How Americans Struggled to Bury the Dead in 1918 Flu Pandemic-- Part 5

Public funerals and wakes were banned  in cities including Philadelphia and Chicago.  Iowa prohibited public funerals and even the opening of caskets.   Exceptions were only made for  parents and wives identifying  soldiers before burial -- and even then, they could only open   the caskets if family members covered their mouths and noses with masks and refrained from touching the body.

"In many communities, processing  the loss of loved ones entails a series of rituals and rites and laying a person to rest in a respectful way,"  Bristow says.  "In many cities, the restrictions on public events meant that families  and communities had those rites interrupted, so grieving didn't take place in public but became an individual process, which had long-term consequences.  Without an opportunity to share it with those around them, that grief was carried for decades."

How Americans Struggled to Bury the Dead in 1918 Flu Pandemic-- Part 4: Like a Scene Out of the Middle Ages

Those buried in the mass graves were primarily poorer and immigrant residents so there was a class aspect to death and what happened to you.  The more affluent were more likely to secure the rites of passage into the hereafter than the poorer, more recent arrivals.

The scenes on the streets of Philadelphia appeared to be straight out of the plague-infested Middle Ages.  Throughout the day and night, horse-drawn carriages  kept a constant parade through the streets as priests joined the police   in collecting corpses draped in sackcloths and blood-stained  sheets that were left on porches and sidewalks.

The bodies were piled on top of each other in the wagons and limbs were protruding from underneath the sheets.  I couldn't help but think of that scene in the Monty Python movie.

The parents of one small boy who had succumbed to the flu begged the authorities to at least have him the dignity of being buried in a wooden box that had been used  to ship macaroni instead of wrapping him in a sheet and having him taken away in a patrol wagon.

How American Struggled to Bury Bodies During the 1918 Flu Pandemic-- Part 3: Boston and Philadelphia

Gravediggers at Boston's New Calvary Cemetery were spotted dumping corpses out of coffins could be used again.  The War Industries Board  ordered casket makers to manufacture only plain caskets and immediately cease production on "all fancy trimmed and couch and split panel varieties.  It limited caskets sizes for adults  to five feet, nine inches and six feet, 3 inches.

The worst horrors were seen in Philadelphia, where the number of deaths approached 1,000 a day at the pandemic's peak.  Entire neighborhoods were  draped in crepe that was mounted on front doors to mark deaths inside.

Civic leaders  recruited the J.G. Brill Company, a streetcar manufacturer, to construct thousands of  rudimentary boxes in which to bury the dead, while desperately needed coffins arrived in the city under armed guard.

Five hundred bodies crowded the city morgue, which had a capacity for only  36 corpses.    The city scrambled to open  six supplementary morgues and placed bodies in cold storage plants.  Some Philadelphia  residents were  unceremoniously tossed into mass graves  that had been hollowed out by steam shovels.

How America Struggled to Bury Bodies in 1918 Flu Pandemic-- Part 2: Shortages of Gravediggers and Coffins

Cemeteries struggled to keep up with the mounting death toll.  With gravediggers absent from work -- either because they had gotten the flu or were afraid they would--  grieving families were sometimes forced to  excavate graves for their loved ones.

In New Brunswick, New Jersey, 15 workhouse inmates were handed spades and shovels under the watchful eyes of guards.  In Baltimore, city employees were called into  emergency duty as gravediggers while soldiers from Fort Meade were pressed into service to bury a three-week backlog of 175 bodies at Mt. Auburn Cemetery.

Casket companies, already hard-pressed to supply coffins for  the thousands of U.S. Doughboys killed overseas, could not keep up with this increased demand.  Facing a desperate shortage in the nation's capital, District of Columbia Commissioner Louis Brown hijacked two train cars filled with 270 coffins bound for Pittsburgh and rerouted it to the city hospital under armed guard.

How America Struggled to Bury the Dead in the 1918 Flu Pandemic-- Part 1

From the February 12, 2020, History site.

The terrifying, lethal influenza virus that swept across the world in 1918-1920,  history's deadliest pandemic, which claimed the lives of approximately 50 million people worldwide and 675,000 here in the United States.  Nearly 200,000 Americans died of it in October 1918 alone.

The sheer number of bodies overwhelmed undertakers, casket makers and grave diggers.  At the same time, a prohibition on public gatherings that included wakes and funerals compounded the grief of stricken families who could not properly mourn their deaths.

The mass mortality led to macabre scenes.  In Baltimore, the Red Cross nurses reported going to disease ravaged homes to discover sick people in bed next to the dead.  In other cases, corpses were covered with ice and left in bedroom corners where they festered for days.

Inundated  undertakers stacked coffins in funeral homes and even in their living quarters.  In New Haven, Connecticut,  six-year-old John Delano and his friends played outside a mortuary, scaling a mountain of caskets piled on a sidewalk, unaware of the contents inside them.  "We thought,  -- boy, this is great.  It's like climbing the pyramids."

