1918 pandemic spitting image | deja flu all over again

Above A poster issued by the United States Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corporation (Philadelphia), as a means of controlling the spread of the “Spanish Flu” in late 1918. Source: Free Library of Philadelphia.•

The narrative at that weblink describes conditions that are disturbingly parallel to those of the current spread of COVID-19—

[The flu epidemic] reached Philadelphia by early September 1918, after infected sailors from Boston came to the Philadelphia Navy Yard. Once patients began appearing, it became apparent how ill-informed and ill-prepared the City was. World War I created demands for increased labor at home and doctors abroad. This resulted in overcrowding in the city, and critical shortages of the doctors, hospital space, morgues, and burial services necessary to handle an out-of-control crisis. Accelerating the devastation was the City’s refusal (against the advice of the medical experts) to cancel a rally for the Fourth Liberty Loan Campaign, which brought 200,000 Philadelphians together on Broad Street, on September 28. Within three days (the incubation period of the virus), the number of cases skyrocketed. The epidemic in Philadelphia claimed 16,000 lives altogether, with 12,000 of those deaths occurring in the five-week period immediately following that war bonds rally.

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Here is more information about that pandemic from the Wikipedia article on the Spanish Flu—

The Spanish flu, also known as the 1918 flu pandemic, was an unusually deadly influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus. Lasting from February 1918 to April 1920, it infected 500 million people–about a third of the world's population at the time–in four successive waves. The death toll is typically estimated to have been somewhere between 17 million and 50 million, making it one of the deadliest pandemics in human history.…

While systems for alerting public health authorities of infectious spread did exist in 1918, they did not generally include influenza, leading to a delayed response. Nevertheless, actions were taken. Maritime quarantines were declared on islands such as Iceland, Australia, and American Samoa, saving many lives. 

Social distancing measures were introduced, for example closing schools, theatres, and places of worship, limiting public transportation, and banning mass gatherings. Wearing face masks became common in some places, such as Japan, though there were debates over their efficacy. There was also some resistance to their use, as exemplified by the Anti-Mask League of San Francisco.

Vaccines were also developed, but as these were based on bacteria and not the actual virus, they could only help with secondary infections. The actual enforcement of various restrictions varied.…

• Thanks to Claudia Covert for alerting us to this image.

Paul Bartlett and the American Camouflage Division

Above Paul Wayland Bartlett in 1918 in Washington DC. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs. Digital coloring.

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In a blog post on Frank Overton Colbert in 2018, we mentioned his connection with a widely known Beaux-Arts American painter and sculptor named Paul Wayland Bartlett. In April 1917, Bartlett co-founded a group of Washington DC artists called the American Camouflage Division.

Bartlett was the group’s chairman, while among the other members were Felix Mahony, Michel Jacobs, Glen Brown, Richard Brooks, A.G. Smith, Alexis B. Many, and J. Crozier. When the US entered World War I, this group offered to contribute their expertise in the development of camouflage. At the same time, comparable groups had also been formed in New York City (called the New York Camouflage Society or American Camouflage) and San Francisco (American Camouflage Western Division).

In an issue of The Sunday Star (Washington DC) on April 29, 1917 (Section Four, page 1), a half-page article titled WASHINGTON ARTISTS ORGANIZE A CAMOUFLAGE DIVISION reported that Bartlett had recently—

made an address before an assemblage of fellow artists, architects, sculptors, and painters to explain the possibilities of camouflage. His explanations were inspiring; so much so, in fact, that the establishment of an American association of camouflage was begun then and there.

Paul Wayland Bartlett (1865-1925) had been born in New Haven CT. He began with the advantage of professional connections, because his father was a prominent sculptor, Truman H. Bartlett (1835-1922), who taught modeling for 22 years in the MIT architecture department. Both the father and the son were heavily influenced by Neo-classicism and the French Academy, and, as early as age 15, Paul Bartlett began to study sculpture in Paris.

Throughout the remainder of his life, he remained active in American art circles, but lived primarily in France. In 1914, artists serving in the French Army were the first to propose the establishment of a section de camouflage, so Bartlett’s endorsement of the "art of camouflage" was most likely encouraged in part by that.

Bartlett was known for his commissioned public sculptures, the most notable of which may be The Apothesis of Democracy, the House of Representatives pediment at the US Capitol building (as shown below). He died of blood poisoning in Paris in 1925.

Randolph Bourne, Abbott Thayer, and pandemic flu

Randolph Bourne

At the end of World War I, there was a major flu pandemic that began in January 1918 and continued to December 1920. About 500 million people were infected worldwide, about a quarter of the planet's population then. Of those, the death toll is uncertain but it may have been as many as 100 million.

