Month: September 2020

Delaware Libraries & Archives Facilitate Research During Pandemic

When COVID-19 disrupted everyday life in March, the research I had been working on for over a year, the pandemic of 1918, took on greater urgency.  But, the storehouses of primary documents I needed to provide deeper insight for the investigation closed.  Of course, I mined the great abundance of digital content accessible from the Delaware Digital Newspaper Project and Delaware Public Archives partnerships with content providers. These important on-demand sources yielded enormous data as I closely read 102-year-old newspapers, seeking to understand how Delaware responded to the growing outbreak. 

Although these primary sources provided a day-by-day understanding of the fateful year, I needed to carefully analyze more robust original traces of the past to fully assess the deeper, complex dimensions of the pandemic in Delaware.  Government officials, prison wardens, police officers, judges, public health officers, nurses, coroners, doctors, undertakers, and cemetery caretakers penned reports in 1918 to document their work as they struggled to cope with the Spanish Influenza.  This 102-year-old data is found in death registers, police blotters, prison registers, court calendars, coroner’s inquests, and the minutes and correspondence of health boards and local and state government.

Delaware Libraries

These mainly undigitized materials are carefully curated in special collections departments of public and university libraries and in the vast holdings at the Delaware Public Archives, whose collections, spanning centuries, open windows to the past.    Here is where the Wilmington Public Library, the Delaware Public Archives, and Special Collections at the University of Delaware came in.  These organizations, each in its particular way, adapted to our upended world in 2020, continuing to serve researchers and patrons. 

Annual hospital report for the Homeopathic Hospital in the collection of the Wilmington Library, a Delaware Library.
The Homeopathic Hospital of Delaware in 1918 (Source: Homeopathic Hospital Association of Delawre Annual Report, 1918; in the collection of the Wilmington Library).

At the Wilmington Library, the librarians found other ways to support the community after the institute shut its doors to walk-in patrons.  One was to provide remote reference desk assistance so this opened up the strong resources of the Delaware Room.  I have used that outstanding resource many times.  For this investigation, I needed 1918 annual reports from the Homeopathic, Delaware, and Memorial hospitals, the New Castle County Workhouse, and the Bureau of Police.  Within 24-hours, the Wilmington Reference Librarians scanned the relevant sources for me.

Furthermore, the reference department provided valuable additional information in the vertical files (newspaper clipping) in the Delaware Room.  This gem for researchers, a unique pre-computer age catalog of 3 X 5 cards and vertical files with local materials from 1922 to 1977,  should not be overlooked.  For the better part of the 20th century, the city’s librarians cut out and indexed articles about local subjects and people from several periodicals.  Included were newspapers, such as the Delaware Republican, Morning News, Evening Journal, Journal Every Evening, and Sunday Morning Star. 

Although the staff doesn’t add to these files now as databases have replaced this old method for accessing information, they continue to maintain the catalog and the vertical files.  And even though many Delaware newspapers have now been digitized, this repository of excellent material still yields helpful information not located digitally. 

Delaware Public Archives

Staff members at the Delaware Public Archives pull records from 1918.

Another collection was at the Delaware Public Archives.  Working carefully within guidelines laid out by public health officials, the state agency reopened to research by appointment.  That provided an opportunity to spend days in the reading room, studying the prison registry from the New Castle County Workhouse, court dockets, the Wilmington Bureau of Police Blotter, the city ambulance log, and minutes from state and local boards of health.

At the University of Delaware, an email to Special Collections at the Morris Library produced annual reports that weren’t available at other repositories. 

As Delawareans struggled when COVID-19 struck the nation, these Delaware libraries and the Archives found ways to adapt and serve during a global pandemic as they re-engineered ways to make resources available to patrons.  Thank you, Wilmington Public Library, Delaware Public Archives, and Special Collections at the Morris Library at the University of Delaware for maintaining access to your collections during this unprecedented year. This assistance was essential as I researched a new lecture on the Spanish Influenza in Delaware in 1918 for the Delaware Humanities.

For more Information

New Delaware Humanities Lecture Examines Pandemic of 1918

LIst of prisoners who died at the New Castle County Workhouse in the collection of the Delaware Public Archives.
Prisoner deaths at the New Castle County Workhouse in 1911, a listing of names found in the prison registry. (Source: Records of the New Castle County Workhouse, at the Delaware Public Archives).

Wilmington Police Helped Stamp out Pandemic in 1918

The Wilmington Police Department grappled with the unprecedented challenge of maintaining service after the Spanish influenza slipped into Delaware in the autumn of 1918.  In normal times, the 127-person force patrolled streets, preserved peace, operated the lockup, investigated crimes, collected dog taxes, and maintained the fire and police telegraph.  However, early that autumn, as the contagion spread and the death toll mounted, common crime plummeted, the virus driving people off the streets as the Board of Health closed public places.  This included taverns and saloons, typical hotspots for troublemakers.   

