Updated: August 9, 2020 5:15:09 PM
A Spanish flu victim in St. Louis, USA. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
In 1918, when the Americans were busy helping the Allied forces in the First World War that was raging in Europe, they were infected at home by a deadly impact on influenza. The Spanish flu is estimated to have killed ten times more Americans than were killed by German bombs and bullets during the war.
The Spanish flu arrived in America at a time when mass transit, mass consumption, and warfare had opened up public spaces where infectious diseases could spread. One of the most widespread and devastating epidemics of the 20th century, the flu had also arrived at a time when medicines were advancing by leaps and bounds. Historian Nancy Tomes explains in her article ” Destroyer and Teacher ‘: Managing the Masses During the Influenza Pandemic 1918-1919’ what the 1918 flu epidemic was like “Easy to understand, but difficult to manage.”
The flu was first reported in March 1918, at a military base in Kansas, where nearly 100 soldiers were infected. Within a week, the number of cases grew five times. When thousands of soldiers deployed for the war moved across the Atlantic, the flu spread with them. Local authorities rolled out a large number of measures to control their spread, including closing schools, banning public gatherings, not spraying, and the like. The one measure that became a point of debate was the mandatory wearing of masks. Then, as today, an intense debate had arisen about the usefulness and ease of wearing masks. Citizens disregarded the ordinance, thought opposition, and some even organized protests that were as politically motivated as they are today.
Mandatory masks for all – A first time law during the Spanish flu
The practice of covering nose and mouth as a sanitary practice is traced back to early modern Europe. During the spread of the Bubonic plague, doctors wore a beak-shaped mask filled with perfume. The reason behind wearing this mask was the belief that infectious diseases spread through harmful pollutants in the air like miasma. Masks with perfume filling were thought to be able to protect those who wear it. However, this practice began to die out by the 18th century.
An engraving of a plague doctor from Marseilles made in 1721 CE (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
The use of face masks, as is done today, can be traced back to the 1880s when a group of surgeons devised a strategy to stop germs from entering. Johann Mikulicz, head of the Department of Surgery at the University of Wroclaw (now Wroclaw, Poland), began wearing a face mask, which he described as “A piece of gauze tied by two strings to the hood, and floating over the face to cover the nose and mouth and beard.” “The face mask stood for a strategy of infection control that focused on keeping all germs, as opposed to killing them with chemicals,” wrote biologist Bruno J Strasser and historian Thomas Schlich in their research paper, ‘A history of the medical mask and the rise of disposable culture’.
But until the flu epidemic of 1918-19, the use of face masks was confined to the confines of the operating room. The Spanish flu began a new era in the history of face masks, when doctors, patients and residents in America were first asked to wear the mask outside their homes.
Mandating the mask – A patriotic act
Masks that carry rules first came up in the Western states. By the end of the fall of 1918, seven U.S. cities had mandatory mask laws, including San Francisco, Seattle, Oakland, Sacramento, Denver, Indianapolis, and Pasadena, California. It was San Francisco, however, that stood at the forefront of mask laws.
Barbers wearing masks during the epidemic (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
On October 18, the city’s health officer, Dr. William C. Hassler asked all hairdressers to wear masks when in contact with their clients, and asked clerks who were in contact with the general public to wear them as well. Over the next few days, he added hotel and bank staff, chemists, shop clerks, and anyone else serving the public to the list. Citizens were also required to wear masks in public. The October 22 ‘Mask Order’ made San Francisco the first city to require the use of four-layer face masks. The city was soon referred to as the ‘masked city’.
Since America was still fighting the war at that time, local authorities have put in place measures to control the spread of the disease with a touch of patriotism. The orders gave the impression of protecting the troops from the outbreak. Hence, a statement from the Red Cross public service said: “The man or woman or child who will not be wearing a mask right now is a dangerous slacker.” San Francisco Mayor James Rolph, on the other hand, announced that “conscience, patriotism and self-protection require immediate and rigid adherence” to the mask order.
Postman in New York City wearing a mask during the flu. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
‘Masks if not to mask’ – Resistance and enforcement
As in 2020, the ordinance to wear masks in 1918 also saw strong opposition from several Americans. Hence, violators of mask laws were fined $ 5 or $ 10, or placed under 10 days in prison.
Writing on the website of the BBC magazine, History Extra, Professor E Thomas Ewing declared that most violations of mask violations were eliminated “Indifference, ignorance or convenience.” “In San Francisco, most of the 110 arrested on the first day wore masks around their necks, suggesting that their refusal was more about convenience than principled opposition to the rules,” he said. he wrote.
There were also those who claimed that the masks were harmful to their safety. Ewing provided an anecdote from a mechanic in Tucson, Arizona, who admitted that he did not wear a mask, and claimed “It was not safe to do this because it would hasten his vision and make himself liable for machine damage.” In Santa Barbara, California, a doctor, Dr. J. Clifford on his arrest by stating that he did not believe in using the mask because it did nothing to control the spread of the epidemic.
In November 1918, San Francisco residents were allowed to remove their masks because their health department announced that the epidemic was over. The city celebrated with utmost joy. “Waiters, bartenders and others burst their faces. Drinks were at the house. Ice cream shops have handed out treaties. The sidewalks were strewn with gauze, the “relic of a torturous moon,” wrote journalist Christine Hauser in a New York Times article.
However, the celebrations were short-lived, as within weeks the number of influential cases peaked again, and in December 1918, the mask ordinance was reinstated. In response to this imposition, a self-styled ‘competition against’ mask ‘was created. “The same people who” liberated “their naked faces when they were able to remove face masks in November 1918 are now organizing protests against the return of this measure to public health,” medical historian Brain Dolan wrote in his article, ‘Unmasking History: Who Was Behind the Anti-Mask League Protests During the Impact Epidemic of 1918 in San Francisco?’
The first thing the group did was to ask for a public meeting with the intention of spreading petitions to ask for the dismissal of the city’s health officer, William Hassler, and to threaten Mayor Rolph with threats if he did not meet the requirements of citizens.
Dolan suggested that the ‘anti mask’ competition was more politically motivated than medical. The league’s president, EC Harrington, along with other key members, had political motives behind calling for Rolph’s resignation.
A century later, when the mayor of San Francisco, London Breed instructed the city’s residents to “wear face masks in essential businesses, in public facilities, in transit and while performing essential work,” a heated debate resurfaced. the effectiveness and possibility of masks. Unsurprisingly, the event history of the city is studied with mask laws before lessons. Dolan explained the lessons from the equation – “As with this historical example, we see that maintaining full compliance with a measure that radically takes over social behavior in the neighborhood is impossible. Attempts to persuade the majority to comply today, however, seem to yield better results than in the past in controlling the spread of disease. That’s where we can take comfort when we do not see the past. “
Continue reading
Destroyer and Teacher: Mass Management during the 1918–1919 Influence Pandemic by Nancy Tomes
Unmasking History: Who was behind the Anti-Mask League protests during the 1918 San Francisco Epidemic? by Brian Dolan
Masking or Not Masking: A Note on Bradford Luckingham’s Spanish Epidemic of 1918 in Tucson
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