Typhoid and Thatcher Glass Manufacturing Company

by Rachel Dworkin, archivist

The other day, I watched an interesting YouTube video on the long-term cultural and political impact of the Bubonic Plague in Western Europe. At this point, it’s too early in the game to speculate about the fallout from COVID-19, but you would be surprised at just how much earlier diseases have impacted our local economy. Let’s talk typhoid.

Typhoid is an infection caused by the bacteria Salmonella enterica entrica. Symptoms include high fever, body ache, abdominal pain, rash, and vomiting. It is contracted by consuming food or drink contaminated with feces from an infected person. Today, it is perfectly treatable with antibiotics, but, before their invention in the 1940s, it was often fatal. During the Civil War, for example, some 80,000 soldiers died of it. While there are still the occasional outbreaks throughout the developing world, typhoid is incredibly rare within the United States and one local company is part of the reason why.

During the 1880s, there were a series of typhoid outbreaks across upstate New York. Dr. Hervey D. Thatcher of Potsdam, New York, was convinced contaminated milk was the culprit and began devising a way to fight the spread. In those days, the collecting of milk was extremely unsanitary. Cows were milked into open pails in barns filled with dust and dung, often by farmers who had not washed their hands. In 1883, he patented a device he called the milk protector which allowed the milk to flow into a covered container without human hands coming in contact with either the milk or the cow. It was a step in the right direction, but it still wasn’t enough for Thatcher.

Dr. Hervey Thatcher

At the time, the milkman would come around with a large can from which he would ladle a customer’s milk into a vessel of their choice. In the spring of 1884, Thatcher was horrified to witness a little girl dropping her rag doll into an open can of milk, only for the milkman to fish it out and continue serving her mother. For the next two years, Thatcher worked on perfecting a sealable, reusable glass milk bottle to prevent such contamination. In 1886, he obtained a patent and began having his bottles hand blown by a company in New Jersey. Throughout the 1880s, he made a series of improvements to his designs to make them easier to seal and manufacture.

Thatcher's first bottle design

In 1898, Elmira lawyer and businessman Francis Baldwin met Dr. Thatcher and soon purchased the company. Hand blowing the bottles was slow going and he wanted to try making them on the Owens vacuum machine, which would allow for fully automated manufacturing. Over the next decade, he opened plants in Kane, Pennsylvania (1906); Streeter, Illinois (1909); and Elmira, New York (1913).

Throughout the 1900s and 1910s, the company campaigned hard to get dairy farmers to see their sealed, reusable glass bottles as a more sanitary and economical alternative to the old milk cans. By the 1930s, states and municipalities across the country had laws requiring the use of milk bottles for distribution. As series of competitors sprang up across the country, producing bottles for local their dairies.

The Elmira plant was located just north of Eldridge Park. At the time, it was the largest milk bottle manufacturing plant in the world at 86,000 square feet with three furnaces capable of producing 500 bottles a day. The plant continued to expand. During its heyday, it was making 1.25 million bottles a day. In 1957, they employed 1,350 people locally with an annual payroll of over $6 million. Although the company had half-a-dozen plants across the country, Elmira was the corporate headquarters. In 1962, they constructed a research center in Big Flats on the corner of Colonial Drive and County Road 35.

Aerial view of the Elmira plant, ca. 1960s

Thatcher Glass Manufacturing Company became a subdivision of Dart Industries in 1966. In 1985, they were acquired by Diamond-Bathurst which then went bust in 1987. Today the site is the home of Anchor Glass, which still uses it to make bottles. Between 1913 and now, literally thousands of Chemung County residents have had jobs, all thanks to one man’s quest to stop the spread of typhoid.

The First Quarantine

The First Quarantine

by Rachel Dworkin, archivist

On the morning of October 15, 1918, Elmira Free Academy freshman Clara Gilbert was on her way to school with friends when they were stopped by a neighbor. “Girls, there’s no school on account of influenza,” he told them. As she wrote in her diary later that night,  she was so happy she could have hugged him. She would soon change her mind. “Jiminy, I’d rather go to school and have parties than stay home,” she wrote on the 18th. By the times the schools opened again on November 3rd, it was a relief to go back.

