The War against Flies

In 1912 The Toronto Daily Star declared war on the fly. “The house-fly is the common enemy of mankind,” the newspaper announced. “It is the purpose of The Star to make Toronto as far as possible a flyless city. That’s why the Swat-the-Fly Campaign is under way, with sixty-five prizes, totaling $200, to be paid the boys and girls who bag the most of the pests.”[1]

The stakes, according to The Star, were high:

“Flies are the wholesale murderers of mankind.

The apparently innocent little thing that crawls over your face and hands may be carrying germs of typhoid fever, tuberculosis, dysentery, cholera infantum. It may bring eggs of the hook worm and the tape worm. It may make you’re a present of death.

“The natural instinct of the fly is to seek filth. The only use it is on earth is found in the little good it does as a scavenger, but its work in this line is so small that it only thwarts modern methods and can be classed as no advantage to mankind.”[2]

"Swat the  Fly," and so Help Humanity Specialist Endorses the New Crusade," The Toronto Daily Star, Thursday, July 11, 1912, Page 4.

Things weren’t always this way between man and fly. In the nineteenth century they had a cordial, almost friendly, relationship. As Naomi Rogers remarks in her article “Germs with Legs: Flies, Disease, and the new Public Health,” “The nineteenth-century fly could be not only a playmate but also a part of nature, something of beauty and grace.”[3] But that changed in North America in the period between 1890 and 1910 with the fly recast as a public health threat. It found itself at the uncomfortable confluence of two different forms of medical discourse; the older held that disease emerged from filth and the newer that linked disease more directly to germ theory.[4] Flies were literally portrayed as “germs with legs.”[5] Their mobility allowed them to carry disease and risk from unhealthy areas to healthy areas, from filthy areas to clean areas.

Charles Hastings, Toronto’s medical health officer, described the threat offered by the fly this way in a 1911 report to city council: “The means by which food can be contaminated by the fly coming directly from outside closets and privy pits, and from the room of the Typhoid patient, with its feet and body contaminated with these germs, are so apparent as to need no further comment.”[6] The last part of the statement was clearly not true, because Hastings actively took part in The Star’s Swat the Fly exactly so that he could spread the word to the general public on the risks presented by the fly. The new image of the fly still had to be sold.

In his report to council, Hastings blamed a late summer increase in the number of typhoid cases in the city, in part, on the activities of the house-fly, which also seemed to hit its peak numbers in August. “The house-fly has won for itself such continental reputation as a carrier of germs of Typhoid Fever that it is now known by Sanitarians as the “Typhoid Fly” and the “Tuberculosis Fly,” Hastings wrote.[7] The term Typhoid fly probably came from L. O. Howard, the head of the United States Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Entomology. Howard conducted a long running campaign against the house-fly and in 1911 published the second edition of his The House Fly: Disease Carrier. An Account of Its Dangerous Activities and of the Means of Destroying it.[8] Hastings would certainly have been on top of the literature.

Hastings included eliminating the house-fly, along with creating a clean water and milk supply, and a better diet as the recipe for eliminating Typhoid. He noted: “The house-flay can be practically exterminated by the adopting of rigid sanitary measures, such as will prohibit all possible breathing places for this insect, as well as the efficient screening of all food and apartments, especially those occupied by the sick.”[9] Hastings also recommended establishing municipal incinerators for burning refuse and garbage and the establishment of municipal abattoirs to cut down on the number of privately run, and less stringently controlled, private slaughter houses. The city was listening.  While The Star was conducting its campaign against the fly in 1912, the city of Toronto was also looking to construct a new Abattoir and conducting a vote on spending $1 million to create a new garbage disposal system.

