1917 Bath riots

The 1917 Bath Riots occurred in January 1917 at the Santa Fe Street Bridge between El Paso, Texas, United States, and Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico.

Reports that nude photographs of women bathers and fear of potential fire from the kerosene baths, led Carmelita Torres to refuse to submit to the procedure.

U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, tired of the fighting and being more concerned with events unfolding in Europe and World War I, withdrew American forces from Mexico.

Senators in Washington demanding a quarantine be put in place to stem the tide of "dirty lousey destitute Mexicans" who would spread typhus into El Paso.

[9] The Public Health Service Officer for El Paso, Dr. B. J. Lloyd, admitted there was little danger and opposed a quarantine, but suggested opening de-lousing plants.

The policy initially applied to all Mexicans entering the United States at El Paso,[11] but soon spread to the Laredo–Nuevo Laredo crossing, and eventually along the entire U.S. Mexico border.

Ordered to disembark and submit to the disinfection process, 17-year-old Carmelita Torres refused, having heard reports that nude women were being photographed while in the baths.

The majority of the early protesters were young, domestic workers employed in homes in El Paso but as the crowd grew to several thousand a mixture of people became involved.

Newspapers reported that the men were taking advantage of the bath disturbance to protest the Carranza regime and voice support for his rival Pancho Villa.

[23] Policemen from Juárez monitored the southern end of the bridge crossing, a Mexican health inspector Andrés García was present to maintain respectful treatment at the disinfection plant, and street car service between the two cities was suspended.

For the first time in history, workers were required to pass literacy tests, pay a head tax and were forbidden to perform contract labor.

[27] In 2006, David Dorado Romo published Ringside Seat to a Revolution which brought the story back to the attention of the public and Chicano scholars.