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as long as everyone did what the Board of Health advised—kept their feet dry, stayed warm, ate more onions, and kept their bowels and windows open—they’d be fine.
posters on telephone poles and buildings that read: “When obliged to cough or sneeze, always place a handkerchief, paper napkin, or fabric of some kind before the face,” or “Cover your mouth! Influenza Is Spread by Droplets Sprayed from Nose and Mouth!”
President Wilson said all German citizens are alien enemies.
Rumors were flying that German spies were poisoning food, and German-Americans were secretly hoarding arms. Some Germans had even been sent to jail or internment camps. The city was plastered with posters showing Germans standing over dead bodies and ads directing people to buy war bonds to “Beat back the Hun!” Churches with German congregations had been painted yellow, German-language newspapers were shut down, and schoolchildren were forced to sign pledges promising not to use any foreign language whatsoever. As if that weren’t enough, a special police group called the Home Guard, originally
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Some companies refused to employ Germans, so
Even sauerkraut and hamburgers were renamed “liberty cabbage” and “liberty sandwiches.”
More posters went up that read “Spitting Equals Death,” and the police arrested anyone who disobeyed.
an advertisement for masks read: “Obey the laws and wear the gauze, protect your jaws from septic paws.”
She knew what the different colors of crepe meant; she’d seen enough of it in the mining village after cave-ins and explosions, and during the wave of tuberculosis that hit the village when she was seven. Black meant the death of an adult; gray an elderly person; white a child.
Formaldehyde tablets. Melt under your tongue. Proven to kill germs and prevent infection and contagion. Fifty tablets for fifty cents.”
“The churches and schools are to be closed,” she said. “All places for gathering, even the factories and moving picture houses, will not be open. No funerals are to be allowed either. Many people are getting sick, so everyone is to stay home.”
The Philadelphia Inquirer scorned the closing of public places: What are the authorities trying to do? Scare everyone to death? What is to be gained by shutting up well-ventilated churches and theaters and letting people press into trolley cars? What then should a man do to prevent panic and fear? Live a calm life. Do not discuss influenza. Worry is useless. Talk of cheerful things instead of disease.
the end of the war caused a resurgence of the flu due to Armistice Day celebrations and the release of soldiers, so the Committee of the American Public Health Association encouraged shops and factories to stagger their opening and closing hours, and advised people to walk to work when possible instead of using public transportation to avoid overcrowding. Streetcars, doctors warned, were “seed beds” for the flu.
I chose Philadelphia as the setting for The Orphan Collector because the epidemic hit that city exceptionally hard after the Liberty Loan parade brought 200,000 people together on the streets on September 28, 1918.
As a result, more than half a million people, in a city of almost two million, contracted the virus over the next six months, and more than 16,000 perished during that period.
Accounts from the nurses described entering houses where all members of a family were dead; some found both parents dead and the children starving.
third wave of the flu finished ravaging the city in 1919, untold numbers of children, at least several thousand, had been orphaned.
Greater Philadelphia website (https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/influenza-spanish-flu-pandemic-1918-19/
A person would be fine one minute, then incapacitated and delirious the next, with fevers rising from 104 to 106 degrees F. Death was quick, savage, and terrifying.
Mrs. Windsor’s Soothing Syrup to babies and children, despite the fact that it contained morphine, alcohol, and ammonia.
The American Medical Association called the syrup a “baby killer” in 1911, but it wasn’t removed from the market until 1930. Can
President Wilson’s Committee on Public Information and the Sedition Act passed by Congress both limited writing or publishing anything negative about the country.
wartime censors in 1918 curtailed reports of influenza and mortality in Germany, Britain, France, and the United States. But the newspapers were free to report the epidemic's effects in Spain, creating the false impression that Spain was especially hard hit, thus leading to the nickname Spanish flu.
In Philadelphia, doctors pushed for the Liberty Loan parade on September 28, 1918 to be canceled because they were concerned that the crowds of people would spread the flu. They convinced reporters to write stories about the danger, but editors refused to run them, or to print any letters from the doctors. Consequently, despite their earlier warning to avoid crowds, the city’s public health officials allowed the largest parade in Philadelphia’s history to proceed.
Two days later, the epidemic had spread and, over the following six weeks, more than 12,000 citizens of Philadelphia died.
Philadelphia’s immigrant poor suffered the worst, with the largest loss of life happening in the slums and tenement districts.
In 1918, St. Louis, Missouri, immediately closed schools, movie theaters, and banned public gatherings. Their death toll ended up being one-eighth of the losses in Philadelphia due to the Spanish flu.
Many people blamed the 1918 pandemic on Germans, claiming they were spreading poison clouds, or that Bayer, a German-owned company, had infected their aspirin.
medical professionals advised patients to take up to thirty grams of aspirin per day, a dose now known to be toxic. It’s now believed that many of the October deaths were ac...
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