The Johnstown Flood of 1889:
A Study of Culture, Class and Power Structures
in the Light of Disaster
Program in International Management 49, 1994
A research thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a master’s degree in International Administration at the
School for International Training in Brattleboro, VT
The summer of 1889 will ever be memorable for its appalling disasters by flood and flame. In that period fell the heaviest blow of the nineteenth century - a blow scarcely paralleled in the histories of civilized lands. Central Pennsylvania, a center of industry, thrift and comfort, was desolated by floods unprecedented in the records of the great waters. On both sides of the Alleghenies these ravages were felt in terrific power, but on the western slope their terrors were infinitely multiplied by the bursting of the South Fork Reservoir, letting out millions of tons of water, which, rushing madly down the rapid descent of the Conemaugh Valley, washed out all its busy villages and hurled itself in a deadly torrent on the happy borough of Johnstown. The frightful aggravations which followed the coming of this torrent have waked the deepest sympathies of this nation and of the world, and the history is demanded in permanent form, for those of the present lay, and for the generation to come.
- Willis Fletcher Johnson
Preface, History of the Johnstown Flood (1889)
Table of Contents
Chapter I: Introduction………………………………………………… 4
Research Statement……………………………………………… 4
Activities, Methods and Approaches…………………………… 4
Review of Selected Literature……………………………………6
Relevance to PIM Studies………………………………………. 16
Chapter II: Brief History of the Johnstown Flood…………………….. 19
Introduction…...………………………………………………… 19
Johnstown Before the Flood……………………………………. 19
The Flood………………………………………………………. 24
Johnstown After the Flood…………………………………….. 28
Chapter III: Disasterology……………………………………………. 33
Introduction…………………………………………………….. 33
Culture and Disasters…………………………………………… 35
Class and Disasters…………………………………………… 38
Chapter IV: The Johnstown Flood as a Critical Incident……………… 42
Introduction…………………………………………………… 42
Dynes’ Disaster Definition…………………………………….. 43
Culture and Class in Relation to Johnstown…………………… 44
Power Structures and Social Infrastructure in
Relation to Johnstown………………………….. 47
The World Comes to the Aid of Johnstown…………………… 49
The Rebuilding of Johnstown………………………………….. 50
Chapter V: Conclusion……………………………………………….. 52
Appendixes…………………………………………………………… 59
Appendix A: Title Page from The Johnstown Horror…………. 60
Appendix B: Pictures from Johnstown………………………… 61
Appendix C: Johnstown Bids Farewell to Clara Barton……….. 66
Appendix D: The Terrible Wave………………………………. 67
Appendix E: One-up, One-down Model……………………….. 68
Appendix F: Self Evaluation…………………………………… 69
Bibliography…………………………………………………………… 74
Chapter I
Introduction
Research Statement
The Johnstown Flood of 1889 was one of the earliest disasters recorded in post-modern American society. Looking at this disaster as a critical incident in history, I will examine the cultural aspects of the disaster as well as the socioeconomic aspects of this event. Theories of disasterology and human reaction to disaster will provide a lens through which we can better understand cultural and class interactions. The interdependence of our ever-shrinking global society is dependent upon knowing who we are and understanding the events that have influenced our societies, or nations, our cultures. An examination of the Johnstown Flood will help in this understanding.
Activities, Methods and Approaches
There were several books written about the Johnstown Flood of 1889 right after the event occurred (between 1889 and 1895). These text were often sensationalized accounts of the disaster that read more like scripts to B movies than journalistic accounts. Initially, I nearly dismissed them as having little value in the research of this thesis. However, they do shed some amazing light on how the event was perceived by the people of this country and are an invaluable account of details, trauma and the cultural mind-set at that time. I have completed a thorough literature review including those sensationalized accounts as well as later historical studies of the event. These later reflective studies look at the disaster of the Johnstown Flood within the context of the time - that is, a burgeoning country in the throes of the Industrial Revolution.
Besides non-fictional studies and historical magazine articles, I also worked closely with the Johnstown Flood Museum in Johnstown, PA. They have an exhaustive library of flood archives, including several interviews with flood survivors. The words of those Americans who witnessed this disaster will speak for themselves.
In 1964, on the 75th anniversary of the flood, a wonderful and Emmy award winning documentary film was produced. This film contains amazing accounts of what happened as well as personal stories of acts of heroism and cowardice. It is always a strength when you can have a diverse blend of research sources, and the images of the film will allow us to see the flood from a different angle.
Besides the research on the flood itself, I also looked at the relatively new field of disasterology. The cultural aspects of the study of disaster have not been fully examined. As noted disaster expert E.L. Quarantelli has said, "Cross-cultural studies in the disaster area are very rare. It is important for us to use cross-cultural data to examine the interplay of impact factors, family characteristics, extensiveness of kinship linkages, and community structural characteristics" (Quarantelli, p. 5) It is now time to look at blending what we know about disaster theory and human behavior with our knowledge of cross-cultural interactions and models of cultural and class difference. I plan to look at behavioral, psychological and societal reactions to disaster and use the theories I find to better understand the events of the Johnstown Flood.
Review of Selected Literature
The History of the Johnstown Flood
It is necessary to begin a literature review for this study by looking at the four main accounts of the flood, three of which were written immediately on the heels of the disaster. One of the more sensational recountings of the flood is James Herbert Walker’s 1889 reflection entitled, The Johnstown Horror!!! Or Valley of Death, Being A Complete and Thrilling Account of the Awful Floods and Their Appalling Ruin. Published in San Francisco, this colorful document is very indicative of the time and the emotionally charged reaction and retelling of the disaster. It is worthwhile to replicate here, the cover page of the text that details the contents of the book, as well as a testament to the author’s reputation. (See Appendix A). This text includes twenty chapters detailing the events of the disaster and includes several hand-drawn, pen and ink illustration plates showing the recovery of dead bodies, the effects of the flood on the town’s buildings and distribution of relief aid to the community. The tone of writing in this text takes on an almost “Biblical” feeling as woeful stories of lives and loss are told. This book has a duplicity of uses for this study in that it tells the story or interpretation of the event, but it also exists as an artifact to be studied and interpreted in and of itself. It can further be seen as one highly subjective telling of the story and can be compared and contrasted with other period documentation of the great flood.