In my lifetime, I have either known personally or have heard the stories about children who were orphaned when their parents died in that pandemic. Two of those children, for example, were the writer Mary McCarthy (author of The Group and Memories of a Catholic Girlhood) and her brother Kevin McCarthy, who became a Hollywood actor.

Another prominent person who died in that pandemic was a radical American writer and intellectual named Randolph Bourne (1886-1918). Bourne was well-known for his provocative essays about societal reform. But, in advance of that, he himself was socially conspicuous because of his physical deformity, part of which occurred at birth. During his delivery, forceps were used improperly and the umbilical cord was wrapped around his left ear, leaving that ear jutting out and that side of his profile distorted. Tragically, four years later, he was struck by tuberculosis of the spine, which stunted his growth, leaving him hunchbacked and dwarfish for life.

Despite such disabilities, Bourne went on to study at Columbia University, where he earned both undergraduate and graduate degrees, and where he was greatly influenced by philosopher John Dewey. He then spent time in Europe but returned in 1914 just as World War I began. In the remaining few years of his life, he was a contributing writer to various progressive magazines, including The New Republic and The Seven Arts.

At some point, perhaps in the summer of 1915, he asked a friend if she knew of “any attractive place in New England where one might go with the expectation of meeting somebody interesting?” She suggested Dublin NH, and arranged for a cabin in which he could stay. Once there, Bourne reported that he’d found “people of quick roving intelligence who carry their learning lightly,” and even better, those “who use their learning as fuel to warm them into sympathy with all sorts and conditions of men.” Among those he befriended were the families of Abbott Handerson Thayer (the “father of camouflage,” George de Forest Brush, and Raphael Pumpelly (whose daughters were the models for some of Thayer’s finest paintings).

Dublin NH (1906)

He also met Amy Lowell, who often spent summers in Dublin. According to Van Wyck Brooks (in Fenollosa and His Circle, With Other Essays in Biography), when Bourne dined at Lowell’s home, she “walked up to him as one of the oldest of friends and they had a truly grand gossip. She was surprisingly fair-minded and a lover of all sorts of queer and little people whom she touched off inimitably…” But she later had a change of mind, and, after a subsequent meeting, she told a friend that Bourne was a “weakling” whose physical deformity was evident in his “twisted mentality and tortured [writing] style.” “Everything he writes,” she said, “shows he is a cripple.”

Bourne was especially drawn to Abbott Thayer, whom he described as “a winsome and Emersonian old person.” About the artist’s family, he described how they live “in the woods, in a romantic warren of studios and big low rough rooms, with great fireplaces, and windows that frame delicious pictures of pine trees and mountain and sunset. [The Thayer family, he wrote] are all such charming, simple wistful, unworldly people, with whom you can sit silently before the fire and know you understand them.”

As reported by Brooks, during the summer that Bourne lived in Dublin, Thayer was (inevitably) preoccupied with Concealing Coloration in the Animal Kingdom, the book that he and his son Gerald H. Thayer had first produced in 1909 (it would later be reissued in 1919) “on protective coloration, which was so useful in the war, and he showed Randolph and [his friend] Fergus his color diagrams and demonstrations and told a great many stories.” The US had not yet entered the war, but Thayer was determined to share his wartime proposals on camouflage with the British.

Music was central to the Thayers’ daily life, and on one summer evening, Abbott brought out from storage an antique German piano (probably the one that had been shipped in the "piano box" that we described in an earlier posting) and combining that with a violin, the family and their guests enjoyed singing lieder songs by Schubert for an hour. As Bourne himself later described it:

Mr. Thayer’s appreciation was almost embarrassingly ecstatic, and he proferred sketches and dinners and thanks if we would come two or three times a week and do it again. I liked his simple emotional ways and his telling us we had “watered his soul.” He took us down to the road with the quaintest of lanterns and spoke constantly of the music.

Still, Thayer’s focus on camouflage, and his efforts to convince the world of the rightness of his theories was always at the forefront. As Bourne wrote to one of his friends—

Mr. Thayer’s head was so full of piebald warships and the conversion of college presidents to protective coloration that he couldn’t any longer let his emotional nature be stirred by our Schubert and Bach.

For whatever reason, the Thayer friendship did not last. While Bourne considered the option of buying a house in Dublin, and becoming a permanent resident there, Thayer stopped short of suggesting even another summer visit. Bourne’s visits, recalled Van Wyck Brooks, “were too exciting for Abbott Thayer, and, as Randolph said, ‘I talk too much.’”

Nevertheless, some distant contact still remained, and—

…when Mr. Thayer’s daughter Gladys came to New York, Rudolph offered to find a studio for her. She had just marched in a suffrage parade in Boston, led by what she called "a hag-like lady in regal dress of brocade, riding on a black steed just in front of us…Seeing the prim red-nosed antis with their unbearably smug and pampered demeanor I felt once and for all which was the great and human side and the lines of progress.”

