[ProtectOurFreedom]

It's interesting that, of the the seven cities that quickly passed mask laws, six are in the West. The Western frontier had "closed" only 28 years earlier and now the Westerners were putting in place mask laws. It's ironic given that the West was lawless for so long during the westward expansion.

Some things never change.

Workers at an information desk wearing masks in San Francisco in 1918. Credit: Hamilton Henry Dobbin, via California State Library

A policeman wearing a flu mask talking to a couple, one masked, one not. Credit: Hamilton Henry Dobbin, via California State Library

Rail commuters wearing white protective masks, one with the additional message “wear a mask or go to jail,” during the 1918 influenza pandemic in California. Credit: Vintage Space/Alamy

Headlines from newspapers in Chicago. Credit: Chicago History Museum/Getty Images

Police Court Officials of San Francisco holding a session in the open, as a precaution against the spreading influenza epidemic in late November of 1918. Credit: National Archives

A call to protest by the Anti-Mask League in The San Francisco Chronicle, on Jan. 25, 1919. Credit: UC Berkeley

[KarlInOhio]

Others took masks a little more seriously back then.

[cuban leaf]

We are the progeny of those that survived. We’re apparently tougher because this one is not really all that deadly.

[Fiddlstix]

Bookmark

[David Chase]

Amazing..........

Still here we are 102 years later and the Anti-Maskers sound exactly the same. But Darwin Loves them.......

[Jane Long]

Guy in top pic, far right....hee hee.

[lakecumberlandvet]

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. We’re living in an insane world and I can tell you it ain’t easy being sane in it.

[Uncle Miltie]

I have seen no science that prives masks work.

Until then, I’ll do whatever I please.

[Yardstick]

Wonder if opinion on masks was split along party lines like it is now.

These days the masks play right into the country’s ideological and cultural divide.

My guess is the masks were far less political in 1918.

[wbarmy]

For all the screaming about this country being steeped in racism, I notice that in the first picture, there is a black nurse there, dispensing information, and no one seems to care in the least. Just a thought.

[glennaro]

Some things never change.

A VERY interesting article -- surprisingly in the NYT.

Oh, and you are absolutely correct, of course, in your conclusion! Cheers!

[ConservativeMind]

At least they passed actual “laws.”

Edicts by only governors to wear burkas or go naked from the stomach down shouldn’t be allowed.

[WildHighlander57]

Thanks for posting this!

[CodeToad]