"As extra precaution against too much confidence as a result of improvement in the situation, the board in its daily statement issued last night urges the people of the city not to celebrate Hallowe'en night in the usual manner (by congregating) owing to danger from crowding in rooms and on the sidewalks." While this statement could just as easily be written today, it comes from a 1918 influenza briefing by the Durham City and County Board of Health, published in the October 31 issue of the Durham Morning Herald (available to the Duke community via Newspapers.com).
Durham was no outlier -- officials around the country restricted public gatherings and Halloween festivities during the influenza epidemic of 1918, as CNN and History.com have both explored recently. The discouragement wasn't entirely successful -- only days later, the Nov. 3 society page of the Herald highlighted the "very bright and attractive Hallowe’en party […] given by the nurses of the Watts hospital Training School," where one can only hope that the appropriate health precautions were taken.
You can find these articles and other fascinating artifacts in newspaper databases, which preserve local history for the enterprising researcher. The Duke University Libraries has compiled an A-Z database list for Newspapers, which range from backfiles of a single paper title to compilations of thousands of different newspaper titles. Coverage dates will vary widely by title, but here are some recommended sources for historical newspaper research:
- America's Historical Newspapers: more than 6,000 titles of American newspapers published between 1690-1922
- Newspapers.com: more than 3,000 titles from around the world, with varying dates of coverage between 1700-2000.
- ProQuest Historical Newspapers: full-text PDF coverage of nearly two dozen newspapers, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Chicago Tribune.
For help with researching current or historical newspapers, be sure to Ask a Librarian. Have a safe and happy Halloween!
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