It is interesting to mention here, that the copy of this book from my personal library is a first edition print given to me by my grandmother. It originally belonged to a Mr. John Malcher (who was in the care of my grandmother when I was a child). Inscribed in the book is his name and the fact that this book was part of his eighth grade history class curriculum in 1939 in upstate New York. Mr. Malcher was schooled in a small town that was only a few hours from Johnstown, PA. It would be interesting to do further research into the use of this text in curriculum in that region. Only fifty years has passed since the flood when this book was inscribed to Mr. Malcher and many people who remembered the disaster were still alive. Clearly lessons were to be learned from this moment in history.
Also written in 1889 is Willis Fletcher Johnson’s History of the Johnstown Flood (Illustrated). Although also written in what could be considered the sensational language of the time, this retelling of the disaster is documented with actual photographs and one-on-one interviews with survivors. It also has a much more objective and quantitative approach to the explanation of the events before, during and after the flood. In the second chapter of this thesis, I will explore and document the events surrounding the flood and we will be better able to understand the context in which it occurred. I will turn to this book as a primary source for recounting that history.
Johnson’s Preface to the book (which is also quoted at the beginning of this paper) describes this disaster as “a blow scarcely paralleled in the histories of civilized lands” (Johnson, preface). Although disasters of this magnitude of loss of life and property had occurred throughout the world over the history of mankind, his use of the word “civilized” looks more to the fact that words like civilized and industrial were strongly linked together at that time. We must remember that this disaster occurred on at the apex of the Industrial Revolution and although they did not create the rains that swelled the waters of the Stony Creek and Conemaugh Rivers, the wealthy industrials were distinctly to blame for the extreme destruction of Johnstown.
As a historian, Johnson provides maps, a time line, and an exploration of the context of this event in the time at which it occurred. He also looks at class, culture and relief issues surrounding the flood. Included are photographs of the effects of the disaster, a look at the South Fork Lake Fishing and Hunting Club, and photographic portraits of the “robber baron” industrialists. He also speaks directly to the relief delivery systems which evolved immediately after the flood and continued for close to a year following the disaster.
Johnstown: The Day the Dam Broke, written by Richard O’Connor was published in 1957, nearly 75 years after the flood. With the distance of time and the 20/20 vision of hindsight, O’Connor focuses his recounting of the Johnstown Flood on the negligence of the wealthy landowners who did not maintain the damn that caused the flooding of the town. In this carefully documented hour-by-hour account of the events leading up to the disaster, O’Connor takes us into the homes of the townspeople and shares with us the incredible drama of the flood with all its horrors and repercussions. We are also able to witness the incredible aftermath of the devastating fires that followed the initial waves of floodwaters. The author documents the looting and vandalism, the arrival of “rubbernecks” looking for the thrills and excitement, and souvenir hunters, as well as the bravery, sacrifice and hard manual labor of those who helped to put the town of Johnstown back on its feet. Of great interest is O’Connor’s reflection of the sensational journalists of the day, of the great obstacles reporters faced in getting their stories to press and of the wide and extreme exaggerations of the events (in some instances quadrupling the death counts). As a journalist himself, O’Connor finds the historical lessons to be learned about the role the journalists played in describing this disaster to a world of readers significant. It might be hypothesized that the “over blown” accounts of the disaster eventually resulted in more international attention and relief aid.
David McCullough grew up in the mountains of Pennsylvania and was the editor of American Heritage at the time his book was published. The Johnstown Flood (1968) is similar to O’Connor’s objective reporting of the events but differs in that McCullough is more of an historian and less of a journalist. McCullough completes an exhaustive researching of extent records, memorabilia, and the transcription of a private investigation conducted by the Pennsylvania Railroad. In addition he has produced an incredible portrait of 19th century United States, not only in light of the major players of the event (Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick and Clara Barton) but in terms of the little-known men and women, from a variety of classes and cultures who lived and died at Johnstown. He also examines the flood as a major scandal of the time. He notes that few news stories have ever had such an impact on the American public. David McCullough is one of the only living authorities on the Johnstown Flood. When the documentary, The Johnstown Flood, appeared on the American Experience (on PBS), McCullough introduced the academy award winning film and set the stage for the amazing images and recounted stories encapsulated in the documentary.
The story of the Johnstown Flood is chronicled in The Johnstown Flood, a documentary by Charles Guggenheim. In 1991, this documentary won the Academy Award for best Short Documentary. This film was written, produced and directed by Charles Guggenheim, edited by Catherine Shields and narrated by Len Cariou. Through interviews, a “slideshow” of still photographs and live action reenactments, a completed and detailed recounting of this story is told. Focusing heavily on the responsibility of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club management of the dam at Lake Conemaugh, this film looks once again at events leading up to the disaster. It also looks at the aftermath, the quick response of national and international aid, the Pennsylvania Railroad’s donation of labor and money to replace the Johnstown viaduct, and Clara Baron’s establishing of a local Red Cross. The film also speaks to the impact of the flood on popular culture in the United Stated at the end of the 19th century and through to the beginning of the twentieth century.
In May of 1992, I was invited to participate in a landmark production of Neal Bell’s On the Bum, or The Next Train Through at Playwright’s Horizons in New York City. Through personal connections with the theater community in New York, my obsession with the Johnstown Flood gained me entrance to this production, and I was fortunate enough to sit down with the playwright after the premiere. I also have an original copy of the manuscript. The playwright was intrigued by the idea of how disasters are recounted through history, and he wanted to make sure that the dead -the vast of whom were lower class, and immigrant workers - had the chance to have their stories told. He also wanted to hammer home the fact that disasters are often man made in modern history.
This play takes place in the 1930’s upon the premise that actors have been hired by the WPA to perform in an “Historical Celebration of the Town.” Although the town remains nameless in the play, the references to Johnstown are unmistakable. Funded by the wealthy descendents of the town’s influential fathers, this play seeks to tell an altered version of the town’s history that leaves the wealthy blameless and masks the truth of the town’s history of suffering and loss. The truth however, is too strong to be over-written. Shadow actors, or ghosts of the town’s ancestors, appear on stage, “inhabit” the bodies of the players and tell their own truths. In a sense, the truth metaphorically comes between the actors and the text to make sure the stories of the dead are told. The struggle comes when the actors are torn between pleasing the town’s benefactors and telling the truth. This is a rich production about history and class, about the truth and our efforts to often clean up the past in order to make ourselves more noble.