--Cooter

It Happened on July 31: Chris, Marq and Tommy

From the July 31, 2020, Chicago Tribune "On July 31..."

**  1498--  Christopher Columbus reached the island of Trinidad on his third voyage to the Western Hemisphere.  (Especially interesting in these days of rage when his statues are being attacked and removed.  He made a huge impact on world history regardless of where you stand on him.)

**  1777--  The Marquis de Lafayette, a 19-year-old French nobleman, was given the rank of major general in the American Continental Army.   That is very, very young.  But, without him and France, I don't think the colonies would have achieved their independence, and then all the leaders would have been branded as traitors and all sorts of bad things might have happened to them.)

**  1877--  Thomas Edison took out a patent leading to the development of the phonograph.  (And that development sure had a huge impact on my life.

--Cooter

Ebony, Jet Photo Archive Fetches $30 Million at Auction

From the July 26, 2019, Chicago Sun-Times by Sam Charles and Mitchell Armentrout.

The iconic photo archive of Ebony and Jet magazines, which chronicled 70 years' worth of black history and culture, has a new owner.

A consortium of philanthropic groups announced its $30 million acquisition at auction, Thursday from Johnson Publishing, Ebony's parent company and promised to donate the treasure trove of history to the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Getty Institution and other leading cultural institutions.

The collection has more than 4 million prints and negatives including photographs of Martin Luther King Jr., Sammy Davis Jr., Diana Ross, Nat "King" Cole, Muhammad Ali, Jackie Robinson, Prince and Stevie Wonder and many others.

There are also photos of everyday life for black Americans from church to food to fashion.

As a history person, I am so glad these people bought the photos and are donating them to organizations who will take care of them as well as make them available to the public.

Thanks.  --Cooter

Coal Strike Hits Home in 1919

From the Dec. 4, 2019, MidWeek (DeKalb County, Illinois)  "Looking Back."

1919, 100 Years Ago.

"Lincoln Highway resumed its war-time appearance again last evening, this time doing its bit in the conservation of coal.  All boulevard lights with the exception of corner lights were dark last evening by order of the city administration and folks passed up and down the main street in darkness as they had done during the war.

"But, today the country faces the most critical stage of the coal strike, the small surplus is gradually being consumed  and as the pile decreased, the demand for wages increased, and no arbitration in sight."

Use the Coal for Bad Little Boys and Girls.  --Cooter

See If You Can Guess the Date of These Headlines from the Seattle Daily Times

Help Bar Deadly Influenza from Seattle

CHURCHES, SCHOOLS CLOSED

Epidemic Puts Ban on All Public Assemblies

Seattle to Make Fight on the Disease

Police Ordered to Close Public Places

Guess the Date of These Headlines.

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Here's some more front page headlines to give you a clue:


Only One-Half of City's Quota for Loan Subscribed

Blast Shatters Dozens of Towns in New Jersey

New Wage Scale in Shipyards to Run from August 1

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These might help even some more:

Americans and French Smash Foe

U.S. Troops Smash Huns in Argonne

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The date of the newspaper is October 5, 1918.  The so-called Spanish Flu Pandemic was going on as well as World War I.  Today we have the COVID-19 Pandemic and Black Lives Matter.

--Cooter

NIU Makes Plans for Building Construction in 1970

From the March 4, 2020, MidWeek  "Looking Back."

1970, 50 Years Ago.

"New buildings which NIU plans to construct in the next 10 years include a science building, student services center, liberal arts classroom, men and women's physical education buildings, a fine and applied arts structure, more student housing and a building with business affairs and computer services will be housed.

"Also to be considered would be the construction of a golf course, sports arena and auditorium and a building to house an engineering school."

This is Northern Illinois University's 125th anniversary.

In the Midst of a Building Boom.  --Cooter

The "Wets" Have It In Shabbona, Illinois, in 1945: Still A Drinking Town

From the April 22, 2020, MidWeek (DeKalb County, Illinois)  "Looking Back."

1945, 75 Years Ago.

"The 'wets'  were victorious in the local option election in the village of Shabbona by the slim margin of seventeen votes.

"On the question of whether the sale of alcoholic beverages should be prohibited, 174 voted no and 157 voted yes."

How Wet I Am.  --CootDrunk

Anti-Vietnam War Protest in DeKalb By NIU Students in 1970

From the April 15, 2020, MidWeek  "Looking Back."

1970. 50 Years Ago.

"More than 200 Northern Illinois University students led by the Student Mobilization Committee marched through downtown DeKalb at about 9 p.m. last night to protest the Vietnam War.

"The campus activities are related to the nationwide anti-war week.  The SMC attempted to have the college shut down classes today, but permission was refused.  Students also picketed the draft board office on North Fourth Street yesterday."

I was at Northern Illinois as a freshman living in Lincoln Hall when this happened.

It Was a Scary Time.  --Cooter