Women Were the Caregivers During the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918

When the Spanish Flu of 1918 spread from the battlefields of Europe to North America, it struck swiftly with its devastating sweep across the nation.  Since treatments, vaccines, and antibiotics didn’t exist, the lethal contagion quickly overwhelmed the early 20th-century  healthcare system.  To aggravate matters, the Great War had thinned the ranks of medical clinicians, and many remaining practitioners became ill themselves.       

From the onset of the pandemic in Cecil County, the sick and ill relied on the ladies to provide palliative care.  They took charge of caring for the stricken in the “flu homes,” sitting up all night will ill family members and neighbors.  This day-to-day care in the sick homes required constant attention, providing the person down with the flu liquids and nourishment, keeping the room ventilated, making sure they were warm enough, and administering whatever remedies doctors could provide to alleviate suffering.   As the contagion rampaged across the county, the work was especially hard as frequently entire households became infected.   

Nurses Face the Ultimate Test

While women at home provided most of the care, some acute cases needed hospitalization, so they were admitted to Union Hospital.  This put the institution’s nurse, student nurses, matron, and orderly on the frontline, the war already having weakened their ranks.  Miss Maida G. Campbell, R.N., the superintendent, and three pupils, Adelia McGready, Ella Alderson, and Laura Storey, enlisted in the overseas service of the Red Cross.

The remaining group of emerging professionals, the eleven “pupil nurses,” provided the bulk of the institutional care.  These young, unmarried ladies in the training program exchanged their labor for free instruction that led to a nursing diploma.  In between caring for the sick during regular times, they occasionally attended physician lectures and received practical, supervised experience related to medical procedures, medications, and nursing care.  It was a bargain for the institution, a cheap source of labor.¹    This band, the class of 1918, embarking on their chosen career encountered the ultimate test of their profession that autumn at the forefront of the desperate struggle, they too falling il.  They also heard about alumnae dying from the disease while performing patriotic duties in faraway places. 

Elkton’s new hospital also faced an unprecedented public health emergency.  For the first time in its ten-year history, admissions barely increased in 1918.  The managers attributed this to the reduced ranks of surgeons and the influenza pandemic, which incapacitated the nursing staff.  The virus also hampered recruiting for the training school²  

Spanish Flu Strikes Hospital

To help alleviate the burden placed upon the severely overworked doctors and nurses of the country who were working night and day, U.S. Surgeon General Rupert Blue ordered health departments to mobilize all available resources for the national struggle on Oct. 15. Local Authorities should make use of untrained women to relieve overworked nurses, he advised.³

In the grim world turned upside down in 1918, when the deadly virus stalked victims, they met the dual upheavals — World War I and the virulent contagion sweeping unchecked across the land.   At the epicenter of this battle, the overstretched caregivers turned out to be the class minted by a pandemic.   Each was forcefully reminded of what a medical career meant — the personal sacrifice, the risk of death, and the shortage of help in an overextended healthcare system when the contagion raged out of control with no cures available.  These young nurses did their duty while facing great suffering, sacrifice, exhaustion, and risk in the grueling battles.  

Ladies on the Front Line

In this topsy-turvy world, a time of great dread and misery, women stood on the front line of this awful struggle, delivering care to family and neighbors in the home.  They lived through a global tragedy, one of the worst ever to take place. 

For more see

Not the First Time Cecil County was Shut Down

Salem County Shut Down During Flu Epidemic of 1918

Upcoming Articles

Part II – Cecil County Practitioners on the Front Line.

Part III — The Fallen Nurses

Endnotes

1. Admin. “Union Hospital Nurses Served on the Battlefield During World War I -.” Window on Cecil County’s Past, November 13, 2018. https://cecilcountyhistory.com/world-war-i/.[↩]
2. “Tenth Annual Report of the Union Hospital of Cecil County.” Vol. 10. Elkton: Union Hospital, 1918.[↩]
3. National Campaign Ordered, Capital Gazette: Annapolis, Oct. 15, 1918.[↩]