In 1911, Hastings also led the board of health in conducting a tour of the city’s slums and uncovering a myriad of health and hygiene concerns such as overflowing privy pits and outdoor closets (aka outhouses).[10] The report noted “we are confronted with the existence of congested districts of unsanitary, overcrowded dwellings, which are a menace to public health, affording hot beds for germination and dissemination of disease, vice and crime.”[11] As historians such as Steven Maynard and Mariana Valverde have noted, Hastings and health officers at the time saw the slum as both health and moral concern and their language intermingled the two categories.[12] This particular vision increased the stakes when it came to controlling the fly; because its ability to move from one area of the city to another and potentially “disseminate” disease represented not just a health threat but also, potentially, a moral concern. The fly fit neatly into this world of health, environment, moral and urban concerns and we can imagine a horde of flies sweeping up out of the uncontrolled and unhygienic slums and invading the rest of the city. Were they more than just a threat to physical health?

"Dealers in Fly Traps Unable to Supply the Brisk Demand," The Toronto Daily Star, Tuesday, July 9, 1912, Page 1.

The Star wasn’t breaking new ground when it launched its anti-fly campaign. Similar campaigns had taken place in the United States.[13] In complimenting the newspaper for its efforts, Canadian Household Economic Association president Mrs. L. A. Gurnett noted that she had been watching a similar competition undertaken in Ottawa by the local Council of Women.[14] Gurnett added, “Doctors tell us that a large part of the infant mortality in summer is caused by flies … I wouldn’t allow a fly in my house and I haven’t a single one.”

Gurnett’s words must have been music to the ears of Hastings. He used the Swat the Fly campaign as an opportunity to get the word out on the dangers offered by fly. The news stories carried liberal coverage about how quickly the fly could breed and what dangers they offered. “This is where the boys and girls of the city can be of real genuine service,” Hastings said at the start of the campaign.[15] That service involved more than just catching flies, because every child in the contest acted as an ambassador for the anti-fly message and pulled in their families, friends and neighbours along with them. Other members of the medical profession also lent their voices to the campaign.

On July 11, Dr. Hanley, tuberculosis and typhoid specialist at Toronto General Hospital noted that, “If we could get rid of flies … It would go a long way to ridding the world of typhoid fever and tuberculosis … In the case of tubercular sores or septic conditions, the possibility of flies lighting upon such spots is obvious. Imagine what it would be if we allowed flies free ingress to the hospitals. They would spread disease all over the city. It is of vital importance not only for the sake of the comfort of the patient, but for the health of the community, that flies be kept away from a sick bed.”[16] In an urban environment increasingly focused on controlling both space and bodies, the fly was a potential rogue factor.

Following the proud newspaper tradition of not acknowledging what the competition is up to The Globe doesn’t seem to have taken part in or given much, if any, publicity to The Star’s “Swat the Fly” competition. Indeed it noted cryptically in the “Notes and Comments” section of its editorial page on July 9 that “The rewards of fly-swatting must not be made so high as to stimulate fly hatcheries.”[17] The Star seems to have pre-empted that very concern by stating at the beginning of the campaign that “Breeding of flies to be strictly prohibited. Any person resorting to such improper practices is liable to prosecution, as fly-breeding is a public nuisance and a menace to health.”[18]

But even if it wasn’t participating in the campaign, The Globe was talking about flies in 1912. It printed an extended interview on July 17 with Dr. C. Gordon Hewitt, the dominion entomologist, outlining the dire threat the fly represented when it came to spreading disease. Hewitt seemed to feel that part of his job was putting the fear of the fly into people: “[The fly] is not the ‘wholesome little animal’ some have termed it, but, in the opinion of Dr. Hewitt, a fearless, dashing mass of heat-infused vitality that does no one any good, and seems to have been created to torment and kill the innocent.”[19]

The column helpfully included this image to drive the point home.

Will Silo, “The Fly—Deadliest Foe of Our Country Homes: Dr. Hewitt tells how to deal with it,” The Globe, Wednesday, July 17, 1912, Page 4.

The Globe also reprinted literature sent out by the city’s Medical Health Department, including this article on July 8, at the same time The Star was kicking off its competition: 

Fight the Pesky Fly
Health Office Issues Some More Warnings
 The campaign against the fly is still being actively waged by the City Medical Health Department and in this connection numerous “don’ts” are used. “Don’t allow flies in the sick room, or near any child or adult suffering from a communicable diseases, “ says the Medical Health Officer. “Don’t allow flies to crawl over the mouth of the sleeping baby or over the nipple of the baby’s feeding bottle.” “Don’t allow your children to eat any food that has been exposed in any way to fly contamination.” “Don’t buy fruit confectionary, pastry or any other food that has been exposed to flies.”[20]

As with all good campaigns aimed at transforming public behavior, getting buy in from the media was critical. And the media does seem to have bought into the campaign to label the fly an enemy of mankind. But I think at times, such as within that string of don’ts,  we can also detect at least a hint of bemusement in the media’s participation.

