Quarantined Bryn Mawr College – Was An ‘Escape Community’ From The 1918 Spanish Flu

On Saturday (3/28/2020) BillyPenn ran an article that described how the students and faculty at Bryn Mawr College fared so well during the 1918 Flu Pandemic, compared to other nearby communities. BillyPenn referred to a University of Michigan Study on 1918 Escape Communities.

Bryn Mawr College was one of seven communities studied where “relatively few if any cases of influenza, and no more than one influenza-related death while NPI were enforced during the second wave of the 1918-1920 influenza pandemic.”

As the Michigan Study notes, “Students were advised to avoid crowds (yet they were also expected to go to chapel and association meetings) and to get plenty of both exercise and rest. Students were forbidden to enter theaters and other places of public assembly, were prohibited from crossing Montgomery Avenue (the main street separating campus from town) and were informed they could not ride public transportation. Furthermore, non-resident students were excluded from the college unless they lived near enough to campus to walk. Off-campus visitors, including mothers, were henceforth prohibited from entering residence halls; mothers were allowed to see their daughters only if the daughters were ill and being cared for at the infirmary. Students were likewise forbidden to visit private homes (even those on the campus side of Montgomery Avenue) without the express permission of the dean.”

Archive Material From 1918 Bryn Mawr College Newspaper Used by Michigan Study

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