The stunning story of one of America’s great disasters, a preventable tragedy of Gilded Age America, brilliantly told by master historian David McCullough. At the end of the nineteenth century, Johnstown, Pennsylvania, was a booming coal-and-steel town filled with hardworking families striving for a piece of the nation’s burgeoning industrial prosperity. In the mountains above Johnstown, an old … Johnstown, an old earth dam had been hastily rebuilt to create a lake for an exclusive summer resort patronized by the tycoons of that same industrial prosperity, among them Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and Andrew Mellon. Despite repeated warnings of possible danger, nothing was done about the dam. Then came May 31, 1889, when the dam burst, sending a wall of water thundering down the mountain, smashing through Johnstown, and killing more than 2,000 people. It was a tragedy that became a national scandal.
Graced by David McCullough’s remarkable gift for writing richly textured, sympathetic social history, The Johnstown Flood is an absorbing, classic portrait of life in nineteenth-century America, of overweening confidence, of energy, and of tragedy. It also offers a powerful historical lesson for our century and all times: the danger of assuming that because people are in positions of responsibility they are necessarily behaving responsibly.
more
For me, each new novel begins not with a keystroke on my laptop but rather with a book, a web site, or even a movie. It begins with an effort to learn about a place and a time I have often never seen.
My largest project, finished last year, was no different. When I set out to learn more about Johnstown, Pennsylvania, in 1889, I went first to the definitive source on that place and time: The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough.
Like The Big Burn by Timothy Egan and Isaac’s Storm by Erik Larson, which I read while preparing The Fire and September Sky, respectively, McCullough’s nonfiction work reads like a novel. Thorough, balanced, and fascinating, it guides readers through the deadliest flood in U.S. history and provides a poignant snapshot of western Pennsylvania during the height of the Gilded Age. Personal anecdotes share space with clear — sometimes cold — statistics.
When reading the book, I felt like I was a part of a growing community that thrived on steel and commerce but lived in constant fear that a poorly maintained earthen dam, just fourteen miles up the Little Conemaugh River, might someday fail and take that prosperity away.
Like Egan and Larson, McCullough does more than describe a historic disaster. He provides a veritable college course on an era. I would recommend The Johnstown Flood to any student of history or anyone who simply likes a good story.
This is another can’t-stop-reading page-turner that has my highest recommendation. Just as in “Firestorm at Peshtigo” and “The Worst Hard Time,” the catastrophic flood that wiped out Johnstown near the turn of the 20th century was another man-made disaster. This time, it was a poorly engineered and constructed dam that gave way and swept people to their doom.
Author David McCullough writes about the people involved with such descriptiveness that we come to know them and share their horror as the devastation sweeps through their homes and businesses, and we share their misery and grief with the outcome.
As always, David McCullogh delivers a well researched and informative accounting of the flood. Couldn’t put it down, learned a great deal about the power of money and the terrible uses it can be put to. Actually, I will read anything by this author. The topics he chooses are compelling and his books are top drawer.
A Great Tragedy, A Statement on the Utter Folly of the Wealthy
Again, David McCullough brings to compelling life an incredible, horrific event in the history of America. In the midst of this, there are stories of heroism and hope.
David McCullough has collected many eyewitness accounts of what occurred with various individuals. He weaves this in a tragic, yet folksy timeline, which made me feel like I was reading about distant relatives. I often cried while reading the book. I have read it several times over, as many of the acts of survival are astounding.
The blatant irresponsibility and self-serving purpose which led to the disaster is absolutely maddening. Sometimes, that is hard to put to rest while reading McCullough’s account.
It is a great book, even though it is disturbing.
Excellent informative read.
Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner David McCullough is a national treasure. For proof, look no further than this, his first popular history.