Clara Gilbert, student & diarist

In the autumn of 1918, Spanish Flu was ravaging the nation. Over one quarter of the population fell ill and approximately 600,000 Americans died. Despite the alarming numbers, there was no nationwide, or even statewide, plan to deal with the crisis. It was up to each community to decide what, if any, precautions they wanted to take.

On October 15th, Elmira made the decision to shut down schools, theaters, churches, pool halls, bowling alleys, libraries, and art galleries. There would be no club meetings, dances, public funerals, or other large gatherings. The street cars could run, but they would have to be thoroughly cleaned daily and keep the windows open to allow for increased ventilation. All big sales at area stores were to be cancelled, but shops remained open.  So too did factories and the railroads, although employees were told not to come in if sick. Surrounding towns and villages shut down schools and churches too. Horseheads did it first on October 10th with Southport following on the 15th, and Wellsburg on the 16th. 

Elmira Herald, October 15, 1918

Life under influenza was not exactly social distancing. Today across the state, all non-essential businesses are shut down and people are being encouraged to stay at home. In 1918,  students and people put out of work by the quarantine were encouraged to volunteer to bring in the potato harvest on area farms. At least 10 of them were known to have done so. The mayor urged citizens not to slack off on the purchase of war bonds and boy scouts continued to sell them door to door. Clara Glibert fell sick on October 21. That same day, her little sister had two school friends over. 

Despite the lack of prohibitions on public interactions, the quarantine was no picnic. Stuck in my home, I can stay entertained with Netflix and the internet, but Elmirans in 1918 didn’t have any of that. With TV not yet invented and the theaters and libraries closed, students stuck at home were bored out of their minds. Clara spent a lot of time hanging out with friends and making paper dolls. 

A number of area churches and synagogues have started streaming their services on-line. In 1918, the newspapers published the sermons in the Sunday morning papers. Although the churches were closed to the public, Catholic priests were still allowed in to perform the mass to an empty church. Congregants were encouraged to pray along at home at the usual time. 

The city-wide quarantine ended on November 3, 1918 with much fanfare. In retrospect, it probably shouldn’t have. At the height of the quarantine, there were 60 new cases in the city a day with between 6 and 10 daily deaths. On the day it was lifted, there were “only” 28 new cases. The city's two hospitals were still full, as was the temporary hospital at the Gotham Hotel. People continued to fall sick in the city well into the start of the next year. 

Majestic Theater ad, November 2, 1918

There were 3,549 confirmed cases of Spanish flu in the city with an untold number cases inaccurately reported as pneumonia or polio. At least 150 Elmirans died of it or related complications. Could the spread have been slowed and those deaths prevented if health officials had enacted more stringent quarantine measures for longer? It’s impossible to say but, in the current crisis, we do know that social distancing will help to ease the strain on the health care system and save lives. Check out our other blog posts Spanish Flu and Flu Season for more information about the 1918 flu epidemic while you do your part to help flatten the curve. Stay healthy, stay safe, and we’ll see each other again. 

The Extraordinary Life of Dr. Regina Flood Keyes Roberts

by Erin Doane, Curator

Regina Flood Keyes was born in Elmira on April 18, 1870. At that time, few people would have guessed that her life would include time as a field surgeon in war-torn Europe and as a humanitarian worker in Fiji and Samoa. And it is highly unlikely that anyone would have predicted that she would die at sea during a prisoner exchange with Japan.

Dr. Regina Flood Keyes, 1917

Courtesy of the Library of Congress

Regina graduated from the University of Buffalo School of Medicine in 1896. She worked for Buffalo General Hospital as a gynecologist in 1899 and was the first woman to ever do abdominal surgery in the city. She went on to work as an obstetrician at Erie County Hospital and as an instructor in medicine at the University of Buffalo. In 1917, after the United States became involved in World War I, she took a leave of absence to join the American Red Cross and was sent to Europe to take charge of a hospital in the Balkans with her cousin from Elmira Dr. Mabel Flood. 

