In 1918 Americans Were Arrested For Spitting On Sidewalks, No Masks

As Americans today are battling the effects of a closed economy and the outbreak of Covid-19, Americans of 1918 were engaged in an eerily similar conflict with the Spanish Flu.

Health officials today are expecting a second and third wave to hit the United States sometime in the Fall and Winter seasons of 2020.

Officials in 1918 were also seeing the effects of a second wave of influenza cases and decided to pass laws requiring American citizens to wear masks in public with the exception being “at mealtime”.

Cities like Seattle and San Francisco created mandatory mask laws in an effort to “flatten the curve” for the 1918 influenza epidemic, also known as the “Spanish Flu”.

The first wave of influenza cases rising produced the first mandatory mask law in San Francisco. When the number of cases declined to a lull the law expired.

With the second wave came a renewal of the mandatory mask law which was not received gently by the American public.

Those who refused to wear a mask were labeled “Dangerous Slackers” by the Red Cross and city health officials of San Francisco.

Penalty For No Mask

The Red Cross along with other official health bodies of San Francisco approved a message displayed in the October 22, 1918 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle stating that “the man or woman or child who will not wear a mask now is a dangerous slacker.” The penalty for these “Dangerous Slackers” was arrest and a $5 fine.

Illegal to Spit On Sidewalks

Cities like Seattle took the fines and penalties further, raising the fine for being cited for spitting on sidewalks from $2 to $5 dollars.

In New York the Anti-Spitting campaign was started almost two decades before the 1918 epidemic began.

With the Spanish Flu outbreak there was a revival of the anti-spitting campaign which was brought forth by billboards, placards, and pamphlets all denigrating the “filthy habit”.

Spitters were rounded up by the hundreds and brought to courts by “sanitary police of the police department.”

1918 Anti-Mask League

While health organizations such as the Red Cross believed that masks was “the only way to stamp out the epidemic”, there were some skeptical physicians and concerned Americans who did not buy it.

The first and second mandatory mask laws in San Francisco led to intense anger felt by its residents, especially those Americans who formed the Anti-Mask League.