The last text that I want to review in this section is Marden Dahlstedt’s book, The Terrible Wave (1972). This is a book written for young adults and tells the story of the Johnstown Flood through the eyes of a Megan Maxwell, a prominent young girl living in Johnstown at the time of the flood. Ms. Dahlstedt’s own fascination with the flood began when she herself was a young girl. Her grandparents were survivors of the flood and the author was raised with dramatic and exciting stories about the flood and the Red Cross relief that followed. This fast-paced narrative, based on eyewitness accounts, chronicles a coming of age for Megan, who begins the story as an over-privileged selfish girl on the brink of womanhood and ends by confessing to Brian, her new found friend that she wants to become a nurse. Brian escapes the flood waters by climbing aboard her soggy floating mattress and has many adventures with her, including helping Clara Barton to tend to other survivors of the disaster.
Disasterology
Although not much has been written on the newly burgeoning field of Disasterology, there are two main texts that I have used in this research. Disasters: Theory and Research (1978) edited by E. L. Quarantelli was published by SAGE Studies in International Society. In it, Quarantelli looks at the seldom researched are of culture and disaster, a crucial contribution to this study. Included in this book are several chapters written by other disaster experts as well as a preliminary chapter looking at theoretical issues and areas of empirical research in disaster. Quarantelli is considered one of the foremost experts in disaster research. In Organized Behavior in Disaster (1970), Russell R. Dynes looks specifically at organizational aspects of disaster including community and national relief organizations. In a sense, Dynes takes basic principles of organizational structure and behavior and sets them into the arena of disaster theory. This text will be helpful in taking the aspects of disaster out of the discussion of individual experience and into a more community-based and social discussion. Beverly Raphael’s study When Disaster Strikes: How Individuals and Communities Cope with Catastrophe (1986) looks at both the events leading up to a disaster and the aftermath of disaster for communities and families. Included in her study is psychosocial care, community and political dynamics and integration of catastrophes in the human systems. As it can be argued that the Johnstown Flood was not solely an act of nature, I will also be looking at Barry A. Turner’s Man-made Disasters (1978) which looks at the shift of disasters in the United States after the Industrial Revolution. With the overpopulation of cities and depletion of floodplains and other man-made situations, natural disasters are often intensified by the existence of man. Martin E. Silverstein’s Disasters: Your Right to Survive (1992) is a more pragmatic guide to society’s reactions to disasters.
Critical Incident Perspective
During my coursework at the School for International Training in Brattleboro, Vermont, one of the more powerful exercises I participated in took place in Organizational Structure and Behavior with Claire Halverson. Each student looked into his or her international or multicultural experiences and decided upon one “critical incident” and wrote a study on that incident. In her handout to the class, Ms. Halverson writes, “The critical incident technique is a method of learning from one event or incident. In the critical incident technique, critical means crucial or of a decisive nature… and can be either positive or negative, but is always important” (class handout, OSB Fall 1991). Reviewing a critical incident involves background information (where, who, relevant information), a description of the incident, an analysis of behavior, and a theoretical analysis. It is important to note that a critical incident can occur simultaneously on personal, communal, societal, national and international levels. This approach will be the fundamental model for the study of this paper.
The Red Cross and Disaster Relief
The role of the Red Cross and disaster relief is touched upon in all the books detailing the history of the Johnstown flood. In additional, I will include information from William Barton’s The Life of Clara Barton: Founder of the American Red Cross (1922). In this two volume set, William Barton describes Clara Barton’s life in great detail, beginning in volume one with details of her childhood and young adult life, and moving on in volume two to explore the events leading up to, and her intense commitment to the Red Cross. In this text, there is a personal account of the flood written in Clara Barton’s journal. Her first person account of the disaster and relief efforts will be discussed further in this paper. The American Red Cross Museum of Falls Church, Virginia also graciously provided me with many incident reports, funding reports, disaster time lines and many early articles written about the flood and the Red Cross (namely the October 17, 1889 article on Clara Barton in the Johnstown Democrat). Particularly useful in this area of my study is the Red Cross’ study guide and video on Disaster Services. This video and study guide compilation tells the story of the Red Cross, its national and international efforts to assist mankind and its role in the Johnstown Flood.
A heroine to many Americans, Clara Barton’s life is again celebrated in Elizabeth Brown Pryor’s Clara Barton: Professional Angel (1987). This text looks at Barton as a cultural icon, a woman who was held up as a model for young girls for her philanthropy and nurturing qualities. Pryor also looks at her emotional life, and explores for the first time Barton’s personal journey and her struggle with depression and compulsivity toward her work. Pryor writes that Barton was aware of the contrast between her public and private lives and writes:
It did not particularly concern her that her image was somewhat at odds with reality. Hence she began to write a series of statements and letters, cleverly crafted to be appropriate for publication, which portrayed her personality and achievements in an idealized light. (Pryor, p. x)
Nathan Daniel Shappee’s 1940 unpublished dissertation from the University of Pittsburgh entitled, “A History of Johnstown and The Great Flood of 1889: A Study of Disaster and Rehabilitation,” also serves as an excellent academic study on the role of Clara Barton and the Red Cross in the rebuilding of Johnstown.
Relevance to PIM Studies
When you are exploring critical incidents in relation to international management, leadership, sustainable development and intercultural management there is a tendency to draw on one’s own personal experience which is grounded heavily in one’s awareness of one’s own culture. As a citizen of the United States I feel that it is important to look back in my country’s history to locate and explore the decisive moments that produced our current positionality in relation to disaster relief and our understanding of how and why disasters occur. Being aware of one’s own culture and the history of one’s own people is a crucial starting point for anyone working in international administration and development. The area of this country where my ancestors lived their lives is an area still scarred from the events of the Johnstown Flood. Before we can move ahead as agents of social change, it is important for us to have an understanding of what has come before.
Cross-cultural reactions to critical incidents have rarely been as well documented as in that of the Johnstown Flood. The attention focused on Johnstown by the national and international communities generated a massive amount of information about the conditions common and familiar to most people of the time. In a sense Johnstown and its flood are a time capsule which - when opened and investigated with the modern tools, models and philosophies of group dynamics, social theory, class stratification, and the postmodern knowledge of psychological response and behavior - allows us to be present at the moment of the disaster and appreciate it as a progenitor of the fundamental assumptions inherent behind modern disaster response. Unique to this incident is Clara Barton’s hands-on, experiential approach to disaster-relief. At the level of destruction brought on by the Johnstown Flood, it was the only way for the Red Cross to operate. There was no plan in place, there was no disaster model or comprehensive step by step formula to receive funding and set up relief outposts. Instead there were the needs of the people and the efforts of a largely volunteer organization to come to their aid.