In December 1918, Bourne fell victim to the flu epidemic and died that month. He was only thirty-two. He was buried in Bloomfield NJ (his birthplace) on—

a dreary day with a cold rain falling. The Abbott Thayers came to the funeral with others of his older friends; and Norman Thomas,* at the time a clergyman, conducted the service. Lewis Mumford wrote, a little later, "Randolph Bourne was precious to us because of what he was rather than because of what he had actually written."

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* One of the most memorable events of my life took place on May 17, 1967, when (as a student) I attended a talk by American Socialist Norman Thomas in the Auditorium at the University of Northern Iowa (then the State College of Iowa). What a courageous man and a powerful speaker. He was 83 when he spoke, and would die at the close of the following year.

Camouflage and presidential paintbrush wars in 1920

Harding versus Cox

CAMOUFLAGERS! in San Francisco Examiner. October 20, 1920—

The camouflage artists of World War fame could not have done a better job than that forcibly practiced on each other by a pair of Berkeley [house] painters during a dispute yesterday over the qualities of [James M.] Cox and [Warren G.] Harding for the presidency.

When the police arrived in answer to a riot call sent in by neighbors in the vicinity of a new building which was being painted at the corner of Camilia Street and San Pablo Avenue, [the house painters] C.W. Blackley and Harry Wessess, both [from] Berkeley, were using the final drippings of two large containers of paint in an effort to impress their respective points.

At each swish of the brush in the direction of his adversary, Wessess emphasized with a burst of profanity. Blackley, on the other hand, was carrying on quiet warfare with just as successful results in dopping up Wessess.

Because of his outbursts which formed the principle plaint of neighbors, Wessess was arrested on a charge of disturbing the peace. At his arraignment, Wessess pleaded guilty and his case was set for sentence on Thursday. He obtained his release on $20 bail.

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Regarding the politics of the day, journalist H.L. Mencken wrote—

It reminds me of a string of wet sponges, it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a kind of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm... of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of tosh. It is rumble and bumble. It is balder and dash.

Camouflaged Ships as Deep-Sea Barbershops

USS Siboney (c1918) in dazzle camouflage

Arthur Capper, Nature, Art and Camouflage in The Topeka Capital (Topeka KS). October 21, 1917, p. 4B—

The new art of camouflage is not limited to land, by any means. One of our boys transported to Europe has described a fine example of this art, in the case of the American destroyers, hunters of U-boats, who came out to meet the transport fleet as it neared the French coast.

The smudge of the destroyers could be seen twenty minutes before they themselves were visible, and when their hulls finally appeared they bore the appearance of a two-stack freighter heavily loaded and low in the water. As a matter of fact the destroyer has four funnels instead of two, but the two not seen at a distance are cleverly camouflaged to give the appearance of a freighter instead of a war vessel. As the boats came nearer the boys thought they were French, owing to their gay and bizarre coloring, or decoration. Their sides were painted in zigzag lines of white and blue, while the rigging and "concealed" smoke stacks were trickily and cockily camouflaged in wavy lines or "snaky ribbons," of green, white and blue. The general effect of the American destroyers on the sea, when transacting business, as soon as they can be closely observed, is suggested by the nickname the American soldiers immediately gave them of "deep-sea barbershops." The U-boat is the "canned Hun."

…The notion that protective coloration of warships must necessarily be a dull sea-gray disappeared long ago… New principles are employed, as in the case of the spiral green, white and blue lines on the stacks of torpedo boats, the zigzag lines of blue and white on the hull, and the same scheme of wavy zigzag, or spiral painted lines and splashes of color in varicolored combinations on cannon behind the front.

Yet the truth is that the new camouflage follows the principles first adopted by the artists of the Barbizon school and soon carried to extremes by radical painters, the principles that later, about thirty-five years ago, developed into the new landscape method of impressionism. Camouflage and impressionism are twin sisters. Nature is in fact colored not on simple, dull principles, but its coloration is greatly mixed, weirdly so, and with no regard to conventional ideas of consistency or harmony. Once in a while, as in this exceptionally brilliant month in Kansas, the true principle of mixed coloration appears to the plain, common eye in viewing the stunning prairie landscape. But to the now initiated artist these colors are present, even when hidden.

Arthur Capper, campaign card for Kansas governor's race

Give 'Em Hell | Billy Sunday Camouflaged

Billy Sunday (Wikipedia)

William Ashley Sunday (1862-1935), better known as Billy Sunday, was an Iowa-born fire and brimstone preacher, who played professional baseball in the National League for eight years. He left that profession in 1880 to become a popular, well-known evangelist, whose eccentric preaching style was outlandishly athletic (see photos above and below). He was in part the model for the preacher in Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis, and in Lewis' novel Babbitt, he was the inspiration for the boxer turned evangelist named Mike Monday, described by Lewis as "the distinguished evangelist, the best-known Protestant pontiff in America...As a prize-fighter he gained nothing but his crooked nose, his celebrated vocabulary, and his stage-presence. The service of the Lord had been more profitable."