Back at The Star the competition was heating up. Early contestants used a variety of methods to catch their flies, even snagging them by hand. Hastings played the role of impartial judge in The Star’s campaign and helped tally the flies. The count would be done by weight with one pint of flies defined as equaling 3,200 flies.[21] Hastings was careful to assure people that there was no danger in catching lies, provided the children washed up thoroughly after they were done.[22] As the contest went on, contestants learned the art of catching and claiming credit for flies. Some looked forlornly at the numbers of flies they were credited with and claimed their flies had shrank after they caught them. No, doubt they had and Hastings handed out advice on how the youngsters could make the most of their haul. “You must bring them in oftener,” he told them. “Bring them in while they are fresh.”[23] Counting the flies could be a challenge. The Star had told the kids to kill the flies however they could, but contestants bringing in wads of fly paper coated with flies complicated things and were quickly told to find another way to kill their quota.[24]

Private companies got in on the fly flight. But these fly pads were not allowed in the contest.  "Wilson's Fly Pads, " The Toronto Daily Star, Friday, July 19, 1912, Page 9.

Traps quickly emerged as the best ticket to catching flies in large numbers and The Star helpfully published pictures of what the traps should look like and where people could get them.

Apart from ridding the city of flies and educating the public about the risks posed by the fly, the campaign also alerted city officials to some of the fly hot spots in the city. The Old Fort was singled out in particular. A number of the top contestants came from that area and they cited the presence of a garbage dump and manure pile with providing them with their fly-munition.[25] Hastings took the news with some frustration telling The Star, “The contractor told me he had soaked that manure pile with carbolic acid.”[26]

Early in the campaign Beatrice White, 14, of Major Street emerged as the leader and never looked back.[27] Initially equipped with six traps in her yard, she expanded her compliment to 14 by the end of the contest and spread the traps further afield as the local fly population dwindled.[28] According to The Star a wide-eyed competitor looked at the 130 ounces of flies that White brought in on July 22 and said, “Gee—they must have a lot of flies in her house.” But White laughed off the comment, saying, “Since I set the traps in the back yard and in the lane there have been none at all in the house.”[29]

The Star did note that, “It seems strange that the girls are beating the boys in this competition. It has not been so in other cities where the war against flies has been carried on. In Worcester, Massachusetts, boys won first and second prizes.”[30] But in Toronto the girls were leading at mid contest and in the end Beatrice White and Elva Baill would rank one and two respectfully. Throughout the campaign the competitors seemed to include an even mix of boys and girls. Despite The Star’s surprise that the girls were beating the boys, it is hard to say what sort of gendered expectations there were going into the contest. Certainly the early reports of boys catching flies with their hands fit the image or youthful male precociousness. But as the contest continued, it became clear that the leaders were relying on far more than nimble hands.

Beatrice White and some of her home-made fly traps. (William James, “Beatrice White, winner of The Toronto Star's "Swat the Fly" contest,” Fonds 1244, Item 1039, 1912, City of Toronto Archives.)

White’s traps were made by her brother she had her family fully behind her during the competition. The family was also feeling the heat from being in first place. As Beatrice’s mother told The Star, “Some of the boys are that mean they kick the traps down if somebody is not there to watch them.”[31] Rumors swirled that a boy at Price’s Dairy had been hoarding flies and was planning to sweep in at the last moment to win. But White contended she was ready for him. “Our milk man told me he had started in on his second can … He wanted me to take some traps down to the dairy, but I’m not afraid of him. I guess I can get all the flies I want right where I am now,” White told The Star.[32] “It’s hard work,” Mr. White told The Star as the contest wound down. “We didn’t put out our traps last Sunday at all—Beatrice had such a big lead. But we’ll have to put them out this Sunday. We can’t tell what may be out against us.”[33]

