With Bay Area Requiring Mandatory Face Coverings, San Francisco Looks Back On “Anti-Mask League”

San Francisco Mayor London Breed urged people to resist from “mask shaming or confrontations” and instead to view a new city ordinance making wearing face coverings mandatory as a way to slow down the transmission rate of the Coronavirus.

Last week when San Francisco became one of six Bay Area counties to announce requirements for people to wear face coverings or masks in public along with Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo, Marin and Sonoma counties, the measure was taken to help protect communities and essential workers alike. 

It was also met with some apprehension and historical perspective. 

While the recommendation comes for anyone over the age of 12 to wear face coverings or masks, San Francisco Mayor London Breed urged people to resist from “mask shaming or confrontations” and instead to view the act as a way to slow down the transmission rate of the Coronavirus. With the enforcement officially going into effect on Wednesday in what is being described by Mayor Breed as “the new normal”, the mask requirement has also drawn a slight comparison to what San Francisco experienced 102 years ago within a chapter of the city’s rich yet ominous history. 

Back on November 11, 1918, residents flooded the streets of San Francisco to join in celebrating the end of World War I and a return to normalcy in the Bay Area. It’s hard to believe only a few weeks earlier, wearing masks in public became mandatory in San Francisco in an effort to prevent the spread of the Spanish flu during the influenza epidemic.⁣ In partnership between Mayor James Rolph and the Board of Health, the ordinance stated that, "every resident and visitor of San Francisco would be required to wear a mask while in public or when in a group of two or more people” gathered. Fines were issued and arrests were made for those not complying with the ordinance. Earlier that October, San Francisco had reported roughly 169 cases of influenza and that number jumped to over 2,000 cases a week later. Residents were instructed by the Board of Health and Mayor Rolph to avoid streetcars, dancehalls, limit public gatherings, and improve personal and family hygiene.

For hospitals and physicians, they were ordered to accept only patients who desperately required their help and were instructed to wear gauze masks while tending to patients.

In the Winter of In 1918, the Anti-Mask League was formed after citizens objected to the city-wide mandate making wearing masks mandatory in San Francisco, which was one of the biggest cities impacted by the spread of the Spanish flu. Nearly 45,000 cases of influenza were reported in San Francisco and killed over 3,000 of its residents between the Fall of 1918 and the start of 1919. 

The new mandate handed down at the time was embraced and obeyed by most in the general public, while others protested verbally and by their actions. The tension in San Francisco over the requirement to wear masks in public prompted some prominent businessmen and doctors to form the “Anti-Mask League” in 1918. Members of the “Anti-Mask League” included a wide range of physicians, citizens, and some public officials with an estimated 4,000–5,000 citizens attending the initial meeting to form the league. General protests in public took place with crowds of 2,000 people, with the league wanting to collect petition signatures to end the mask requirement. Debates at the gatherings often became intense with Anti-Mask League members challenging scientific data and claiming the mask requirement infringed on their civil liberties. 

In the end, Anti-Mask League protestors made their voices heard and made a historical impact at the time.

After a long winter of requesting the repeal of the required mask ordinance, Mayor Rolph and the Board of Health lifted the mandate on February 1, 1919, but not before San Francisco had been hit hard by the Spanish flu epidemic. Records show that the city was one of the worst infected by influenza with the rate of death reaching 673 per 100,000 people. Nearly 45,000 cases of influenza were reported in San Francisco and took the lives of over 3,000 residents between the Fall of 1918 and the start of 1919. 

Now over 100 years later and with current headlines centered on the requirement of wearing masks in public, San Francisco could be once again bracing for push-back for taking public health measures during the Coronavirus pandemic.

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