The influenza pandemic of 1918 claimed the lives of some 600,000 Americans and perhaps more than 50 million people worldwide. Bloomington-Normal also felt profound effects.
McLean County Museum of History Librarian and Archivist Bill Kemp said you could hardly think of a worse year for that flu disaster to happen.
“It was really a trauma for local folks. You can’t tell the story of the Spanish flu without the story of World War I, which was wrapping up at this time. The war led to the deaths of 20 million soldiers and civilians, and more than 100,000 Americans. American society was undergoing tremendous strain during the war. You had a severe crackdown on German Americans. Locally, that was felt very strongly because of the large number of German immigrants in the Bloomington area,” said Kemp.
In October 1918 a doctor estimated the number of bedridden influenza cases in Bloomington alone at 1,700
The first 1918 flu death reported in Bloomington-Normal was Sept. 29 when a 27-year old factory worker named Fred Myers died. James Carroll of Bloomington also died that day at a World War I troop staging area in Rockford.
The 1918 flu was most deadly to people in their 20s and 30s. The epidemiological reason for that is earlier flu waves in 1898 and 1896 may have conferred some immunity to Americans in their 40s and older.
In mid-October, the pages of The Daily Pantagraph and Daily Bulletin newspapers were full of obituaries that included local residents and soldiers elsewhere, said Kemp.
The precise tally of McLean County flu death isn't known. But it was in the hundreds, according to Kemp. At the time, the entire population of the Twin Cities was about 34,000. In October, a doctor estimated the number of bedridden influenza cases in Bloomington alone at 1,700, said Kemp.
It was really a trauma for local folks
The second wave of the 1918 virus was a more virulent strain coming out of military camps. On Oct. 2, the Daily Bulletin reported deaths of Bloomington soldiers at encampments in Rockford and Massachusetts, a hot spot. By early October, Kemp said Camp Grant in Rockford had 500 flu deaths.
“By Oct. 11, the city of Bloomington shut down its schools, public and private. Theaters and churches followed quickly by city order. Other communities followed suit," said Kemp. "It’s interesting to read the language in the public health circulars, flyers, and posters at the time, because they are very similar to the language used today. A local Red Cross Influenza Committee announcement read ‘protect others by sneezing or coughing into handkerchiefs or cloths which should be boiled or burned.’ The committee advised folks to wear ‘gauze masks which may be obtained from the Red Cross or may be made of four or six folds of gauze.’ So here, a hundred years ago, in the city of Bloomington and out in the countryside there were folks making masks.”
Other parallels to the current coronavirus pandemic include shortages of nurses, calls for health care workers, and a renewed faith in the medical profession that rose during the second wave, said Kemp. A help wanted announcement in October 1918 asked for 100 volunteer nurses, with free masks supplied to volunteers, The Red Cross emergency headquarters was at the Withers Library where PNC bank in downtown Bloomington is today.
“And temporary hospitals were established, one at Bloomington Country Club. The Julia Scott Vrooman home in the 700 block of East Taylor, today a bed and breakfast, served as a secondary hospital, primarily for Illinois Wesleyan University students in a wartime training program,” said Kemp.
The 1918 community shutdowns did not last as long as the ones today. By the end of October 1918, communities began to open up. A third wave of the virus struck in early 1919. It affected Bloomington less than the second wave, but St. Louis was hard hit, said Kemp.
In at least one way Bloomington-Normal a century ago was surprisingly more urban than it is today.
“The Twin Cities was much smaller at the time, but it was a much more compact and denser community. Folks experienced their lives in closer proximity than we do today," said Kemp. "Public transportation at the time: you had the Bloomington Normal Railway System, which was the streetcar system. You also had folks taking steam passenger trains, shopping in downtown department stores and then working in tight quarters in places like the Mayer Brewing Company, the old German Brewer at the south end of Bloomington, or the American Foundry and Furnace Company, or the largest employer at the time -- the Chicago and Alton rail yards on the west side.”
The worldwide influenza also resulted in policy changes. It was a wakeup call for McLean County leaders. Kemp said they were ill prepared.
“The city of Bloomington and the county of McLean have always operated, to some extent, in a very parsimonious fashion, government on the cheap. And they paid the price for that during the Spanish flu. One of the things to occur after this was the creation of an office of health director. They abolished this outmoded, outdated system of a board of health with several commissioners of health, and they set out to professionalize and modernize public health service,” said Kemp.
It helped.
There was a major typhoid outbreak in 1920 at the Chicago and Alton rail yards. The public health director played a role in bringing the state of Illinois in to address that epidemic, said Kemp.
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