Dr. Regina Flood Keyes (left) and Dr. Mabel Flood (center)

treating a patient, 1919. Courtesy of the Library of Congress

The hospital had been a Turkish schoolhouse before being renovated into a hospital and when the pair arrived, it was woefully lacking in basic supplies. It had no operating table, beds, or stove and very few medical supplies. With Regina as director and surgeon and Mabel as chief doctor, they were able to build the facility up until it was one of the best-respected hospitals in the region. They treated both locals and war-wounded and worked through flu and typhus epidemics. Regina even served the French Army for a time as a regimental surgeon.

American Red Cross workers, 1919. Dr. Keyes is seated in the

front row, third from the left. Courtesy of the Library of Congress

Both women stayed in Europe after the war until 1920. Mabel returned to the United States and Regina married Quincy F. Roberts who was serving as the U.S. vice-consul in Thessaloniki. From then on, she accompanied him around the world on his diplomatic missions. He served as vice-consul in Samoa and then in Fiji where he was promoted to consul. Every place they lived, Regina was involved in local healthcare and child welfare work. Her position as wife of the consul helped her bring in aid money, but she was also personally involved in organizing projects to help women and children. She was so respected in Samoa that the chief of the island adopted her into the royal family in recognition of her service.

When World War II broke out in the Pacific, Regina and her husband were living in Chefoo, China, where he was serving as U.S. consul, and they were interned by the Japanese. They were among the approximately 3,000 American citizens caught in the war zone. In May 1942, an agreement was made between the warring powers for the exchange of women and children and men over the age of 60 who were considered non-combatants for Japanese women, children, and elderly men. The exchange would take place at the port of Lourenco Marques, Portuguese East Africa.

On June 29, 1942, the Italian liner Conte Verde set sail from Shanghai, China with 924 North and South Americans aboard. Among them was Dr. Regina Flood Keyes Roberts. The trip from China to East Africa was expected to take three weeks but on July 10, Regina died. There was no cause of death in any of the newspaper reports that I found. She was simply reported as “stricken.” According to the inscription on a memorial stone in Woodlawn Cemetery, she was buried at sea at Lat. 5 degrees south, Long. 106 degrees 43 minutes east.

Memorial stone in Woodlawn Cemetery, 2019

That Time of the Month

by Rachel Dworkin, archivist

May 28^th is World Menstrual Hygiene Day. We’re a little late, but rest assured we’re not pregnant. The awareness day was created in 2014 to educate people around the world and help get them with the necessary supplies to stay clean and healthy.

Personally, I can remember my third grade health teacher waxing poetic about the wonders of self-adhesive sanitary pads and tampons, especially in contrast to the nightmarish devices she’d had to wear as a girl. Historically though, menstruation has been considered a taboo subject across many cultures. In her 1882 book, Talks to My Patients, local physician Dr. Rachel Gleason, noted that many of her patients had been entirely ignorant of menstruation when it first happened to them. Several had felt frightened or ashamed, and some ended up endangering their health in an attempt to stop or conceal it. “Mothers,” she wrote, “often intend to give the desired information when needed, but never before, and consequently fail to be in season; for children, in more ways than one, advance faster than they anticipate.” While most American girls learn about their periods in health class like I did, a lot of people, especially in the developing world, have as little clue about periods as Rachel Gleason’s patients in the 1880s.

 

Diagram of female reproductive organs from sex-ed text book, 1916

Here’s how it works. Approximately every 28 days, the ovaries release an egg and the walls of the uterus thicken in anticipation of its fertilization. If it is not fertilized with 24 hours of its release, the egg dissolves and the uterus sheds it’s lining via menstruation. Bleeding can last anywhere from three to seven days. Some related symptoms include stomach cramps, back pain, diarrhea, and bloating. The entire menstrual cycle is controlled by the release of various hormones and it can be effected by things including diet, weight, overall health, and medication. Most girls get their first period between the ages of 12 and 15 and keep having them until they hit menopause between the ages of 45 and 55. According to Dr. Gleason, “warm climates, stimulating drinks, social excitement early in life, and much reading of highly-colored fiction (commonly called “loved stories”),” could bring on early menstruation. Today we know better; it’s almost all down to genetics and sufficient childhood nutrition.