Despite the late contest drama, no one emerged at the last moment to sweep victory away from White.  She won handily having killed an estimated 543,360 flies, more than double her nearest competition, and netted $50 for her efforts. In the end The Star credited the contest with having taken 3,367,680 flies out of circulation directly and, as it noted many times throughout the contest, many more beyond that when the potential offspring that the flies might have had was taken into account.[34]

The Star did not take up the war against the fly again in 1913. But the battle wasn’t completely forgotten. New enemies were emerging. In an article entitled, “The cockroach now a subject of warfare,” The Star stated “not only the fly, but other so-called scavengers are coming under the ban of science, one by one, as bearers of disease. The latest is the cockroach, which is believed by some physicians to be a cancer-carrier.” Quoting American Medicine, The Star noted the best approach in the battle against cockroachs was to ensure they had nothing to feed on in your house. The article went on to add, “The houserat has long been under the ban, so have the house –fly, house mosquito, house-mouse, the louse and flea. Perhaps the English sparrow, another messmate, will soon be detected in some unhygienic wrong.”[35]

There were other animals on society’s hit list at the turn of the century. The gopher was busy making enemies on the Canadian prairies and facing its own eradication campaigns. But the gopher wasn’t seen as much of a threat in the city as compared to rural environments where it represented, and still represents, a competitor for the rural environment.[36] The fly and the rest of the “messmates” listed potentially had intimate contact with people and the body and the domestic environment. Eradicating them from the built environment came at this distinctive moment of modernity when mankind was disengaging itself from nature and drawing a firmer line between culture and the natural environment. Henceforth nature was something to be visited and even revitalized by, but not lived in. That the medical profession was leading the campaign against the fly speaks, as I’ve noted with reference to Rogers, to a confluence at the turn of the twentieth century between germ theory and theories of filth and, we can add, concepts of moral hygiene that created a collision, or rather collusion, between science and morality and the environment of the city. Pity the fly. It buzzed into the centre of all of this in 1912.

The moment did pass. The risks of the fly were exaggerated in 1912, but changes after 1912 in medicine and technology helped quiet concerns. “The widespread use of typhoid inoculation during and after the First World War, improved water and sewage systems, and the replacement of horses by automobiles also lessened concern with the “typhoid fly””[37] And the typhoid fly went back to being a plain old house-fly. Still the fly has never recaptured the care-free relationship it had with mankind in the nineteenth century. It remains an unwelcome interloper in the domestic and urban environments and an unwelcome brush with nature when it lands on the body.

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[1] “Swat the Fly! Swat the Fly and sell them to us for cash,” The Toronto Daily Star, Saturday, July 6, 1912, Page 8.

[2] “Swat the Fly! Swat the Fly and sell them to us for cash,” The Toronto Daily Star, Saturday, July 6, 1912, Page 8.

[3] Rogers, Naomi, “Germs with Legs: Flies, Disease, and the New Public Health,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 63:4 (1989:Winter) p.599-617, 602.

[4] Rogers, 609.

[5] Rogers, 602.

[6] Report no. 14 of the Local Board of Health, Toronto City Council, 1911, Appendix A, Sept. 12, 1911, page 1494, City of Toronto Archives.

[7] Report no. 14 of the Local Board of Health, Toronto City Council, 1911, Appendix A, Sept. 12, 1911, page 1494, City of Toronto Archives.

[8] Rogers, 605.

[9] Report no. 14 of the Local Board of Health, Toronto City Council, 1911, Appendix A, Sept. 12, 1911, page 1495, City of Toronto Archives.

[10] Report no. 19 of the Local Board of Health, Toronto City Council, 1911, Appendix A, Nov. 2, 1911, page 1820, City of Toronto Archives.

[11] Report no. 19 of the Local Board of Health, Toronto City Council, 1911, Appendix A, Nov. 2, 1911, page 1821, City of Toronto Archives.