Of Billy Sunday, the poet Carl Sandburg wrote: "You come along squirting words at us, shaking your fist and calling us all damned fools so fierce the froth slobbers over your lips...always blabbing we’re all going to hell straight off and you know all about it...Go ahead and bust all the chairs you want to. Smash a whole wagon load of furniture at every performance. Turn sixty somersaults and stand on your nutty head. If it wasn’t for the way you scare the women and kids I’d feel sorry for you and pass the hat. I like to watch a good four-flusher work, but not when he starts people puking and calling for the doctors." 

Sunday also wrote a syndicated newspaper column, a newsprint homily of sorts, in one issue of which he warned about the evils of camouflage. It makes sense. What better practitioner of duplicitous sales and deception?

Billy Sunday, THE ART OF CAMOUFLAGE, in The Delphi Journal (Delphi IN), December 9, 1920—

There's a Lot of Chatter, these days, about Camouflage! When your Uncle Bill first Harkened to the Word, he thought it was a New French Dish, probably Cooked in a Casserole, and, being the Kind of Geezer who will Try Anything Once in the Line of Eats, he came Pretty near Ordering it from the Dinge in the Diner.

But Camouflage is not that Sort of Thing, it Seems.

It is the Military Art of Kidding the Enemy—of making things Look like What they Ain't, so to speak!

The French Rig Up an old Tree to Pass for a Cannon, and let Fritz waste his Ammunition on This, while a Little Way down the Line, the Real Seventy-five is Blazing Away from what Appears to be an Innocent Domicile.

They can even Paint a Dummy Bridge on Canvas and Stretch it Across the River, and Fake a Rippling Stream to cover the Real Bridge, and Bunk the Flyers who Lamp it from Above.

As a Military Art, Camouflage is a great  thing!

But there is altogether Too Much Camouflaging being done in Ordinary Life. The Dame that Sails down the Boulevard in a Get-up which is the Last Holler in Vogue—and at the Same Time is Skinning Down on the Old Man's Bats, at Home—is practicing Camouflage.

And the Young Buck who Dolls Up like a Million Dollars and has Little More than the Return Fare in his Jeans, he's Trying the Art, too.

But Worst of Them All is the Old Deacon who Sits in the First Pew on Sunday and Pipes Up Strong in the Hymns and on the Amen Stuff, and then spends the Rest of the Week in the Gentle Game of Nicking the Poor Widow for Twelve Per Cent, on the Loan.

There are Enough Experts on Camouflage of This Sort in the USA to equip a whole Army Corps on the Western Front.

But they don't Get Away with it for Very Long. The World gets their Numbers, and the Big Guns of Honesty and Common Sense soon Shoot them to Pieces.

Leave Camouflage to the Military Men, where it Belongs and Does Some Good!

If you're only an Old Log, don’t Pretend you're a Rapid-Fire Field Gun!

Develop yourself, and Maybe you'll Get to Be One. Don't put yourself Higher up the Tree than you Belong, for there's Bound to Be a Fall—and usually with an Awful Bump.

William Jennings Bryan's Camouflage 1918

William Jennings Bryan (1908)

Above William Jennings Bryan during 1908 presidential campaign.

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 (Anon, CAMOUFLAGE BY MRS. [WILLIAM JENNINGS] BRYAN: There's A Reason for His Long Locks, Says Former Secretary in Washington Post, March 1, 1918—

Syracuse NY, February 28—Camouflage was invented by Mrs. William J. Bryan way back in 1882 to hide—oh, well, read Mr. Bryan's own explanation, given for the first time today, as to why he maintains the famous flowing locks of hair that tickle his collar:

"It's my wife's idea," he smiled. "The Lord made me for utility rather than for beauty. He gave me ears that stick out a great deal more than artistic standards require.

I had my hair cropped away back in 1882 when I was engaged to my wife and the result was terrible. I nearly lost her. She has made me wear my hair long ever since. It is what I call justifiable camouflage."

Bryan Dollar (1896)

• Re Bryan Dollar, acccording to Wikipedia, "Democratic and Populist presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan proposed free silver, that is, if you presented silver at the mint, you'd get it back, stamped into silver dollars. At the time, the worth of the metal in a silver dollar was 47 cents, so obviously people would want to do this and it would be inflationary. This piece demonstrates the argument against free silver, championed by Republican candidate William McKinley."