Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Evangelical
What the 1918 Influenza Pandemic Meant for American Churches

What the 1918 Influenza Pandemic Meant for American Churches

Last updated on: March 10, 2020 at 8:50 pm by Chris Gehrz

What the 1918 Influenza Pandemic Meant for American Churches 2020-03-10T20:50:36-04:00 Chris Gehrz

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

“With all the unavoidable news right now about disease and epidemics,” Philip wrote here last Friday, “it’s an obvious temptation to look back to past eras to see how they coped with such things, culturally as well as medically.” Indeed, as I get more and more emails from my employer, our kids’ school, and our city about coronavirus/COVID-19, I’ve certainly been tempted to brush up on my limited knowledge of the history of disease. Like Philip, I’ve thought a lot about 1918, and the influenza pandemic that killed 50 million people around the world, including 675,000 in this country. But while he considered how the pandemic — coinciding with the last year of World War I — inspired apocalyptic themes in film and literature, I spent some time this weekend revisiting one of my favorite digital history projects.

Almost fifteen years ago, the Center for the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan began to work on The American Influenza Epidemic of 1918-1919: A Digital Encyclopedia. Updated in 2016, it surveyed how fifty American cities experienced and responded to the “Spanish flu.” The authors wrote a narrative essay and timeline for each city, but even more valuably, they digitized thousands of documents and images. I first used the influenza encyclopedia to research an essay for one of my own digital projects, a 2015 history of Bethel University’s experience of warfare since 1914.

The headline for Oct. 7, 1918 in Maysville, Kentucky, one of the many places where American churches were closed in the fall of 1918 – Chronicling America/Library of Congress

This time I wondered what the encyclopedia’s digital archive would reveal about religious responses to the influenza pandemic in this country. What caught my eye was a set of newspaper articles and other documents dating from late September 1918 through early November of that year — the first peak in the spread of the disease, when cities around the United States banned worship services, among other public gatherings. (Here in St. Paul, Minnesota, authorities waited until early November 1918 to close schools like Bethel. Then a second outbreak caused an “influenza vacation” in the winter of 1920.)

Rather than write a typical blog post, I’m going to share a variety of news stories from those weeks in late 1918. You’ll find a variety of religious responses to the deadliest epidemic in American history, which coincided with the last days of the Great War and the last debates over the ratification of Prohibition. While most Christians made the best of church closures, many grumbled… and a few went to jail rather than stop worshipping.

Sunday, September 29, 1918
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS: Monday’s front page of the Globe called it the “quietest Sunday Boston ever saw.” With cars largely off the city’s streets and worship services and other public gatherings called off, Boston’s largest newspaper observed that “there was less for the citizens to do probably than on any Sunday since the old Puritan days.”

Volunteers from Boston assemble masks – Influenza Encyclopedia/U.S. National Archives

Sunday, October 6, 1918
CINCINNATI, OHIO: Defying the health board order prohibiting all public gatherings, Father William Scholl held morning mass as scheduled at St. Joseph German Catholic Church. When a police lieutenant arrived on the scene, the priest “declared he was not interested in the order,” but police kept any further services from proceeding. The Enquirer reported “widespread indignation” against Scholl, with “dignitaries of the Catholic Church joining the protest against the disregard of an order that was issued to safeguard the health of the community.”

Friday, October 11, 1918
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: The city council issued an ordinance closing all churches, prompting the city’s Christian Scientists to protest that they provide “services for the dissemination of a universal understanding of omnipotent Divine power, reliance upon which effectually aids in destroying the dread of contagion….” Four weeks later, a local appeals court refused to release Harry P. Hitchcock, a Christian Scientist “arrested for attending a public church gathering in violation of the city anti-flu ordinances.” One of five Scientists arrested, Hitchcock had argued that the order was an “unconstitutional… unwarranted exercise of the police power.”

Saturday, October 12, 1918
BUFFALO, NEW YORK: While local churches remained closed in accordance with the mayor’s proclamation, “several congregations, however, have arranged to conduct outdoor services” tomorrow. The Courier listed several open-air masses, and St. Paul’s, the Episcopal Cathedral, planned to worship in Shelton Square with the assistance of its full choir: “The service will consist largely of singing of patriotic hymns, and Gen. Pershing’s message to the churches of America will be read….”

Sunday, October 13, 1918
ALEXANDRIA, LOUISIANA: Dr. W.S. Black, rector of the Episcopal church, was dismayed to walk through town and “find the poolroom in full blast, with an ample supply of patrons, none of whom were overly careful as to the degree of distance from their fellow players.” Black didn’t understand how he could keep his church closed while such establishments remained open. “I believe in obeying the law of the constituted authorities,” he told the New Orleans States, “but I am under pledge to the boys ‘over there’ that at the customary times of service… certain prayers shall be said in which they are specially remembered….”