[12] Steven Maynard, “Through a Hole in the Lavatory Wall: Homosexual Subcultures, Police Surveillance, and the Dialectics of Discovery, Toronto, 1890-1930,” Journal of the History of Sexuality, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Oct., 1994), pp. 207-242, 215. Mariana Valverde, The Age of Light, Soap, and Water: Moral Reform in English Canada, 1885-1925. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008), 51.

[13] Rogers, 610.

[14] ‘Swat the Fly’ The Conquering Slogan of Latest and Best Children’s Crusade,” The Toronto Daily Star, Monday, July 8, 1912, Page 8.

[15] ‘Swat the Fly’ The Conquering Slogan of Latest and Best Children’s Crusade,” The Toronto Daily Star, Monday, July 8, 1912, Page 8.

[16] “Swat the Fly,” and so help Humanity Specialist Endorses the New Crusade,” The Toronto Daily Star, Thursday, July 11, 1912, Page 4.

[17] “Notes and Comments,” The Globe, Tuesday, July 9, 1912, Page 6.

[18] “Swat the Fly! Swat the Fly and sell them to us for cash,” The Toronto Daily Star, Saturday, July 6, 1912, Page 8.

[19] Will Silo, “The Fly—Deadliest Foe of Our Country Homes: Dr. Hewitt tells how to deal with it,” The Globe, Wednesday, July 17, 1912, Page 4. This dovetails with Roger’s article.

[20] “Fight the Pesky Fly,” The Globe, Monday, July 8, 1912, Page 9.

[21] “Dealers in fly traps unable to supply the Brisk Demand,” The Toronto Daily Star, Tuesday, July 9, 1912, Page 1.

[22] “Cartage people anxious to Help Fly Swatting Crusade, “ The Toronto Daily Star, Friday, July 19, 1912, Page 4.

[23] “Twenty-Five Thousand Flies the Result of the First Measuring Up,” The Toronto Daily Star, Friday, July 12, 1912, Page 1.

[24] “Swat the Fly!” The Toronto Daily Star, Tuesday, July 23, 1912, Page 5.

[25] “Swat the Fly! Record Half-Million count, Contest Coming to a Close,” The Toronto Daily Star, Thursday, Aug. 15, 1912, Page 2.

[26] “136, 800 flied turned in at yesterday’s measuring up,” The Toronto Daily Star, Saturday, July 20, 1912, Page 23.

[27] “136, 800 flied turned in at yesterday’s measuring up,” The Toronto Daily Star, Saturday, July 20, 1912, Page 23.

[28] “Swat the Fly! Day too Cold for the Flies and One Little Girl Cried,” The Toronto Daily Star, Tuesday, Aug. 12, 1912, Page 11. It was the cold weather that brought Evelyn Earl to tears; it reduced her take to just four ounces and allowed others to push past her in the competition. But all was not lost, she was still in the running at the end of the contest and won a $1 for her efforts.

[29] “Swat the Fly!” The Toronto Daily Star, Tuesday, July 23, 1912, Page 5.

[30] “Swat the Fly! Everybody’s Swatting Now, Killing Flies in Millions,” The Toronto Daily Star, Wednesday, July 24, 1912, Page 6.

[31] “Swat the Fly! Record Half-Million count, Contest Coming to a Close,” The Toronto Daily Star, Thursday, Aug. 15, 1912, Page 2.

[32] “Swat the Fly! Record Half-Million count, Contest Coming to a Close,” The Toronto Daily Star, Thursday, Aug. 15, 1912, Page 2.

[33] “Swat the Fly! One more Count and Prized will be Awarded Swatters,” The Toronto Daily Star, Saturday, Aug. 17, 1912, Page 8.

[34] “Cash Prizes Awarded to Sixty-Six Faithful Swatters this Afternoon,” The Toronto Daily Star, Tuesday, Aug. 20, 1912, Page 14.

[35] “The cockroach now a subject of warfare,” The Toronto Daily Star, Saturday, July 5, 1913, Page 22.

[36] Alison Calder, “Why Shoot the Gopher? Reading the Politics of a Prairie Icon,” The American Review of Canadian Studies (Autumn 2003): 391-414, 393, 400.

[37] Rogers, 616.