Actress Irene Castle cut her hair short in 1915 shortly before an operation for appendicitis. She liked it so much she never grew it back. In 1919, American women began following her lead.

Newspapers were full of articles about the trend, but since it hadn't yet spread beyond major East Coast cities, critics in the heartland held their criticism. That would not last.

This photo shows Alcock and Brown shortly after landing in Ireland at the conclusion of their record-setting Trans-Atlantic flight. You can see that the plane has tipped nose-first into a bog. Alcock and Brown are the two men in front of the plane in dark hats and coats.

An estimated 12,000 Native Americans served in World War I, many of them volunteers. They received high praise for their courage acting on behalf of a nation that refused to grant them citizenship, abused their children and kep their tribes in penury.

Emiliano Zapata was a skilled horseman, an inspirational leader and an unyielding revolutionary. He had no use for political theory and no patience for political compromise. He is still revered by many Mexicans for his unrelenting efforts for the poor and downtrodden.

Concerned about the state of America's roads, the U.S. Army sent 80 trucks and cars to cross the country and evaluate the state of the roads. They averaged 6 miles per hour and at one point in the Utah desert had to be rescued by teams of horses. The experience planted a seed in one of the officers on the trip, an idea to create an efficient nationwide highway system.

Support The Year That Was

Links:

• The first non-stop transatlantic flight - 100 years on
• The Overlooked Story of Native Americans in World War I | Time
• In 1919, Eisenhower Suffered Through History's Worst Cross-Country Road Trip - Atlas Obscura
• Savage Peace: Hope and Fear in America, 1919 by Ann Hagedorn — Hagedorn's book tells the story of the flight of Alcock and Brown, discusses the translatlantic convey, and tells the full story of Emeline Puffer and Arthur Hazzard.
• "Villa and Zapata: A History of the Mexican Revolution" by Frank McLynn
• Emiliano Zapata!: Revolution and Betrayal in Mexico" by Samuel Brunk, Samuel
• "Emiliano Zapata!: Revolution and Betrayal in Mexico" by Samuel Brunk, Samuel

Correction: In this episode I state that Arthur Conan Doyle stopped writing mysteries after the flu pandemic. This is simply not true. Doyle published numerous mysteries, including several Sherlock Holmes stories, between 1919 and his death in 1930. My apologies for the error, and thanks to the listener who caught it.

Heroic efforts went into creating a vaccine for Pfieffer's Bacillus, which was believed by many doctors to cause the Spanish Flu. These efforts were all in vain, since Pfeiffer's Bacillus is a fairly common bacteria and not the cause of the flu. The actual cause would not be understood until the existence of viruses was proven in the late 1930s.

The Spanish Flu hit in three waves, in the the spring of 1918, the fall of 1918, and the spring of 1919. There is no evidence that the relaxing of social distancing and/or quarantines triggered the second wave. It is more likely that the virus mutated into a more easily transmitted and more deadly form over the summer. However, the third wave can be linked to relaxed social distancing.

Dr. Kilmer's Swamp Root was a popular patent medicine used to treat the flu. So were onions and Vick's Vapo-Rub.

Nurses played an enormous role during the Spanish Flu, perhaps a greater role than doctors, since recovery was largely the matter of careful nursing. A severe shortage of nurses put a huge burden on those trying to treat patients.

The American health system was strictly segregated in 1918-1919, and nurses of color struggled to treat the patients that overwhelmed the small and underfunded African-American hospitals.

There was no precedent in 1918 for the federal government to play anything other than a coordinating and research role during the Spanish Flu. But the situation was so dire that states and cities begged for help. Surgeon General Rupert Blue seemed unable to rise to the challenge.

The Surgeon's General's advice on how to avoid the flu was distributed widely but offered little in real help and failed to acknowledge the severity of the situation.

The 1918 mid-term election went ahead as planned, but in parts of the west, polling places were unable to open because too many workers were sick with the flu.

Public campaigns urged individuals to cover their faces when coughing or sneezing and to avoid shaking hands. If this cartoon is any indication, some people thought the efforts were extreme.

Cities railed at residents to stop spitting on the street. This was an enormous problem, although this warning seems particularly stark.

Masks were adopted across the country, and some cities mandated their use. The masks became a symbol of the disease. This cartoonist pokes fun at their ubiquity by proposing new styles soon to come out of the Paris fashion houses.

San Francisco required residents and visitors to wear face masks, and initially compliance was high. Red Cross workers sold masks at ferry terminals and on the street.

But people soon tired of wearing masks, or wore them slung around their necks. Soon police and public health officers were busy fining and arresting scofflaws.

