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Source: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/hist...arade-gave-thousands-onlookers-flu-180970372/
Philadelphia Threw a WWI Parade That Gave Thousands of Onlookers the Flu
The city sought to sell bonds to pay for the war effort, while bringing its citizens together during the infamous pandemic
By Kenneth C. Davis
smithsonian.com
September 21, 2018 8:00AM
It was a parade like none Philadelphia had ever seen.
In the summer of 1918, as the Great War raged and American doughboys fell on Europe?s killing fields, the City of Brotherly Love organized a grand spectacle. To bolster morale and support the war effort, a procession for the ages brought together marching bands, Boy Scouts, women?s auxiliaries, and uniformed troops to promote Liberty Loans ?government bonds issued to pay for the war. The day would be capped off with a concert led by the ?March King? himself ?John Philip Sousa.
When the Fourth Liberty Loan Drive parade stepped off on September 28, some 200,000 people jammed Broad Street, cheering wildly as the line of marchers stretched for two miles. Floats showcased the latest addition to America?s arsenal ? floating biplanes built in Philadelphia?s Navy Yard. Brassy tunes filled the air along a route where spectators were crushed together like sardines in a can. Each time the music stopped, bond salesmen singled out war widows in the crowd, a move designed to evoke sympathy and ensure that Philadelphia met its Liberty Loan quota.
But aggressive Liberty Loan hawkers were far from the greatest threat that day. Lurking among the multitudes was an invisible peril known as influenza?and it loves crowds. Philadelphians were exposed en masse to a lethal contagion widely called ?Spanish Flu,? a misnomer created earlier in 1918 when the first published reports of a mysterious epidemic emerged from a wire service in Madrid...
Philadelphia Threw a WWI Parade That Gave Thousands of Onlookers the Flu
The city sought to sell bonds to pay for the war effort, while bringing its citizens together during the infamous pandemic
By Kenneth C. Davis
smithsonian.com
September 21, 2018 8:00AM
It was a parade like none Philadelphia had ever seen.
In the summer of 1918, as the Great War raged and American doughboys fell on Europe?s killing fields, the City of Brotherly Love organized a grand spectacle. To bolster morale and support the war effort, a procession for the ages brought together marching bands, Boy Scouts, women?s auxiliaries, and uniformed troops to promote Liberty Loans ?government bonds issued to pay for the war. The day would be capped off with a concert led by the ?March King? himself ?John Philip Sousa.
When the Fourth Liberty Loan Drive parade stepped off on September 28, some 200,000 people jammed Broad Street, cheering wildly as the line of marchers stretched for two miles. Floats showcased the latest addition to America?s arsenal ? floating biplanes built in Philadelphia?s Navy Yard. Brassy tunes filled the air along a route where spectators were crushed together like sardines in a can. Each time the music stopped, bond salesmen singled out war widows in the crowd, a move designed to evoke sympathy and ensure that Philadelphia met its Liberty Loan quota.
But aggressive Liberty Loan hawkers were far from the greatest threat that day. Lurking among the multitudes was an invisible peril known as influenza?and it loves crowds. Philadelphians were exposed en masse to a lethal contagion widely called ?Spanish Flu,? a misnomer created earlier in 1918 when the first published reports of a mysterious epidemic emerged from a wire service in Madrid...