These days, most Americans have access to a number of products designed to help them manage their periods. You might have seen ads for some on TV. Information about what people did in the 1880s is fairly sparse.  Dr. Gleason talked about the use of special napkins and guards. These pads were always homemade and designed to be reused. Similar pads are worn throughout the developing world today. In 1888, Johnson & Johnson patented the first disposable pad to be worn suspended from a special belt. Rubber underwear or aprons were also worn under dresses to protect them from stains. While it isn’t uncommon today to see commercials for tampons or maxi pads on shows aimed at women, ads for menstrual hygiene products were more circumspect, not to mention few and far between in the magazines and newspapers of the 1800s.

Sanitary belt for holding menstrual pad, ca. 1900

 Today, the lack of feminine hygiene products seriously impacts the education and employment of people throughout the developing world. Without protective products, people are forced to skip school or work so as not to bleed on their clothing in public. There are a number of organizations working to bring safe, low-cost, and reusable menstrual products to people in developing nations. Within the United States, there is a movement to get rid of sales taxes on feminine hygiene products. New York was one of the first states to do so in 2016. 

 

Ad for Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound, the 1880s equivalent to Midol

Elmira’s Suicide Epidemic of 1920

by Erin Doane, Curator

**In this post, I will be writing about cases of attempted and successful suicide. Suicide is a serious issue and has been throughout history. If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 for help.**

In the past, I have had a blog post or two that have unexpectedly veered off into dark territory (like the A Tragic History of Tiny Stoves, for example). I went into researching this post, however, knowing very well that it was a dark topic. While searching for information on something else entirely, I randomly came across a headline from December 14, 1920 that read: “Another woman takes mercury tablet; she refuses to state reason for act.” I was instantly intrigued. I was also quite aware that I was diving headfirst into a story on potential suicide. Just an hour into research, I found articles about seven possible cases of suicide by mercury bichloride poisoning over the course of six weeks in Elmira.

Star-Gazette, December 14, 1920

Mercury bichloride is a deadly poison. During the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, it was used as a wood preservative and in photographic processing. In the home, it was used as a disinfectant, insecticide, and fungicide, and as a rat poison. Medically, it was used as a topical treatment for syphilis. While tablets were widely available in pharmacies without a prescription, by the late 1910s, bottles were clearly labeled poison and the tablets were made in the shape of little coffins to drive home that point.

The first report in this series of seven poisonings appeared in the Elmira Star-Gazette on November 23, 1920. Leona was taken to Arnot-Ogden hospital after mistakenly taking a mercury bichloride tablet. When ingested, mercury bichloride is absorbed into the bloodstream and organs where it damages kidneys and the intestinal tract, causing internal bleeding. It can take five days or more before doctors can tell if a victim will survive the poisoning. On November 26, it was reported that Leona’s condition had worsened but by December 2, she was finally recovering. The newspaper continued to report that her poisoning was accidental.

On November 30, it was reported that 22-year-old Anna was taken to St. Joseph’s hospital after swallowing a mercury bichloride tablet. At first, she claimed that it was a mistake, but later she declared that she did not know why she had taken the poison. She had recently moved to Elmira from Niagara Falls after having divorced her husband. The owner of the hotel at which the young woman worked said that she had been despondent recently and that may have been why she took the poison. Anna died in the hospital two weeks later.

Star-Gazette, December 10, 1920

Harry, a World War I veteran suffering from shellshock, wrote a letter to his estranged wife on December 2 and then swallowed a mercury bichloride tablet. In the letter, he wrote that he was so lonesome without her and could not stand it any longer. There was no mistaking his intention. After a relatively short stay at Arnot-Ogden hospital, Harry recovered and was discharged.

On December 6, Rena was in St. Joseph’s hospital “in serious condition as the result of her attempt to suicide,” according to the Star-Gazette. The 19-year-old mother of a 9-month-old baby had been acting in an unnatural manner, according to her husband. After they had a disagreement about Christmas plans, she swallowed a mercury bichloride tablet. She was the fourth to do so in Elmira in two weeks. She did recover and was discharged from the hospital on December 11.

Just a day after Rena returned home, on December 12, 17-year-old Mary took the same poison and refused to give her reason why. It is interesting to note that Mary lived on the same street as Rena, just eight houses down. She was expected to recover.

