio paralyzed or killed many Americans between the 1916 outbreak until a vaccine was released in 1955. To say nothing of measles, scarlet fever, and diphtheria, all contagious diseases prevalent in the 1920s that have disappeared-or nearly so-today.

So when I began my own shelter-in-place experience on March 14, 2020, I shouldn’t have been surprised to find the familiar themes of contagion and quarantine sprinkled throughout my reading list. Two of the books I’ve read so far were actually re-reads for me: Cheaper by the Dozen and Belles on Their Toes, co-written by siblings Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr. and…