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH: “For the first time in many years,” the Deseret News reported the next day, the city’s Mormon tabernacle and about fifty other Latter-day Saint chapels — plus other churches and synagogues — were closed this Sunday. Even funerals were suspended because of health regulations for the epidemic. But “in a few instances pastors assembled groups of young people in front of their churches, and either held service there, or marched to some park or recreation grounds, and enjoyed the autumn sun-shine as well as imparting religious instructions to the assemblage.”

1897 photo of Temple Square in Salt Lake City – Wikimedia/Denver Public Library

Monday, October 14, 1918
BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA: “We have had the strange experience of a churchless Sabbath,” wrote the Methodist revivalist George R. Stuart in the Age-Herald, “what has it taught us?” Most importantly, the pandemic should convince “Intelligent Christians” to trust science rather than seeking to “tempt God to perform a miracle in the preservation of our health… Christians do not discount their faith in the omnipotence of their God by keeping their bodies and homes and streets clean and nongerm producing; by using care in traffic and travel, accepting vaccination, sprays and disinfectants and keeping God’s own laws of health and life. Any other course is the fruit of ignorance and false teaching.”

Tuesday, October 15, 1918
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND: The city’s leading Catholic clergyman continued to question why local churches were closed “while the stores, saloons, markets and the like remain open.” While recognizing public health concerns, James Cardinal Gibbons argued that “it would be a much-needed relief to our church-going population if they could be allowed to attend brief morning services… I am told that a number of calls upon our physicians are simply the result of nervousness, or the consequence of alarm. This might be considerably allayed by the reassurance of religion, and discreet words from our priests given the people in church.”

Friday, October 18, 1918
WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS: The Daily Telegram shared examples of how Christians were responding to influenza, even as public worship ceased. Women from three local churches were taking care of “epidemic orphans,” giving them not only food and clothing, but “[supplying] them with plenty of healthful recreation and a little systematized instruction, too.” And a Catholic women’s club brought clothing and food to influenza patients, including 28 jars of applesauce, 28 quarts of lamb stew, and 35 squares of johnny cake.

Sunday, October 20, 1918
MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN: The Journal found that church closures didn’t leave the city’s “pastors with any surplus of leisure on their hands.” With the faithful encouraged to engage in “home worship” and read sermons published in newspapers, Protestant and Catholic clergy were instead devoting more of their energy to pastoral care and sick calls.

Rev. Henry was also a local temperance activist. In November 1918, San Francisco’s churches issued a resolution warning that it was “dangerous to the health of the community to allow saloons to be open one hundred and twenty-six hours per week while Churches are not allowed to be open their customary five or six hours per week.” California ratified the 18th Amendment two months later.

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA: At an open air service in front of First Baptist Church, the interim pastor suggested that the churches themselves “are to blame” for the influenza epidemic. Rev. John Quincy Adams Henry preached that Christian churches “have been lamentably weak in moral and spiritual leadership and have not yet risen to the august occasion confronting them. Our churches have become conventional, cowardly and worldly. Not only the people, but the churches must repent their sins, and when they do the plagues will cease.”

INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA: Ten black “Apostolic” Christians were arrested for attempting to worship in defiance of the board of health. “When the [seven] women and [three] men were taken to police headquarters,” reported the News, “they began talking in the ‘unknown tongue’ and it was some time before the turnkey and matron were able to learn their names.”

Tuesday, October 22, 1918
NEWARK, NEW JERSEY: “To avoid the dreaded influenza,” advised the Star-Eagle, “children should play in small groups and outdoors or in well-ventilated rooms.” The paper began to share games suggested by the Young Men’s Christian Association, including “Japanese Tag… In this version of the game… when a player is touched or tagged, he must place his left hand on the spot touched… [and] in that position must chase the other players.”

Red Cross nurses in Newark celebrating the end of World War that November – Influenza Encyclopedia/Newark Public Library

Saturday, October 26, 1918
GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN: The Herald doubted that anyone has suffered more from the state ban on public worship than the members of the city’s seventeen Christian Reformed churches, who “have been trained from childhood to regard regular church attendance as natural in their lives as eating breakfast.” Families are trying to fill the gap with private worship, but Reformed leaders are upset that churches are closed while schools remain open: “…it would seem that if there were danger of contagion anywhere it would be among the physically undeveloped youngsters congregating in the school rooms day by day.”