In looking at social change theory in relation to the Johnstown Flood it could be said that the three strategies of social change (power-coercive, normative re-educational and empirical- rational) could all be applied to this critical incident in retrospect. Because there have been other disasters of this magnitude, we have learned that national laws and safety standards are drafted and enforced to attempt to divert the repetition of a disaster of this kind. Normative re-educative strategies have been employed through disaster preparedness planning, educating the populace at large about surviving potentially life-threatening circumstances. Empirical-rational social change strategies come into play by explaining the cause and effect of behavior and action, for example, not building a town in vulnerable flood plain regions.
By looking at the events in Johnstown I realize that the disaster occurred over a hundred years ago but could occur again at any time, maybe in a different town or maybe another country elsewhere in the world. The Johnstown Flood can be examined as a critical incident, and the lessons that can be gleaned from this event are useful to the international community and can and will be applied over and over again – as long as people are dying at the hands of the wealthy and as long as the poor, and less-privileged populations of the world are the most vulnerable to these disasters. It is my hope that this research thesis might add to the body of academic and applied knowledge and improve our own understanding of the relationship between class and culture in the face of man-made or man-influenced disasters internationally.
Chapter II
Brief History of the Johnstown Flood of 1889
Introduction
Before we can discuss the Johnstown Flood as a critical incident in history, it is important to set up the background information around the event. Clare Halverson’s handout on writing about critical incidents as an academic exercise notes the importance of this background information. Specifically, she lists the following areas as being crucial: where (geographic region, organizations, etc.), who (persons involved, cultural background {socioeconomic status}, and other (relevant information such as historical information etc.). For our purposes, I will divide the history of Johnstown into three main section: Johnstown before the flood, the flood, and Johnstown after the flood. I will also discuss the key players involved in this event.
Johnstown Before the Flood
Johnstown is located in the Allegheny Mountains in the southwest corner of Pennsylvania, approximately two hours from Pittsburgh. The city is situated at the junction of Stony Creek and the Little Conemaugh forming the Conemaugh River. In 1889, Johnstown was a thriving and industrious place and was considered the Queen City of the valley. With a population of approximately 30,000 it was considered by its inhabitants to be a good place to start a family or a business. Three-quarters of the townspeople were benefited employees of the Cambria Iron and Steel Factory owned by Daniel Morrell. Historians have noted that Johnstown was a “modern” and “progressive city” which touted “seventy telephones, twenty-seven churches, indoor plumbing, a company hospital, a hundred and twenty-three saloons, three newspapers and an up-to-date fire and police force comprised mostly of Irish immigrants” (Guggenheim, 1989). Three-quarters of the population of Johnstown lived on the banks of the Conemaugh River on land owned by the Cambria Iron Works. These dwellings were mostly wood-framed tenement houses, built closely together of inferior materials. Johnstown was no stranger to moderate spring flooding and the professional men and superintendents of the company lived primarily on the hills away from the creeks. By 1889 almost every inch of Johnstown had been developed and was considered one of the busiest towns in the States with Cambria Iron Works supplying steel for railroad companies across the country. It was also a major hub for the Pennsylvania Railroad.
Although early “white” settlers first founded the town in 1771, the vast majority of people living in Johnstown at the time of the flood were immigrant populations - German, Welsh, Irish and Scottish. These immigrants left Europe during the large wave of immigration in the late 1800’s and made new lives as merchants, laborers and railroad men in the mountains of Pennsylvania. The Germans and Welsh outnumbered other ethnic groups, and there were a handful of Jews who were considered the leading merchants in the city. Johnstown had also been an active stop on the Underground Railroad and many escaped slaves had come that way - some staying to work in the tannery. It has been noted that the population of Johnstown had more than tripled between the end of the Civil War and 1889.
Life in Johnstown meant a great deal of hard work for just about everybody. Not only because that was how life was then, but because people had the feeling they were getting somewhere. The country seemed hell-bent for a glorious new age and Johnstown, clearly, was right up there booming along with the best of them. Pittsburgh and Chicago were a whole lot bigger, to be sure, and taking a far bigger part of the business. But that was all right. For Johnstown these were the best years ever. (McCullough, p. 30-31)
Up river, approximately fourteen miles north of Johnstown, away from the toils and triumphs of the emerging working class lay the exclusive South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. This vacation resort was the country escape for 61 prominent families from Pittsburgh. Family names included, Henry Clay Frick (founder of Coca-Cola), Andrew Carneigie (well-known robber baron), his partner Henry Phipps (financier) and Andrew Mellon (banking). Although the homes at South Fork were called “cottages” by their owners, most were at least three-stories high and had all the modern conveniences. At the center of South Fork was the forty-seven room “clubhouse” where the families would gather for social events and meals. The South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club took on mythic like proportions to the plan folk of villages and cities of the valley. There was talk of “sailboats on the mountain” but most people knew nothing of the wealth and exclusivity of the resort.
The resort circled Lake Conemaugh (450 acres with 20 million tons of water) that was dammed up on the north end. The dam was originally built by the state of Pennsylvania but was later abandoned by them. In disrepair when South Fork purchased the land, the dam continued to deteriorate over the years. When the members of South Fork removed the top three feet of the dam to make it wide enough for carriages to pass, they further weakened the structure. In addition the club installed fish screens to keep the stocked fish from leaving the lake via the spillway. These screens were often clogged with debris. The architecturally unsophisticated dam was made of earth and rock with crude spillways and old, deteriorated drainage pipes. It had not been properly maintained by the South Fork Club and small leaks or breaks in the dam were temporarily fixed with more earth and rocks. More importantly, few people living “below the dam” knew of its tenuous condition and its long history of neglect.
Daniel Morrell, the owner of the Cambria Iron Works, however, knew the dam was in trouble. He was the most powerful man in Johnstown and had tried unsuccessfully to convince the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club to repair the dam. In 1880, he wrote to the Club asking if he could bring a team of engineers to examine the dam. South Fork agreed and a study was completed which detailed the deterioration of the dam and the work needed to be done on it. Morrell even offered to split the cost of the repairs but was later told that the dam was of no great concern and that the people of Johnstown were safe. This is an example of the unwillingness of the South Fork Club to manage their property. It also shows their disregard for the safety lives of the working people in the valley. The socioeconomic divisions of the time were extreme. Even Morrell, who was a powerful man by Johnstown standards, was exploited and preyed upon by the wealthy Pittsburgh elite, many of whom were members of the South Fork Club. It is documented that Morrell lost many good workers to the high salaries and promises offered by the wealthy steel company owners in Pittsburgh.