McCullough traces the roots of what is still one of the worst man-made disasters in the nation’s history: the 1889 collapse of a dam above the hardscrabble Pennsylvania steel city of Johnstown that killed over 2,000 people in the span of a few minutes. But this is more than just a disaster story; it follows a large real-life cast drawn from all levels of 1880s American society and immerses us in their lives and times so we understand that what happened to Johnstown was just the dynamic of the era writ small. The experience is much like watching James Cameron’s Titanic — we know the story doesn’t end well, we know a lot of the characters are going to die, but we watch (or read) anyway because we’ve become involved in their fates.
McCullough doesn’t assume you know much about the time or place, so don’t worry about prerequisites. Don’t even think about reading this book without a good map of western Pennsylvania close at hand (Google Earth works particularly well; the maps in my edition aren’t great). You may have some difficulty keeping track of who’s who among the particularly large number of characters, and sometimes the minutiae can become a bit too minute. Stick with it. When the rains begin to fall in the narrative, The Johnstown Flood becomes history as ticking-clock suspense, Irwin Allen with a brain. If you like it, the prolific McCullough has plenty more where this came from.
Classic McCullough. He brings characters and facts to life in a way that entertains and educates. This book is no exception.
This guy writes like an angel. Whether it’s a singular historical event or trend, or the biography of a complex and intriguing figure, McCulloch is reliably well grounded, a tireless researcher and a distinctive literary craftsman. I know people from western Pennsylvania for whom the subject of this book is as vivid an experience as World War II is to baby-boomers. For the rest of us, it’s an exploration of how real people react to extraordinary disaster – and how we can grow morally or tumble into vicious self-interest as a result.
McCullough describes the actions leading up to this catastrophic flood, as well as the flood itself, in precise detail.
Great, if shocking history of a flood that never should have happened.
As with any of McCullough’s “great event or accomplishment” books, this book is an exemplar of this type of work.
This is a gripping story. It demonstrates how people’s everyday lives are frequently, if not always, affected by other people’s decision.
No one does History better.
I was vaguely aware of the Johnstown Flood, but wanting to know more about it, I turned to David McCullough, whose works on the Panama Canal, Wright Brothers, and American love affair with Paris are so well executed.
The flood, for others who may be as uninformed as I was previously, was the result of a dam break in the Pennsylvania mountains above Johnstown’s valley. The dam, not incidentally, was shoddily built and poorly maintained – and served the singular purpose of creating a pleasure lake for members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. Club members included such stalwarts of the gilded age as Andrew Carnegie and Andrew Mellon. When the dam broke, the entire lake gushed down the hillsides wiping out virtually everything in its path and causing well over 2,000 deaths.
As I have come to expect from McCullough, The Johnstown Flood is well research and well written. McCullough begins by providing a history of the valley, the industries at the heart of its growth, and the Club itself, along with abbreviated biographies of key individuals. This was probably necessary to lay the foundation for readers, many of whom I assume (like myself) are largely ignorant of the events. Still, it makes for a slow beginning to the book, and I never did fully sort out all of the various individuals McCullough follows. Not surprisingly, the best portions of the book are the description of the flood itself. It’s all rather terrifying.
Ultimately, the Johnstown Flood reads like a prelude to the entire Gilded Age. It also makes me want to move Meet You in Hell: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership That Changed America up my reading list. That said, I believe McCullough’s work has a relatively narrow audience – he is a serious historian who often chooses to write about topics that others might consider incidental. Those who appreciate McCullough and his work will like Johnstown Flood. Those who prefer lighter fair, even for non-fiction, should probably forgo this one.
(This review was originally published at http://www.thisyearinbooks.com/2015/11/the-johnstown-flood.html)
Hard to put down story of a great tragedy.
I love history and what we can learn from it.
This well-written historical book was interesting and at times sad to read. It was incredible what those people went through.
As with all McCullough’s books, I came away knowing so much more about this famous, yet tragic, historical event.
Yet, it is so much more than so many pages of regurgitated facts. McCullough has a way of telling a story that transmits a detailed, multi-faceted chronology that is continually interwoven with the personalities affected.
Memorable book
Haunting, tragic. I couldn’t get over how senseless this tragedy was. Left me with a great sense of sadness.