Seven stories of solitude during the coronavirus, from ages 24 to 86
The last time a virus forced Americans indoors, women did not go inside alone.
When the 1918 flu pandemic started to spread, the average American woman got married at 21. Most went straight from their parents’ home to their husband’s; others spent a few years at a boardinghouse full of women their age, working in shops and factories as they awaited their proposals. A woman rarely made enough money to live by herself.
Read more at the Washington Post.