In examining the relationship between the wealthy members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club and the workers and laborers of Johnstown down in the valley, it is helpful to use Stanley R. Hinckley’s model A Perspective on the Dynamics of One-Up, One-Down Relationships (see Appendix E). This model outlines the relationships between those who have and those who have not, and looks at the cycle of consciousness for those socially (and economically) oppressed and those who are the oppressors. South Fork members or the elite of Pittsburgh are the “one-up” in this model. Their needs are met by the laborers whose work has made them wealthy. They feel satisfied with their relationships with the “one-down” and have little concern or awareness of their situation, feelings and day to day needs.
The inhabitants of Johnstown, on the other hand, are the “one-down” population. The workers take care of the perceived needs of the “one-up” class by existing as the “other” to the upper class. In doing so the “one-down” population often loses track of its own needs (for example the maintenance of the dam). This generally comes from the realization that their needs are not of concern to the “One-up” and will not be met. Daniel Morrell was the only person who could step out of this “one-down” role and challenge the South Fork Club, and even his concerns were actively disregarded. After the events of the flood played themselves out, it is interesting to note that although a law suit was brought against the Club for ignoring the condition of the dam, no liability was ever found and no money awarded to the people of Johnstown.
David McCullough in both his historical account of the flood and in his introduction to the documentary on the flood is quite aware of the socioeconomic stratification of the people involved and the circumstances surround the cause of the Johnstown flood. He writes:
It was in fact during the month of May 1889 that Carnegie was finishing up a magazine article that was to become known as “The Gospel of Wealth.” The gist of the article was that the rich, like the poor, would always be with us. The present system has its inequities, certainly, and many of them were disgraceful. But the system was a good deal better than any other so far. The thing for the rich man to do was to divide his life into two parts. The first part should be for acquisition, the second for distribution. At this stage the gentlemen of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club were attending strictly to the first part. Business was the overriding preoccupation for now, and business in Pittsburgh, either directly or indirectly, meant the steel business, which in 1889 was doing just fine. (McCullough, pp. 59-60)
The Flood
On the morning of May 28th, 1889 storms rolled across the mountains of Pennsylvania and the rains began to fall. What began as a cool mist developed into some of the heaviest rains ever recorded in the Allegheny Mountains. By the end of the first day, Lake Conemaugh had risen by 8 inches and the sodden land surrounding the lake could absorb no more. Down river, the streets of Johnstown were already inch deep in floodwaters from the swelling creeks and nearby rivers. The rain continued through the next day and on May 31st several miles of track had been washed away from the railroad system coming in and out of Johnstown. Residents of South Fork carefully watched the dam and attempted to build up the top of the dam to assist it in holding back the swelling banks of the lake. The fish screens were completely clogged with the debris of the storm and the spillway was unable to relieve the pressure of the rising waters. Moments before the dam gave way, residents of South Fork attempted to warn the towns below but telegraph lines were downed because of the storm.
At approximately 3:10pm on May 31st the South Fork dam finally succumbed to the pressure of Lake Conemaugh. As the sensationalist Willis Fletcher Johnson writes:
It is an erroneous idea, however, that the dam burst. It simply moved away. The water gradually ate into the embankment until there was nothing left but a frail bulwark of wood. This finally split asunder and sent the waters howling down the mountains. (Johnson, p. 50)
Lake Conemaugh joined with the swollen waters of Little Conemaugh River at the town of South Fork thus increasing in volume, wiping out the town and adding its debris to the rushing waters. In addition the valley progressively narrowed as is came closer and closer to Johnstown increasing the height and pressure of the torrent. Some eyewitnesses estimated the height of the wave to be almost seventy feet. A mile down from South Fork, the flood smashed into its first major obstacle, a tremendous stone viaduct built to allow freight trains to cross the Little Conemaugh river. The viaduct stood seventy-five feet high and was made of local sandstone. It was then considered to be one of the landmarks of the country. David McCullough notes the importance of this temporary stall in the path of the flood.
The bridge held momentarily. There was an awful booming crunch as debris piled against stone and virtually sealed off the already clogged arch, and the water surged back and forth, seething with yellow foam, mounting up and up until it was nearly eighty feet high. And then it started spurting over the top of the bridge, gushing between the boulders and mangled railroad cars, the broken planks, ties, and tree stumps that had been dumped there. Now for a brief instant, Lake Conemaugh formed again some five and a half miles down stream from its original resting-place. It gathered itself together, held now by another dam, which however temporary was nonetheless as high as the first one; and when the second dam let go, it did so even more suddenly and with greater violence than the first one. The bridge collapsed all at once and the water exploded into the valley with its maximum power now concentrated again by the momentary delay. (McCullough, p. 108-109)
As telegraphed word of the broken dam never made it to the people of Johnstown they had only the roaring sounds of the raging wall of water and debris as warning. It was not enough. The waters hit Johnstown at full speed, mowing down the frail wooden structures, sending railroad ties and trees flying and tossing five ton train engines as far as a mile away. Because Johnstown lies on the southern bank where the river merges with Stony Creek the flood washed up through Johnstown creating a sort of whirlpool blocked off at the north end of town by the great stone railroad bridge. This bridge became clogged with debris holding in the floodwater drowning Johnstown. Because of the force of the water and how Johnstown was situated geographically, the waters became a whirlpool, grinding Johnstown and its inhabitants to a pulp. Spinning in this whirlpool were miles of culminating debris, the wreckage of the Cambria Iron Works, thirty-four locomotives, hundreds of railcars, houses, churches, animals and dead or dying people (Guggenheim, 1989). In addition, oil tanks and blast furnaces of the Cambria Iron Works exploded starting a raging fire covering sixty acres that burned for days - long after the floodwaters receded.
Wandering over this muddy plain one can realize something of what must have been the gigantic force of that vast whirlpool. It pressed upon the town like some huge millstone, weighing tens of thousands of tons and revolving with awful velocity, pounding to powder everything beneath. (Johnson, p. 77)
Within ten minutes of the flood hitting Johnstown nearly three thousand people had lost their lives. One in three bodies would never be identified. Ninety-nine complete families were wiped out. Three hundred and ninety-six children under the age of ten were killed. A hundred and twenty-four women were widowed. A hundred and ninety-eight men were widowed and ninety-eight children were orphaned. A body which was identified as a Johnstown Flood victim was found in Steubenville, Ohio and sent back to Johnstown for burial. There were 1600 homes lost, two hundred and eighty businesses destroyed, and seventeen million dollars in property damage as a result of the flood. Four square miles of downtown Johnstown were completely destroyed (roughly the size of Manhattan) (Facts About the Johnstown Flood of 1889).
