Parks & recreation for Valley: Page 11
CANSTOCK
MAHONING VALLEY
ENJOY SUMMER: HOME EDITION
When the Spanish Flu hung like a black cloud over the Valley BY SEAN T. POSEY METRO MONTHLY CONTRIBUTING WRITER
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HEATERS, CAFES, BARS AND churches closed. A deserted downtown Youngstown with hardly a soul on the street. An order for citizens to stay cloistered in their homes. This could easily describe the Youngstown area in 2020, but it’s actually a description of the city nearly 102 years ago as the Spanish Flu hung like a black cloud over the Mahoning Valley and the world. “Pleasures were abandoned, even the most ordinary social amenities were almost foregone,” wrote industrialist Joseph Butler in his 1921 book “History of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley, Ohio.” No one from his generation would forget the months of horror in the late fall and winter of 1918. However, until recently, the Spanish Influenza was part of a “collective forgetting in American life,” according to Laura Spinney, author of “Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World.” The same could be said here in the Mahoning Valley. For the story of the virus in this area isn’t just part of local history – it holds lessons for those of us living through the COVID-19 pandemic today. The first documented case of what became known as the Spanish Influenza emerged at Camp Funston at Fort Riley in Kansas in March 1918. The infected individual, a base cook, reported having a sore throat, fever and headache. Hundreds more fell ill at the base over the upcoming weeks. Funston funneled rural conscripts into the American Expeditionary Force headed for France, helping to spread the virus. This was the first (comparatively mild) wave of the flu, one that had its biggest impact on the battlefields of Europe, helping to slow the German “Kaiserschlacht” offensive on the Western Front in the spring. Unlike the Allied and Central Powers, who censored reporting, neutral Spain freely reported on the outbreak of influenza. This led to the impression that the virus, which became known as the Spanish Flu or Spanish “grippe,” had originated in Spain. After dissipating during the summer, the virus emerged in Boston in August, bring-
ELECTRONIC IMAGE COURTESY OF HISTORIC IMAGES
Youngstown’s Central Square looking north toward Wick Avenue, circa 1918.
ing a wave of suffering that slowly unfolded during the fall and early winter. Most of the virus’ victims (anywhere from 2.5 to 5 percent of the world’s population) died between mid-September and mid-December, according to Spinney. Reporting in the Vindicator estimated a death rate of between 7 and 10 percent for Ohio during the height of the outbreak. On Oct. 1, the Chillicothe Gazette reported that 60 percent of the city’s population – located next to Camp Sherman, where influenza raged – was infected. Six days later, the local Czecho-Slovak community held a rally in downtown Youngstown that attracted thousands of onlookers. A large rally held at the South High School auditorium followed.
8 METRO MONTHLY ENJOY SUMMER – HOME EDITION
“Pleasures were abandoned, even the most ordinary social amenities were almost foregone,” wrote industrialist Joseph Butler in his 1921 book “History of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley, Ohio.”
The Youngstown Telegram reported a total of 236 cases as of Oct. 11. That same day the board of health announced the closing of all churches, theaters, saloons, banquets, indoor gatherings, dance halls, poolrooms and bowling alleys. They urged street cars to run below full capacity, and the police descended on East Federal Street to try and close coffee houses and saloons that repeatedly refused to heed the order. Hotels, where many railroad men and itinerant workers lived, remained open. “The only bright spots were the hotel lobbies,” the Vindicator reported. “Traveling men and others living in the hostelries, having nowhere else to go, thronged the corridors and lounging rooms, chatting,
This event almost certainly facilitated the spread of flu throughout the local community. Three days later the Youngstown Vindicator called the outbreak of influenza in the area an “epidemic unchecked.” Four deaths were reported along with 20 cases at the Glenwood Children’s Home for a total of 71 new cases in one day. At the time of the parade, the local health board had reported only 16 total cases in Youngstown. SEE SPANISH FLU, PAGE 9