Sunday, October 27, 1918
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA: On the same page that the States printed a sermon by a Methodist pastor for those “who are detained from their houses of worship because of the epidemic of influenza,” it reported on the financial consequences for closed churches unable to collect tithes and offerings: “This loss… ranges from $20,000 to $25,000… the most serious set back the churches have received is the delaying if not absolutely destroying the chance of securing the benevolent money for church work during the Winter.”

Ambulance driver in Detroit – Influenza Encyclopedia/U.S. National Archives

Thursday, October 31, 1918
DETROIT, MICHIGAN: The Roman Catholic bishop of Detroit, Michael J. Gallagher, joined businessmen and movie theatre owners in pleading for the statewide ban on public gatherings to be lifted. The News reported that those notables “were willing to have their edifices fumigated between meetings, to cut the services to 45 minutes, to employ special ushers, who would eject persons who coughed or sneezed and to require all worshipers entering a church to wear influenza masks.” But state officials weren’t persuaded, since “Massachusetts and Pennsylvania had found that the exemption of churches tended to nullify the effects of the closing order.”

Friday, November 1, 1918
DALLAS, TEXAS: With special permission from the mayor, Catholic and Episcopal churches planned worship for All Saints’ and All Souls’, with St. Matthew’s Cathedral holding “special services for the boys who have died in France and will have a special requiem celebration of the Holy Communion.”

Thirty years later, Rabbi Thurman helped convince his friend, Pres. Harry Truman, to recognize the state of Israel.

Saturday, November 2, 1918
ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI: Samuel Thurman, rabbi of the first synagogue established west of the Mississippi, affirmed the closure decision by the chief of the health board: “Due to his determined action, St. Louis has been spared the terrible fate of other cities of its size and larger… The price we are paying now is commensurately small compared with the gain and good we shall obtain in the end. Let us be patient. Let us hope and pray for a speedy banishment of the dread monster, disease, from our midst, and a happy return to the healthy and normal life of the community.”

American Religious History

Previous Post

March 9, 2020

Casualty of Coronavirus: Ecumenism

Next Post

March 11, 2020 How a Globe-Trotting Black Preacher Helped Integrate Billy Graham’s Crusades