Crowds packed the Civic Auditorium for a boxing match in November 1918, and a photographer snapped this image of hundreds of San Franciscans without a mask in sight. Dozens of city leaders were fined for violated the mask ordinance. The ordinance was lifted a few days later.

However, the ordinance was re-imposed in January when the flu returned to San Francisco. This time, opposition to masks was not just heated but organized. An anti-mask league held a meeting to which up to 5000 people attended.

Violet Harris was 15 years old and living in Seattle when the flu closed schools. She kept a diary that gives a sense of life during the shut down.

Some rumors traced the flu pandemic to German scientists and claimed the disease was spread by German submarines. This Brazilian cartoon conveys in this a rather grim way.

Hundreds of thousands of children were left orphaned by the Spanish Flu. This photo shows a group of children who lost their families when the flu raged through the Bristol Bay region of Alaska.

Support The Year That Was

Links:

• Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World, by Laura Spinney, Amazon
• The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History, by John M. Barry, Amazon
• Influenza 1918 | American Experience | Official Site | PBS
• "Influenza 1918: Searching for Cures," American Experience, PBS
• "Did Lack of Social Distancing in 1918 Pandemic Cause More Deaths Than WWI?", by Dan Evon, Snopes.com
• "Why the Second Wave of the 1918 Spanish Flu Was So Deadly," by Dave Roos, HISTORY.com
• "Aspirin Misuse May Have Made 1918 Flu Pandemic Worse," ScienceDaily
• “Eat More Onions! Desperate and massively debatable medical advice from 1918." by Catharine Arnold, Lapham’s Quarterly
• "'A terrible new weapon of war': The Spanish flu had its own share of conspiracy theories," by Ofer Aderet, Israel News - Haaretz.com
• "Fake news and the flu," by Hannah Mawdsley, Wellcome Collection
• "Nursing During the Spanish Flu Epidemic of 1918,"by Elizabeth Hannink, Working Nurse.
• "In 1918 and 2020, race colors America’s response to epidemics," by Soraya Nadia McDonald, The Undefeated
• “'There Wasn't a Lot of Comforts in Those Days:' African Americans, Public Health, and the 1918 Influenza Epidemic," by Vanessa Northington Gamble, Public Health Reporter.
• Responsibilities in a Public Health Emergency, National Conference of State Legislatures.
• "How a Fragmented Country Fights a Pandemic," by Polly J. Price, The Atlantic
• "How they flattened the curve during the 1918 Spanish Flu," by Nina Strochlic and Riley D. Champine, National Geographic
• "Everyone wore masks during the 1918 flu pandemic. They were useless." by Eliza McGraw, The Washington Post
• "Face masks: what the Spanish flu can teach us about making them compulsory." by Samuel Cohn, The Conversation.
• "When Mask-Wearing Rules in the 1918 Pandemic Faced Resistance" by Becky Little, HISTORY.com
• San Francisco, California and the 1918-1919 Influenza Epidemic | The American Influenza Epidemic of 1918: A Digital Encyclopedia
• "The 1918 Flu-Pandemic Quarantine Was Profoundly Lonely," by Noah Y. Kim, The Atlantic
• "Spanish flu quarantine: Life during 1918’s pandemic was just as weird as today," by Michael Waters, Slate.
• 1918 Pandemic Influenza Survivors Share Their Stories [Oral Histories], Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH)
• 1918 influenza pandemic survivor interview: Mrs. Edna Boone, interviewed 2008 - YouTube
• "Survivors remember 1918 flu," NBC News
• "Pandemic Influenza of 1918: An Interview with Edna Register Boone." Alabama Public Health.
• "Grandfather's letter amid Spanish Flu gives family a glimpse at life under quarantine 100 years ago," Jenson Strock, wtol.com
• "Dining during an epidemic," by Jan Whitaker, Restaurant-ing Through History Blog
• "Theatre and the Last Pandemic," by Charlotte M. Canning, American Theater.
• "How the 1918 Flu Halted Hollywood," by Hadley Meares, Hollywood Reporter
• "The 1918 influenza did not kill the US economy," by Efraim Benmelech and Carola Frydman, VOX, CEPR Policy Portal
• "Economic Effects of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic: Implications for a Modern Day Pandemic," by Thomas A. Garrett, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (PDF)
• "The Lessons of the Elections of 1918," by Donna Searcey, The New York Times
• "The Spanish Influenza Pandemic of 1918: A Defining Characteristic in the Life and History of the American Family," by Ellie Vance, The Thetean.
• "The political lessons of the 1918 pandemic," by David Faris, The Week.

William Monroe Trotter was one of the most significant civil rights leaders in Amerian history, yet he is little remembered today.