Star-Gazette, January 3, 1921

The report of a seventh victim of self-ingested poisoning was reported on January 3, 1921. (I never did find the sixth case. Whether it was not officially reported or the newspaper simply got their count wrong, I do not know.) Katherine spent a cheerful New Year’s Eve chatting with her boardinghouse landlady, Minnie. She wished Minnie a happy New Year just after midnight and went to her room. Around 1am, the landlady heard groaning from Katherine’s room. She had taken one mercury bichloride tablet. After divorcing her husband, the 27-year-old had to place her two children, aged 5 and 7, into other homes. It was believed that was why she had taken the tablet. Katherine was in the hospital for a week before recovering enough to be discharged.

There is the idea that suicide is contagious; that a person already on the edge reads or hears about someone taking their life and then takes action themselves. It feels like that may have been what was happening between November 22, 1920 and January 1, 1921. The deadliness of mercury bichloride had been public knowledge for years. In September 1920, just a couple months before the incidents in Elmira, 25-year-old silent film actress Olive Thomas died in Paris after ingesting mercury bichloride. Her husband had been using it as a topical treatment for syphilis. It was never determined if her swallowing the poison was an accident, suicide, or even murder, but the case became a major Hollywood scandal and appeared in local newspapers. Could her very public death have inspired others who wished to kill themselves?

We will never know why so many people in Elmira poisoned themselves over such a short period of time at the end of 1920. One can speculate on the reasons in hindsight, but I’m sure even those at the time were shocked by the news. Suicide is one of those fundamentally human things that connects us to everyone else around the world and throughout time. My hope is that by exploring this bit of local history, as difficult as it may be, perhaps someone out there may realize that we are all part of a larger community with shared experiences and know that they are not alone.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255

Fives Ladies, Five Objects

By Rachel Dworkin, archivist

In honor of women’s history month, I thought I’d shamelessly steal Smithsonian Magazine’s idea of sharing five objects from our collection associated with five local women.

1. Hannah Marshall’s Cape 

Hannah Marshall (1819-1890) of Horseheads worked as a Quaker preacher for decades. During the 1800s, Quakerism was one of the few Christian sects which encouraged the active participation of women as preachers and spiritual leaders. Hannah is one of the only local women known to have preached here during the 1800s. She never married and was widely respected in her community.

2. Fanny Brooks’ Blouse 

Fanny Brooks (1836-1906) was born into slavery in the south. She, her husband George, and their two children moved to Elmira in the late-1860s. They were part of a northward wave of migrants which tripled the city’s African American population following the Civil War. Fanny was an active member of the Douglas Memorial A.M.E. Zion Church and was a financial backer of the church they constructed in 1890. Although the building is gone, a stained glass window bearing her name remains. She and her husband had four children, the youngest of whom became the first African American to graduate from Cornell.

3. Dr. Rachel Gleason’s Medical Case 

Dr. Rachel Gleason (1820-1905) graduated from Central Medical College in Syracuse in 1851, just two years after the first woman to graduate from an American medical school. In 1852, she and her husband Dr. Silas Gleason opened the Gleason Water Cure on Elmira’s East Hill. They ran it together until 1898 when Silas’ health began to fail.  Rachel specialized in women’s health and published a book and several articles on the subject. She sponsored and offered training positions to other female physicians including her sister and daughter.

4. Esther Williamson Ballou’s Concert Program 

Esther Ballou (1915-1973) was a musician and composer. She began studying piano at age four and started composing music in her twenties. She attended Bennington College, Mills College, and Julliard, where she also later taught. She also taught at Catholic University and The American University, both in Washington, D.C. She composed dozens of pieces, including one which was performed at the White House in 1963.

5. Jennie Fassett’s Ball Gown

Jennie Fassett (1860-1939) was the wife of area Congressman J. Sloat Fassett. During the couple’s years in Washington, D.C., she advocated for stronger child labor laws. Locally, she helped establish the Women’s Federation for Social Services. She was a member of the New York Women’s Suffrage Party and the Board of Trustees of the Steele Memorial Library. She was also a major financial backer of Elmira College.