September 28, 1918 - Fourth Liberty Loan Parade

Today Mary acknowledges Philadelphia's Fourth Liberty Loan Parade, "but I didn't see it."  Instead, she went to the movies.

With influenza cases already increasing, but with pressures to continue efforts to support and finance the war, the Liberty Loan Parade drew about 200,000 to the crowded streets of downtown Philadelphia, a major trigger for the drastic increase in influenza cases that followed.  The chronology and impact of the influenza epidemic in Philadelphia beginning with today, September 28, 1918, is documented in this online article in the Philly Voice.   And the chronology of the illness both before and after the parade is also documented at Smithsonian.com.