Some of the most interesting aspects of the flood itself are the eyewitness accounts of the survivors who stepped out of their hiding places once the flood quieted. As one survivor noted:
Not a brick remains, not a stone nor a stick of timber in all this territory… they are not there, they are gone – every building, every street, every sidewalk and pavement, the street railways, and everything else that covered the surface of the earth has vanished as utterly as though it had never been there. The ground was swept as clean as though some mighty scraper had been dragged over it again and again. Not even the lines of the streets can be remotely traced…. Desolation so complete, so relentless, so dreadful that it is beyond the power of language fairly to tell the tale. (Johnson, p. 77)
Johnstown After the Flood
As the waters receded it became obvious that the town had been irrevocably changed. All social and community structures had been broken down as well as many familial structures. Many survivors, having lost everything, packed up what little they could salvage and moved away from Johnstown, choosing to restart their lives on new ground. Those who remained behind had the awesome and gruesome task of digging out from under the debris, identifying and burying the dead, exposure to disease and pestilence and the challenge of reconstituting the town, socially, economically and spiritually. Within hours, townspeople gathered, elected leaders and formed work and building crews (Guggenheim, 1989).
Due to the isolation of Johnstown, word of the disaster was delayed in reaching the rest of the nation, and when news did make it through the wires, most people were in disbelief of the magnitude of the disaster. Furthermore, getting supplies and relief into Johnstown was nearly impossible due to the nearly complete destruction of its infrastructure. The railroad companies were the first to respond, rebuilding broken tracks within hours and sending men and machinery to help in the relief effort. Within a few days, hundreds of volunteers from neighboring communities began arriving in Johnstown including carpenters, stone masons and journalists. It was the accounts by these journalists (sometimes sensationalized) that drew attention and aid to the plight of Johnstown. A good example of this is James Herbert Walker’s, Johnstown Horror or Valley of Death in which he recounts of a flood survivor’s story. This account of the flood was published and on sale in Johnstown less than a month after the flood struck. Here is an example of the flavor of many of the eyewitness accounts chronicled in this work. It is lengthy, but worth quoting in full.
Only One Left to Mourn An utterly wretched woman stood by a muddy pool of water, trying to find some trace of a once happy home. She was half crazed with grief, and her eyes were red and swollen. As I stepped to her side, she raised her pale and haggard face crying: "They are all gone. Oh God be merciful to them. My husband and my seven dear little children have been swept down by the flood and I am left alone. We were driven by the raging flood into the garret, but the waters followed us there. Inch by inch it kept rising until our heads were crushing against the roof. It was death to remain. So I raised a window and one by one placed my darlings on some driftwood, trusting to the Great Creator. As I liberated the last one, my sweet little boy, he looked at me and said: ‘Mama, you always told me that the Lord would care for me; will he look after me now?’ I saw him drift away with his loving face turned toward me, and with a prayer on my lips for his deliverance he passed from sight forever. The next moment the roof crashed in and I floated outside to be rescued fifteen hours later from the roof of a house in Kernville. If I could only find one of my darlings I could bow to the will of God, but they are all gone. I have lost everything on earth now but my life, and I will return to my old Virginia home and lay me down for my last great sleep.” (Walker, p. 71-72)
Such sensationalized reountings like this one filled local and national newspapers and the story was considered the “biggest news story since the murder of Abraham Lincoln” (McCullough, p. 203). Some papers reported that over 10,000 had been killed.
Included in these sensationalized reports was a perpetuation of ethnic stereotypes. Looting and thieving activities were attributed to Hungarians, African Americans and the Polish. “These were stories had a great appeal to anyone ready to believe in the darker side of humanity and particularly that segment of humanity which spoke with a thick accent, smelled of garlic and worked cheap” (McCullough, p. 211). These accounts seldom had any truth to them but created tension all around. For example David McCullough quotes a newspaper article from the Daily Graphic:
Last night a party of thirteen Hungarians was noticed stealthily picking their way along the banks of the Conemaugh towards Sang Hollow. Suspicious of their purpose, several farmers armed themselves and started in pursuit. Soon their most horrible fears were realized. The Hungarians were out for plunder. They came upon the dead and mangled body of a woman, lying upon the shore, upon whose person there were a number of trinkets of jewelry and two diamond rings. In their eagerness to secure the plunder, the Hungarians got into a squabble, during which one of the number severed the finger upon which were the rings, and started on a run with his fearful prize. The revolting nature of the deed so wrought upon the pursuing farmers, who by this time were close at hind, that they gave immediate chase. Some of the Hungarians showed fight, but, being out numbered, were compelled to flee for their lives. Nine of the brutes escaped, but four were literally driven into the surging river and to their death. The thief who took the rings was among the number of the involuntary suicides. (McCullough, pp. 210-211)
The next day General Hastings released a statement that said that these stories, and stories of other similar scenarios, were completely untrue. In Johnstown there wasn’t this degree of distrust of Hungarians or other ethnic groups. These stories were created more for readers in Pittsburgh and other less diverse communities than for the people of Johnstown. In Johnstown itself, cultures, ethnicities and other social factions came together strong in a united force to rebuild their city.
Clara Barton notes in her personal journal that, “So frightful and improbable were the reports that it required twenty-four hours to satisfy ourselves that it was not a canard” (Barton, p. 231). But Barton soon realized that the flood and its aftermath were quite real and within five days of the disaster she arrived with her newly formed Red Cross. The Johnstown Flood would be the first real test for Barton and her organization in handling a disaster of this magnitude. This will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter IV of this paper. The primarily role for Barton and the Red Cross was to coordinate the hundreds of volunteers who began arriving in Johnstown. Within a week of her arrival, the Red Cross had built temporary housing, a hospital and distribution centers. Nationally and internationally (including 18 countries), over three million dollars had been donated to the town of Johnstown along with material donations including “mattresses, wood and stone, pillows, hair combs and 7000 pairs of shoes” (Guggenheim, 1989). Besides burying the almost 3000 dead, there were over 27,000 people in the valley who had to be taken care of (McCullough, p. 201).
There are volumes of details, personal accounts, sensationalized articles, lists of the dead, logbooks, maps, pictures, souvenirs of debris and historical accounts of the Johnstown Flood. These historical accounts are fascinating to read and sometimes say more about the time in which they were written than the truth about the flood. What is remarkable is that the story of this disaster is strangely predictable and could indeed be a story of a disaster today – good guys and bad guys, heroes and villains, rich and poor, acts of God versus personal responsibility, journalistic accounts and truth – but what is fundamentally the same is the human response to catastrophe and the willingness of the Johnstownians to rebuild their city and reclaim their lives.