Trotter crossed the Atlantic on the SS Yarmouth as assistant cook--a strange position for a Harvard graduate with two degrees and a Phi Beta Kappa key.

Trotter's father James Monroe Trotter fought in the 55th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment during the Civil War. Afterward, he served as the first Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia, a lucrative position where he earned a small fortune. James' only son William would inherit both wealth and influence, but James insisted that this privilege should be employed to fight for African-American rights.

In 1899, William Monroe Trotter married Geraldine Pindell, known by friends and family as Deenie. She was passionate about civil rights as her husband.

A year after his marriage, Trotter decided to fulfill the mission laid upon him by his father by publishing a newspaper, The Guardian. The weekly was dedicated to exposing racial issues across the United States.

In 1905, Trotter, along with W.E.B. DuBois and several other black leaders, founded The Niagara Movement to advocate for civil rights and counter the message of the Tuskegee Machine. The organization collapsed within two years, largely because Trotter was so difficult to work with.

In 1909, DuBois joined other activists to establish the NAACP with much the same aims. Trotter rejected the group, which he saw as dominated by white donors and leaders and too timid to tackle real issues. In response, he founded his own organization, which in time would take the name the National Equal Rights League, or NERL.

The 1915 film The Birth of a Nation prompted immediate reaction from both the NAACP and Trotter's NERL. But those reactions took different forms. The NAACP focused on legal challenges and attempts to disprove the historical accuracy of the movie. The NERL organized public protests intended to demonstrate the depth of African-American opposition to whites.

Among the protests Trotter organized was this one in Boston Common. The photo is extremely poor quality, but you can get a sense of the size of the crowd.

At another Trotter-organized event, 11 protestors were arrested for disturbing the peace. Trotter was among them.

At the end of the Great War, a dozen or so other delegates were elected to present an appeal for equal rights and justice to the Peace Conference. Among them were Trotter and Madam C J Walker. Walker has an incredible story--she built her business selling cosmetics and hair care products to African-American women into one of wealthiest and most successful in the country.

At the same time Trotter was trying to get to Paris to present his appeal, W.E.B. Du Bois was organization the Pan-African Congress, which included representatives from African nations and the African diaspora.

When Trotter returned home from Paris, Red Summer had begun. Trotter focused on creating a new organization that would help African-Americans defend themselves, using force against force.

The ABB ceased to be a secret in 1921 when the armed response of African-Americans during the Tulsa Race Massacre horrified white Americans. The ABB was accused of conspiracy with all of the usual suspects of the era, including the Reds and the Wobblies. In this case, the Reds, were, in fact, a factor. Within a few years, the ABB had been absorbed by the American Communist Party.

As these images show, whole blocks of Tulsa were burned to the ground, including the entire Greenwood Neighborhood, known as the "Negro Wall Street." It's unknown how many people died in Tulsa

Support The Year That Was

Links:

• Black Radical: The Life and Times of William Monroe Trotter by Kerri K. Greenidge — Greenidge's book was my essential guide during this episode. I highly recommend the book. Trotter fought far more battles than I had time to describe, and Greenidge does a fantastic job of placing his life in the context of the time and place.
• "The Legacy of a Radical Black Newspaperman" by Casey Cep, The New Yorker
• Booker T. Washington (1856-1915)
• "Woodrow Wilson was extremely racist — even by the standards of his time" by Dylan Matthews, Vox
• "The Crisis," NAACP, January 1915 — This issue of "The Crisis" contains Trotter's description of his 1915 encounter with Woodrow Wilson, as well as several responses. The article begins on pages 119. It's also worth look at the other articles for insight into the time.
• "The Birth of a Nation: How the fight to censor D.W. Griffith’s film shaped American history." by Dorian Lynskey, Slate
• "The Black Activist Who Fought Against D. W. Griffith’s 'The Birth of a Nation'" by Richard Brody, The New Yorker
• W.E.B. Du Bois, "Close Ranks," Editorial from "The Crisis"
• A Letter From Camp Devens | American Experience — At the height of the flu pandemic, one of the doctors at Boston's Camp Devens wrote a letter to a friend and fellow physician describing his experience. Deenie Trotter was a regular visitor at the camp, where she visited with soldiers, until she died of influenza in October 1919.
• Africa and World War I | World War I | DW
• The First World War and its consequences in Africa | UNESCO
• Home | Thugs and Miracles — Ben's podcast is a huge amount of fun and a great look at the wild and wacky kings and queens of France. Highly recommend you check it out!

Chicago's beaches in 1919 were not segregated by law, but any attempt by African-Americans to stand up to convention could prompt harsh and sudden violence. This is the white beach on the South Side, which started around 29th street.