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category abolitionism Abortion Abraham Joshua Heschel Abraham Kuyper Abraham Lincoln Academia Activism Adam Renberg Advent Adventist africa African American Religion Agnes Howard Albert Camus American History American Religious History American Revolution American West Anabaptists Ancient History Andrea Turpin Andrei Tarkovsky Anglicanism Annales Ansley Lillian Quiros anti-Catholicism Antisemitism Anxious Bench apologetics Apparitions Arash Azizi Archaeology archives art Artificial Intelligence Asia Asian Americans Augustine Authors Bad Bunny Baptism Baptists Barack Obama Battle of Hastings Benjamin Franklin Bernard-Henri Levy Beth Allison Barr Beth Moore Bethany Mannon Bible Bill Cunningham Billy Graham Black Music Bob Dylan Body Boenhoffer Books Breastfeeding Bruce Springsteen C.S. Lewis Calvinism Cancel Culture Capitalism Carmelites Catholicism Cedric Robinson Cesar Chavez Charismaticism charity Charles Dickens Charles Lindbergh Che Guevara Chicago Children Chinese Christianity Chris Gehrz Christ Christian death Christian Higher Education Christian life Christian Nation Christian Nationalism Christianity Today Christmas Church life Church Practice cinema Civil Religion Civil Rights Movement Civil War civility Classics Climate Change Cold War Colonial Mexico colonialism Comer Communism community complementarianism Conference on Faith and History Congregationalism Conspiracies Conspiracy Conversion Narratives Coronavirus Costa Rica Council of Nicaea Covid-19 Creation Critical Race Theory Crusades Culture culture wars Daniel K. Williams David Barton David Swartz Death Ways death with dignity DEI democracy Democratic Party Devotion Digital Age Diplomacy discipleship diversity Donald Trump Drama Dua Lipa Early Church early modern Early modern Catholicism Easter Eastern Christianity economic exploitation Education elections Elie Wiesel Elizabeth II Elizabeth Taylor emotions Empire Engineering England enslavement Entertainment Episcopal Church Erica Ramirez eschatology Eurocentrism Evangelicalism Evangelicals Exegesis Family Feminism Film Flannery O'Connor folk music Food Foreign Policy founding fathers Franciscans Franciscus Junius fundamentalism Funerals G.K. Chesterton Gender Genocide genre geography George W. Bush George Washington George Whitefield Global Christianity Global church Grief Guadalupe guest post Guest Post gun control gun violence Gustavo Gutierrez Hamid Dabashi Harold John Ockenga Harvest Hate Hawaiian Christianity Healing health care Heather Cox Richardson Hell Heresy Hermeneutics Higher Education Hinduism Hippocratic oath Historical Fiction Historical Methodology Historical Profession Historical Profession Historical Theology Historical Thinking historiography Holidays Holocaust horror movies Human rights Humanitarian Work humanities Hummingbirds Hungary hymns Imago Dei Immigration Injustice Interviews Iran Islam Islamophobia Israel Ivan's Childhood Jacob Randolph James Bratt Janine Giordano Drake Japanese history Japanese Literature Jean Paul Sartre Jesse Miranda Jesus Jesus Christ Jimmy Carter Joan Baez Joan Didion Joanne Freeman João B. Chaves Joao Chaves Joey Cochran John Calvin John Fea John Tillotson John Turner Johnny Cash Jonathan Edwards Jonathan Tran Joseph Smith Josh Howerton Journalism Jr. Judaism Jürgen Moltmann Just War Justice Justin Brierley Karl Barth Katelyn Beaty koi ponds Kris Kristofferson Kristin Kobes Du Mez Latin American Religious History Latino Americans Lectio Divina Leisure Lent Leonard Cohen liberal arts liberalism Liberation Theology Linda Ronstadt Lisa Clark Diller Literature Lou Reed Lynchings Lynneth Miller Renberg Mainline Protestantism Malcolm Foley Marilyn Monroe Maritime history Mark Noll Marriage Martin Luther Martin Luther King Martyrdom Marxism Mary Masih Alinejad mass shootings material culture medieval Christianity Medieval Ethiopia Melissa Borja memory Mennonites Mental Health Mental Illness Methodism Mexican Americans Mexicans Mike Madrid Miles Mullin Min Jin Lee Miscarriage Missionaries Mister Rogers Mitt Romney modernity Monasticism Mormonism Motherhood Mothers of the Church Moving Music Musicals Nadya Williams Nahua Christianity Native Americans Natsume Sōseki New Contributor New England New Year New York Nico Non-Violent Protest Orthodoxy pacifism Paleo Evangelicals Palestinians Parenting Patti Smith Paul Kingsnorth Pedro Calderón de la Barca Pentecostalism Philip Jenkins Phillis Wheatley physician-assisted suicide pilgrimage Pilgrims pluralism Plutocracy Poetry Politics Pope Francis Pope Leo XIV post-modernism prayer preaching Presbyterians prosperity gospel Protest Public history Publishing Puritans purity culture Quakers race Race Massacres Racial Capitalism racial reconciliation racialization Racism Raha Bahloulipour Re-Enchantment reading Reformation Refugees religion and the university religion and war Religious Freedom Religious Nones Religious Pluralism Religious Symbols religious violence Republican Party Revival Rita Coolidge Ritual Roger Williams Roman Catholic church Royalty Russell Moore same-sex marriage Sarah Irving-Stonebraker Scandinavia Science Science and Technology Scopes trial Scriptural Interpretation secularism Selena Quintanilla seminary Seventh-Day Adventists sexual morality Sexuality Sikhs Silence slaveholders theology Slavery Slavoj Zizek social justice Social Media Southern Baptist Convention Southern Religion Spain Spiritual Autobiography Spiritual but not religious Spiritual Discipline Sports Stanley Hauerwas Suffering Summer Camps Sunday Night Odds and Ends Supernatural Supreme Court Syriac Christianity Tal Howard Taylor Swift Teaching Technology Television Thanksgiving The Beatles The Mission theater TheoBros Theology Thomas Dixon Thomas Jefferson Thomas Kidd Thomas Merton Tim Gloege Tim Walz Tom Holland Tourism tradition Tragedy Translation Transnationalism Travel Trump Ukraine Uncategorized Unitarians United Methodist Church US History Vanessa Chan Velvet Underground Verónica A. Gutiérrez Veronica Gutierrez Vikings Violence Virgin Mary Virtue Virtue ethics Visions Voting War WCTU Wendell Berry Westminster Assembly White Evangelicalism Wildfires Winnie the Pooh Witches women Women in Ministry Women's and Gender Studies Work Worship writing Yasunari Kawabata Zena Hitz

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which region did the Israelites wander in for 40 years after leaving Egypt?

Select your answer to see how you score.

The Wilderness Judea Moab Galilee