Bookings at the city lockup tumbled by late September as wayward types, along with everyone else, stayed away from crowds.  Nevertheless, although work instigated by pickpockets, muggers, run-of-the-mill thieves, and similar lawbreakers declined, the force maintained a vigilant watch as conservators of the peace.  Adding to this, patrolmen had to help stamp out the spread of the contagion and provide relief to the stricken. 

Wilmington Police Officer arond 1918
A Wilmington Police Officer is at his post, sometime around 1910 to 1919.
(Source: Wilmington Bureau of Police Facebook Page — https://bit.ly/3mffNdw

With sickness falling “like a black pall,” striking thousands in the City, as the death rate increased by leaps and bounds, the Board of Health ordered the closing of public places.   That October 2 edict also shuttered 167 saloons.   But it allowed the wholesale liquor stores to say open as they were not congregating places.  That changed on October 11, when Chief George Black requested the shuttering of these outlets.  Drunkenness was excessive, which with the police force handicapped by sickness, was a difficult matter for the force to handle, the chief explained. 1   

As officers patrolled the streets, making arrests for disobeying anti-spitting measures and other public health orders, the virus spread in the ranks.  Dozens became ill, their numbers having already been thinned by about 30 men because of the war.     At the same time, headquarters continued getting calls from people who could not secure undertakers to remove dead bodies from their houses. 2

At the peak of the pandemic, the police patrol wagon carried influenza victims to the emergency hospitals around Wilmington. Always on the go, the wagon transported 822 patients in September.  During the first three weeks in October, when the raging disease was at its worst, the two crews of the “machine” worked, day and night.  At times the demands on the patrol crews taxed them to the utmost, and Patrolman Robinson, one of the officers, worked day after day with a high temperature.  When he arrived home one night after a long shift, he collapsed in his yard and was carried to his room, ill with the disease.  Although he recovered, he passed the virus along to his family. 

Wilmington Police on the Front Line

One member of the force, Patrolman John Jack Riley, died from the ailment.  On his last watch (September 25), Officer Riley escorted World War I draftees to the railroad station, but when he returned home he found that his wife was stricken.  While caring for her, the policeman fell ill, passing away on October 3, at his home at 9 South Jackson Street.  The police band planned to honor the lawman by playing funeral music during the procession to the cemetery, but the Board of Public Health orders prevented that arrangement.  Nevertheless, thirty members of the force went to the Riverview Cemetery.3   

In assisting the Board of Health, Police Surgeon George W. K. Forrest and City Physician Allan W. Perkins attended to victims whose relatives or friends called the police for help.  One night the police kept the city physician on the move until daylight attending victims.  Police Surgeon Forrest reported that he had treated 32 patrolmen and six prisoners stricken with influenza. 

Wilmington Police arrests
Wilmington Police Department arrests, 1917 – 1919; (Source: Annual Report of the Wilmington Department of Police; Delaware Public Archives)4

To add to the troubles of the lawmen, at least fifteen men detained behind bars in the lockup became ill.  These victims were carried out by the patrol wagon crew and hurried to one of the emergency hospitals. 

While the rank and file were doing this work, Chief of Police Black’s office was besieged with telegrams and phone calls from relatives of those stricken from other cities asking for information about them.  In many cases, those who died here had wives or mothers in other cities, and it rested on the police department to get word to those who had been bereaved to break the news to them.

Saloons Thrown Open

Toward the end of October, the situation eased so the Delaware Board of Health lifted the ban on public assembly at 1 a.m. Sunday, October 27.  The reopening of taverns had to wait until Monday – this marked twenty-six days that the board kept saloons shuttered.  However, a great deal of thirst had accumulated, as from early morning until late at night that Monday, John Barleycorn held sway in the City for the first time in nearly a month. 

Once saloonkeepers threw open the doors, people crowded around the bars.  This rush was apparent anywhere one looked downtown, the spectacle of intoxicated men on streets being a common one.  Officers booked over 100 lawbreakers in the lockup before midnight.  The authorities likened the situation to the days when the powder plants at Carney Point were in the making, and the patrol wagons were loaded up with intoxicated men at the boat wharves. 

While these scenes unfolded, the police patrol wagon, which had remained idle for a couple of weeks took  on a new lease on life.  For a while it was thought that the “little patrol [wagon],” which had been undergoing repairs during the slump in business, would have to be placed in operation.  But Patrolman Harry Foreman, the mechanic, not anticipating any rush in business, did not have it ready to roll. 5

After Wilmington’s barrooms opened, another problem developed.  In Chester, Philadelphia, and other nearby places, the quarantine was still in place, so thirty people flocked to Wilmington.  This influx of visitors seeking liquor was a menace to public health and morals, to say nothing of a nuisance as there were more intoxicated men on the streets than others.  Consequently, Chief Black issued an order closing Wilmington’s saloon at 7 o’clock every night until these nearby places lifted the quarantines 6

Wilmington Got the Halloween Flu

Wilmington Police Chief George M. Black 7

That end of October holiday — the time for ghosts and goblins — came around about this time, as police struggled with the liquor trade.  Then ”Halloween Flu” hit Wilmington, the News Journal remarked., as Chief Black banned parties and public revelry.  Nobody was to blame for it, the paper explained.  It was simply too risky.