Chapter III
Disasterology
Introduction
As E. L. Quarantelli notes, “the study of disasters has escalated considerably in the last decade or so. In fact it has been said that the growth in the area has been exponential rather than linear” (Quarantelli, p. 2). Disasterology is a relative new field of study in academia, not so much from a scientific or meteorological approach but from systems, sociological and organizational paradigms. Before discussing the basic themes and dynamics of disaster, it is important to define the field. Russell R. Dynes writes that sociologically, a disaster is:
1. an event
2. located in time and space
3. in which a community
4. undergoes severe danger
5. and incurs losses
6. so that the social structure is disrupted
7. and the fulfillment of all or some of its essential functions is prevented.
(Dynes, p. 78)
While there has been an increase of attention to all topics associated with major catastrophic events, probably the notable development of the last 10-15 years has been the concern with the social behavioral aspects of disasters. Important for this study are the structural elements of disasterology that include cultural aspects such as values, beliefs and norms as well as social organizational aspects like internal and external social ties and the power structure of community. Although no empirical studies have been done specifically looking at cultural aspects of reaction to disaster, it is possible to glean some relevant issues from these texts on the study of the phenomenon of disaster. Beverly Raphael acknowledges the great loss and suffering which surrounds disastrous events. However, she also notes that there is great value in understanding how individuals and cultures react to disaster. She writes that, “The overwhelming picture of disaster is one of human resilience; of suffering that is overcome through courage and fortitude; of altruism, heroism, and human endurance. Catastrophes are survived though they are not forgotten” (Raphael, p. 24). She goes on to list several rationales for studying the psychosocial aspects of disaster phenomena. First, she points out that when studying reactions to disaster several common themes emerge. Second, she notes that organizational and social reaction has great interest because the society is pitted against a single common foe (the disaster itself). In addition she acknowledges that an understanding of reaction to large cataclysmic events can be applied to smaller disasters. “There is a need to better understand such potentials for change at society and community levels, and, in particular, what factors may mitigate against negative changes and promote positive changes” (Raphael, p. 307). People are often drawn to those things they fear, almost as if by identifying with it they can master their own fears surrounding disasters (Raphael, pp. 24-25). It is human to be fascinated by disaster as it reinforces fears of individual helplessness, and through the stories of the survivors, instills a feeling of elation or immortality over the prospect of “beating” nature and surviving the catastrophe.
Those people and communities involved in a disaster share an intense and positive feeling of shared experience and gain emotional strength from an active group process. “These factors combine to make people feel that there involvement with disasters, especially in helping roles, is important and worthwhile, perhaps more so than anything they have done in ordinary life” (Raphael, p. 26). Although it is the individual, personal stories that titillate us most about the Johnstown Flood, in reality, the value of studying this important disaster lies in a more comprehensive look at the event as a critical incident in American history and disaster study. Russell R. Dynes opens his scholarly contribution to the field by writing that:
Most accounts of disasters highlight the accounts of individuals. The dramatic news story concentrates on individual heroism and personal tragedy; cameras focus on faces to reveal a range of emotion, fatigue, and concern. They produce the most vivid images of disaster conveyed to the outsider. Such stories and pictures, in seeking to sharpen the focus, inadvertently distort much of the background of the disaster scene. While there are always individual victims, there are other responses on the part of the organizations in the community. We need to see disaster, not just as individual disaster, but as creating a set of problems for various community organizations. (Dynes, p. 1)
Thus, disasters become critical incidents to be studied on many levels. Disasters may induce some social change in a variety of ways, and this social change is a direct response to disaster and long term community redevelopment. Examples of this social change might include a change in power structures, a development of community infrastructures and cultural/value sharing
Culture and Disasters
“Disasters at both personal and community levels are inevitably part of human life” (Raphael, p. 309), and consequently exist in almost all cultures. Some scholars have even indicated that there are cultures driven by their history of disasters (such as some indigenous cultures inhabiting volcanic islands or communities building in territories of historical tsunamis). Other scholars, such as E. L. Quarantelli (1978) names a “disaster subculture” as a population that exists in the shadow of past disasters (and impending future catastrophic events). Historically and anecdotally, it is believed that different cultures react differently to disaster. This difference is based on the structural elements of the community social systems, their values and beliefs. Religious beliefs held by cultures also impact their relationship with disaster. Christian Western society based in the writings from the Bible, is inherently a culture based on the consequences of disaster – what causes it, a description of what it feels like to be in it, and the concepts of salvation (i.e. survivability) by the chosen few. A people’s concept of disaster is always epic and in any epic story there are always heroes or people who are examples of culturally valued behavior in times of crisis. Quarantelli notes that “myths and legends” often develop after a catastrophic event and become embedded in that culture’s historical identity. These expressive elements are an attempt to give the disaster event social meaning for the community (Quarantelli, p. 42).
In the history of the Unites States, there has been a gathering of cultures and cultural realities. This diversity makes an examination of disaster in relation to culture particularity interesting to study. Several scholars have noted that when faced with disaster, multi-ethnic communities tend to come together, united against a common destructive force. “The disaster situation changes the condition of diverse separate cultures as values and priorities emerge and consensus tends to increase during the emergency period” (Quarantelli, p. 20). Quarantelli goes on to note that:
As opposed to divergence and conflict that are often present in the pre-disaster state, disaster events produce heightened consensus. Community identification, involvement and cooperation tend to increase during the disaster period. In this respect, disasters “create” communities rather than destroy them. (Quarantelli, p. 34)
Cultural value systems, religious interpretation of disaster and cultural expectations around rebuilding and reaffirming cultural often become secondary to a society’s efforts for physical survival. How these cultures reflect back upon the disasters however, are likely to be very different depending on the cultures value systems and delayed interpretation of the meaning-making resulting from the event. As Beverly Raphael so eloquently writes:
The learning of the disaster experience must surely reinforce a capacity for hope. For the themes of human disaster response are powerful: courage rather than cowardice; compassion human concern of one for the other; and resilience in the face of overwhelming stress. The altruistic response of individual and community, the intensity of feeling across barriers of class and race must surely symbolize all that is best and strongest in the human species; it is an equation of hope for the future yet there is a dark cloud over this picture, and that is the capacity of human kind to create disaster in the indulgence of its own darkest urges. (Raphael, p. 310)
One cannot look at a catastrophic event, therefore, without noticing that historically poorer people, political disenfranchised people, workers, subcultures and socially marginalized groups have constituted an overwhelming number of disaster victims. Socioeconomic factors must be addressed when studying disasters as critical incidents. In addition to looking the victimization of the socially oppressed, it is also interesting to look at the power structures and social infrastructure in communities during the post-disaster phase.