The beach used by African-Americans was a few blocks north, around 25th street. The two beaches were divided by a rocky inlet--and as five teenaged boys discovered that July, the line between them was all to easy to cross.

In the South, the Jim Crow system enforced the segregation of all public places. African-Americans couldn't eat in the same restaurants, sleep in the same hotels, sit in the same movie theaters, use the same restrooms, or even drink the same water as whites.

Ida B. Wells had not intended to take on the cause of lynching until her friend Thomas Moss was dragged out of jail and shot in a railyard. Her investigation into lynching was a bombshell that shattered the Southern narrative about racial violence.

You can read Wells' original report, titled "Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases," online.

General Pershing likely never intended the 369th Infantry Regiment, the Harlem Hellraisers, to fight on the front lines, but under pressure from the Allies he turned them over to French command. They served with courage and distinction and won the respect and admiration of the entire French nation.

Private Henry Johnson fought off a 24-man German patrol alone while wounded. He was awarded the French Croix de Guerre--but received no medals from his own country.

James Reese Europe served as the 369th's regimental band leader. A brilliant musician, conductor, composer, and arranger, he brought jazz to France.

Author W.E.B. DuBois electrified readers of the NAACP magazine The Crisis with his essay "Returning Soldiers," which urged African-American veterans to fight racism at home. You can read the essay online.

Riots broke out in early summer in Charleston, South Carolina; Longview, Texas; and Washington, D.C. This sort of scene was happened frequently--black men were dragged out of trolley, as well as seized walking down the street or yanked out of businesses to be beaten by a white mob.

Poet Claude McKay wrote "If We Must Die" in 1919 in the same spirit as Du Bois' "Returning Soldiers." It was a call for African-Americans to stand up and defend themselves against white attacks. You can read the poem online or listen to Ice-T read it.

During the Chicago riot, bands of white men prowled the city looking for African-Americans. Here a group of men are running through a black neighborhood.

Order was finally restored when the state militia arrived. Generally, the soldiers were impartial and prevent further attacks on African-Americans, but encounters between white troops and black men were still fraught.

The riot in Omaha, Nebraska drew an enormous crowd, estimated at anything from 5000 to 15,000. Here you can see some of that mob surrounding the Omaha courthouse, which they eventually set alight.

Newspapers across Arkansas ran headlines about the supposed uprising of African-Americans in Phillips County.

Conductor and intelligence agent Water H. Loving submitted a report to the Department of War that explained that socialist, communist, and labor organizers had nothing to do with the violence in 1919; rather, African-Americans had decided enough was enough. His report was shelved and ignored.

• Please note that the links below to Amazon are affiliate links. That means that, at no extra cost to you, I can earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. (Here's what, legally, I'm supposed to tell you: I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for me to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.) However, I only recommend books that I have used and genuinely highly recommend.

Support The Year That Was

Links:

• Red Summer by Cameron McWhirter — McWhirter's book was my primary source for this episode, and I highly recommend it for the in-depth context and masterful storytelling.
• The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration: Isabel Wilkerson: 8580001042800: Amazon.com: Books — Wilkerson's book has won every award under the sun, and it should probably win more. It is brilliant and moving and heartbreaking and a must-read.
• "Ida B Wells: the unsung heroine of the civil rights movement" by David Smith, The Guardian
• "Against All Odds: A new play and photo exhibition call attention to Ida B. Wells and her brave fight to end lynching in America" by Clarissa Myrick-Harris, Smithsonian Magazine
• "The Arkansas race riot" by Ida B. Wells-Barnett via the Internet Archive
• "THE N.A.A.C.P. and the Struggle for Anti-Lynching Legislation, 1897-1917" by William F. Pinar, Counterpoints, on JSTOR — This article is behind a paywall, but you may be able to access it through your library. It is an excellent resource on the role of the NAACP in anti-lynching legislation.
• Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror
• "One Hundred Years Ago, the Harlem Hellfighters Bravely Led the U.S. Into WWI," by Eric Trickey, Smithsonian Magazine
• World War I and Great Migration, US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
• "Race Riots of 1919 - The Red Summer" ESRI Map Journal  
• Chicago 1919: Confronting the Race Riots -- A Series of Community Conversations
• In Their Own Words: The 1919 Race Riot
• Opinion | The Forgotten History of America’s Worst Racial Massacre - The New York Times
• "I'll Just Stand and Wring My Hands and Cry" by Ed Ware — This song was written by Ed Ware, one of the twelve men from Phillips County while sitting on death row. It's an old and scratchy recording, but deeply moving.