Despite the order, bands of young people in costume appeared on Market Street but quickly found that the police were not joking when they ordered all false faces to come off and advised the clowns and other “fantastics” to go home.  Confetti and ticklers were suppressed as soon as they put in an appearance too and the police also put the quiet on any undue noise and carnival frolicking.  It left many young people wishing the happy days were back when Wilmington used to have big Halloween parades with bands and decorated fire apparatus and all the fixing. 

Finally, with the emergency waning in late October and sick officers returning to duty, the City’s law enforcement agency started return to its regular routine. 

In the autumn of 1918, the officers who were able to remain on duty did excellent work as guardians of peace and public health.  When these men entered the ranks, they knew they would face risks in the rough and tumble parts of Wilmington, but they never expected to have to struggle with helping to stamp out a deadly virus during a global pandemic. 

For More on the Spanish Influenza in Delaware

Delmarva Spanish Influenza Archive

Endnotes
  1. “Bone Dry Town for the Present,” Evening Journal October 12, 1918[↩]
  2. “Epidemic Near End After 361 Deaths in City,” Evening Journal, Oct. 12, 1918[↩]
  3. “Officer Dies After Nursing Sick Wife,” Evening Journal, Oct. 4, 1918[↩]
  4. Wilmington Deparment of Police, Report of the Chief of Police of Wilmington, DE 1918[↩]
  5. Disciples of Bacchus Hold Day of Revelry,” Morning News, October 29, 1918[↩]
  6. “Saloons Closed by Police Order at Seven o’clock,” Morning News, November 1, 1918[↩]
  7. George George Black, Report of the Chief of Police of Wilmington, Del, for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1919, 1919[↩]

Effort to Save Levi Coppin School Continues as State Reopens Review Process

CECILTON – September 2, 2020 – The demolition plan for the Levi Coppin School in Cecilton is being reassessed as a “post-review discovery” under section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, according to the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD).  Some months earlier, a determination had been made that the demolition of this African-American landmark would not adversely impact the community.

But with the clock ticking advocates heard that it was going to be razed so they stepped forward to provide significant information that hadn’t been discovered when the first 106 review was completed.  Some of these new insights came from former students at Levi Coppin, while other evidence of important traces of earlier times came from a thesis, and a Google search that located blog posts, and articles published in the Cecil Whig in recent years.   

Levi coppin school
The Levi Coppin School in Cecilton in the first half of 2020

For the moment the demolition is on hold in light of extra evidence of significance offered through petitions, letters, and the web as the State has opened the process to review the original determination.  One of the steps in reconsidering the original declaration took place this afternoon in a former classroom at 233 Bohemia Avenue as people interested in making remarks about the adverse effect and potential mitigation of the proposed demolition offered comments for consideration and the public record. 

Sixteen people attended this meeting.  Representatives from the town, county, and state, along with the developer, townspeople, faith community representatives, and historic preservationists, were present.  Joining by phone was the executive director of the Maryland Commission on African American History and Culture, Chanel Compton, and Beth Cole from the Maryland Historical Trust.

The Cecil Historical Trust, a countywide preservation advocacy organization, sent a letter, saying that “due to the important history of the school and that period of transition to desegregated schools in the 1950s,” the group wanted to express support for preserving the building and revitalizing it for appropriate community use. 

In the weeks leading up to this public hearing, the Maryland Historical Trust wrote a letter to Kyle Dixon, saying that “Based on the information you provided, we informed DHCD that the historic structure slated for demolition is the former Levi Coppin School, which was constructed in 1950, served as the school to educate African-American children, and continued to operate as a segregated school until its closure in 1965. The Cecilton school may be significant in the context of efforts toward school reform in the immediate postwar period, and for its association with school desegregation. The construction of the school apparently was motivated by the findings of a federal school survey; its architecture may reflect standards for “separate but equal” facilities of the period. While the school has not been formally inventoried or evaluated for its eligibility in the National Register of Historic Places, Section 106 regulations allow the agency official, in consultation with the Trust/SHPO, to assume that the newly identified property is eligible for the National Register for purposes of Section 106 consultation [36 CFR 800.13(c)]. We have advised DHCD that it would be appropriate to assume that the Levi Coppin School is eligible for the National Register.”

This is the first step in the review process, as advocates for preserving the building and its history stepped forward. 

Levi Coppin School in 1971.
The Levi Coppin School in 1971 (Source: Cecil Whig)

Also See

A petition to Save the Levi Coppin School.

Leading up to the reopening of the State’s review process, interested parties circulated virtual and paper petitions. About 630 people ask that the dcision to demolish it be reconsidered.