Spanish flu epidemic hit Portland hard
Heavyhanded tactics might have created a backlash against rules
In December 1918, policemen in Seattle wore masks made by the Red Cross to try to avoid infection during the Spanish flu pandemic. COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES AT COLLEGE PARK, MD.
Last time, we didn’t do so well.
The Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918-19 killed approximately 40 million people worldwide and over half a million in the United States. And maybe more than its share in Portland.
Portland had one of the country’s highest death rates during the Spanish flu pandemic, despite enacting some of the most comprehensive quarantine and anti-gathering laws in the country. Pandemic researchers are still trying to figure out what went wrong here.
For every 100,000 people living in Portland at the time, 505 died. In Seattle, 414 died per 100,000 residents. Indianapolis had only 290 deaths per 100,000.
According to University of Michigan medical historian Howard Markel, Portland’s death rate was not due to a lack of action on the part of public health authorities. Markel says, if anything, Portland officials may have been too heavyhanded.
In 1918, authorities had only one real weapon to slow the spread of the disease – limiting contact between infected and uninfected residents. That meant quarantines, mandatory and enforced, and it also meant bans on public gatherings.
In Portland, schools, churches and meeting halls were shut down. People in cafeterias were required to maintain a distance of at least four feet from each other, according to an Oregon Historical Society article.
The public library was kept open, but chairs were removed so people would not loiter. Candy, ice cream and tobacco sales were prohibited during the middle of the day. Crowding on trolley cars was prohibited, and car crews, according to the historical society report, were “hauled into court” for allowing too many passengers at a time.
Among the most resented of the new ordinances was a requirement that people in public wear face masks.
Markel’s research shows that some cities did not maintain their ordinances long enough, allowing the flu to start spreading again in a deadly second wave. But in Portland, the measures were enforced for 162 days. Only Los Angeles, which enacted similar measures for 170 days, and Seattle, at 168 days, imposed restrictions for longer among the 50 cities studied by Markel.
So what happened here? Researching documents from the time, Markel theorizes that Portland officials went too far, creating a backlash. The newspapers of the time make it clear that many people mocked the mandatory face mask laws, he says. It is likely, Markel adds, that if people were flouting the face mask ordinances, they likely were also disobeying other public safety regulations.
Public safety officials, Markel says, were autocratic – ordinances were passed and enforced. If someone appeared to be infected, they often were taken away to a quarantine site with no possibility of appeal, regardless of their home situation. But without public cooperation, it wasn’t enough.
And that, Markel says, may be the lesson public health authorities in Portland can learn from their past. Any quarantines or restrictions have to be imposed in a way that people buy into them, regardless of the enforcement.
“It was almost a militaristic chain of command (approach) to public health,” Markel says. “It didn’t work.”