AUSTIN, Texas — While the times we’re living in may seem unprecedented, living through a pandemic is something Texas has dealt with before.
- Spanish flu pandemic swept through TX in 1918
- Infected thousands of Texans
- Businesses, schools closed to help stop spread
It wasn’t front-page news at the time due to World War I, but Ben Wright, assistant communications director for the Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin, said the threat of what’s commonly referred to as the Spanish Flu was top of people’s minds in 1918.
"There were about 5,000 Texans that died in World War I, that includes nurses,” said Wright. “But about a third of those casualties were from influenza rather than battlefield deaths."
Cases started popping up in Texas toward the end of September 1918. By October 1, 1918, 31 counties in Texas were reporting cases of influenza, many within military installments.
"Congregations of soldiers are natural incubators for the Spanish Flu during the fall of 1918,” said Wright, adding that an unorganized dispersing of soldiers post WWI helped the virus spread through the public.
By mid-November, an Associated Press article noted more than 150,000 cases of influenza had been reported to the Texas State Health Department.
"We're talking about a Texas that has a population of under five million at the time, so it's a smaller place than today,” said Wright.
Throughout October 1918, cities across Texas would implement non-essential business closures, similar to the ones in place now to help battle the spread of COVID-19.
"Businesses, churches, schools, the University of Texas - all were closed,” said Wright.
According to an Associated Press clip dated October 16, 1918, the City of Waco ordered the closing of all “schools, picture shows, theaters, and other places for public gatherings on account of the epidemic of Spanish influenza.”
But when many of the quarantine orders were lifted in the fall of 1918, a second wave of influenza would hit. Barracks built on the UT Austin campus would eventually be turned into hospital wards.
Similar to the political pressures of today’s pandemic, back in 1918 many Texas officials grappled with issuing another quarantine or not. In Austin, the mayor back then decided against it.
"The mayor - a gentleman called A.P. Wooldridge - declined to declare another quarantine in part because he didn't think there was public support for it - and he didn't think it would be effective unless it was extremely strict,” recalled Wright.
Despite more than a hundred years of advances in medical knowledge and technology, similar advice was shared with the public back in 1918 to help avoid spread of the flu. A pamphlet distributed to UT students upon return to school in 1919 told students to stay away from crowds, not to sneeze or cough out in the open, and avoid close contact with people.
"Faculty and students have their temperatures taken in the morning. If yours is a little high, you're sent home,” recalled Wright.
While there are plenty of lessons to be learned from how Texas and the U.S. reacted to the 1918 influenza epidemic, we can hopefully take some solace in knowing that if they were able to pull through a hundred years ago, we can pull through, too.