Influenza: January 1920, the epidemic the city counted

3 — 27 January 1920

Declared in print, denied at the university: South Bend's best-documented epidemic is the influenza that struck in January 1920, in the middle of the fourteenth census. The count had begun on 3 January with seventy-one enumerators. On 16 January, Dr. Emil G. Freyermuth, secretary of the city's board of health, reported that no cases had been noted by physicians and called the chance of an epidemic an "exaggeration"; the South Bend News-Times contradicted the assurance in its own columns the next day, noting on 17 January that "the ranks of the [paper] carriers are sorely depleted at the present time on account of the mild form of influenza prevalent in the city." By 20 January the factories stood short on labor. Four were reported dead on 21 January, among them a Notre Dame student, and the illness had reached epidemic proportions at the local Army camps; the Salvation Army volunteered to help fight it.

On 26 January the News-Times officially declared an epidemic: 1,800 cases reported around the city — 250 of them at Notre Dame alone — and twenty-two deaths over the prior weekend. Dr. M. V. Ziegler of the State Board of Health confirmed the figures. Notre Dame's physician, Dr. F. J. Powers, denied them, "stating that the majority was afflicted with colds and la-grippe" — the conflict stands in the record as the two men left it, and both sides print. The epidemic gutted the census it had interrupted: forty-five of the eighty-five-member census staff were incapacitated, and district chief Edwin H. Sommerer told the paper that "the enumerators working find it difficult to complete their task because of the sickness in the homes." By 27 January the epidemic began to subside — one death reported that Monday, against the weekend's twenty-two — and workers began returning to the factories, stores, and offices, while the News-Times carried the health department's warning that "this marked decline does not mean, however, that all danger is past … the public is warned by the health department to exercise the greatest precaution in avoiding colds." The census was finished in April. No consolidated city toll for January 1920 beyond the News-Times' dated figures — the twenty-two weekend deaths of 26 January and the single death of the 27th — is in the record reached, and the epidemic prints at the size of those dated reports.

Sources:

1. Indiana History Blog (Indiana Historical Bureau), "Spanish Influenza" series, working first-hand from the South Bend News-Times of January 1920 in Hoosier State Chronicles — the census frame (seventy-one enumerators from 3 January; eighty-five-member staff, forty-five incapacitated), Freyermuth's 16 January assurance, the paper's 17 January carrier notice, the labor shortage of 20 January, the four dead of 21 January including a Notre Dame student, the epidemic at the Army camps, the Salvation Army's volunteering, the 26 January declaration (1,800 cases, 250 at Notre Dame, twenty-two weekend deaths), Ziegler's confirmation and Powers's denial, and the subsiding of 27 January with the health department's warning.