Class and Disasters
It comes as no surprise that studies show that poor people are often the victims of disaster. They tend to live in higher risk locations in higher populations. In addition, they often do not have the same access to warning systems (via television, radio, and telegraph). Once the disaster hits, they often do not have adequate access to health care, are more prone to disease and may not have the training or education to combat complex crisis situations. Marginalized populations do not always have access to community of kinship infrastructures after catastrophic events. The people most likely will need to rely heavily on social welfare systems in the post-disaster time period. Quarantelli writes that, “Those in lower income levels have fewer economic reserves and are less able to meet criteria for credit and financing, and may have less experience or expertise in dealing with bureaucratic agencies or at a minimum be more reluctant to deal with such agencies” (Quarantelli, p. 236). Russell R. Dynes addresses this fact in his book on organizational behavior and disasters.
The particular spatial pattern of impact depends on the nature and location of the disaster agent. While impact may seem capricious and even random, the social consequences may not be. Certain population groups may be more affected than others. Certain occupational groups in particular industries may, by the very nature of their work, be in continual contact with explosives and substances. Poorly constructed homes are much more vulnerable than other homes, increasing the problem of moving for residents in the lower economic areas and classes. (Dynes, p 67)
Therefore housing issues, occupational divisions and ethnic ghettoization are often contributing factors to a high rate of morbidity and long term recovery for specific populations.
Power structures exist in all communities. The power structure of the community refers to the patterned differentials between individuals, groups and organizations in access to both authoritative and non-authoritative sources of social power. There is a social hierarchy with community leaders, the powerful elite, land and business owners and workers and laborers. Quarantelli refers to this social dynamic in terms of “exchange rates.” The power structures that exist before the disaster event, like wealth, social status, education media control and general expertise are greatly affected by the disaster event.
For example, during normal, non-disaster periods, wealth, high social standing, and subsystem solidarity may have high “exchange rates”, i.e. their possession gives their holder great potential social power. However, during the disaster period, these are not resources of high relevance. Specifically, resources that can be utilized to ameliorate disaster-created problems, such as knowledge and expertise, the control of requisite material resources and legality have much higher “exchange values” than during normal periods. For example, it has been found that the possession of disaster-relevant skills and knowledge are powerful resources underlying emergent leadership in the emergency period. Because of this alteration in the value of resources, the distribution of power across institutional areas can be altered. (Quarantelli, pp. 37-38)
This idea of “exchange values” clearly illuminates the shifting power dynamic in areas and communities affected by disasters.
During the early post-impact period of the disaster, when the community is isolated, at least for a short period of time, the affected community will turn inward focusing upon itself. There is a perceived urgency to protect lives and property and establish behavioral norms. Afterwards, when help arrives, this temporary infrastructure is often subsumed by larger external relief organizations. Both hierarchical and horizontal relationships increase. “In sum the disaster experience creates and eventually dissolves new forms of internal and external linkages within the community system” (Quarantelli, p. 36).
Class affects disaster both internally and externally. In a postmodern approach to the study of disaster, it is important to recognize the contribution that man, and man’s procurement of wealth, has contributed to the intensity and scope of many disasters. Often with little forethought of the implication of their actions, the oppressing or higher social and political strata of the population moved forth in a quest to have its own needs satisfied. Barry A. Turner has completed an insightful study entitled Man-made Disasters, which examines several instances of this dynamic. Although this is a lengthy quote, it raises several important and relevant issues.
Since the industrial revolution, the assumptions that man becomes involved in disasters only as an unwilling victim have become increasingly untenable. There is an important and pressing need to gain a greater knowledge of the circumstances which proceed and surround disasters, for several related reasons. First, the increasing size of the world’s population, and the tendency of this growing populations to concentrate itself in major centers increases the likelihood that any natural event such as a hurricane, a flood or an earthquake will adversely affect a large number of people. Secondly, the sources of energy which men control and which possess the potential for the creation of man-made disasters are coming under the authority of centralized bodies and organizations, and are thus increasingly vulnerable to misuse if major errors are made at the center. Thirdly, the kinds of energy which man now makes use of are inherently much more destructive than those which he has traditionally controlled. Finally, man has begun during the twentieth century to intervene more frequently and on a larger scale in the process of the environment which supports him, so that the possibility that he may upset some balance of natural forces to provoke a disaster becomes a very real one. (Turner, pp. 1-2)
Several themes central to the field of disasterology have been discussed in this section, namely: definitions of disaster; why it is helpful to study disasters as a social phenomenon; induction of social change; the relationship between culture and disaster and class and disaster; and the postmodern dynamic of the introduction of man-made disasters (which contribute to and often intensify natural disasters). These modern disaster theories are directly applicable and clearly illustrated by the Johnstown Flood of 1889. In Chapter IV, I will draw parallels between the historical accounts of the Johnstown Flood and theories of disasterology. In doing so, the use of the Johnstown Flood as a critical incident will be explored.
Chapter IV
The Johnstown Flood as a Critical Incident
Introduction
Russell R. Dynes’ text Organized Behavior and Disaster professes that the value in studying individual disasters comes not simply from eyewitness accounts and historical documentation, but from looking at the event from an organizational and sociological point of view. Clare Halverson’s handout from her Organizational Structure and Behavior class defines the critical incident technique as a “method of learning from one event or incident. Critical means crucial or of a decisive nature. It can be either positive or negative, but it is important” (Halverson). A critical incident technique consists of three fundamental levels. The first is the background of the event being discussed, such as where the event occurred, who was involved in the event and other pertinent historical information. Secondly, it involves a description of the actual event with as much detail as is required. Finally, an analysis of the critical incident related to the context or theoretical framework in which it occurred.
It is important to note that a critical incident can not only occur in small group dynamics but can also be studied at the level of a national disaster. Its critical nature implies that with analysis and contextual understanding, knowledge can be gleaned and awareness heightened in order to forward the communication skills of the individuals involved. Critical incidents, then, are a matter of perspective and it follows that critical incidents can concurrently be affecting parties on an individual level as well as on a larger systemic level (i.e. national or international). The goal of the critical incident technique is to provide the individuals, organization or culture with information that can affect further decision, behaviors and outcomes when confronted with similar circumstances. It is important to note that learning can take place on two levels: what went right and worked well; and what could be improved. Many “disaster communities” are now much better prepared due to an extensive evaluation of previous disaster events.
For this study, the Johnstown Flood is a particularly fine example of a critical incident that affected individuals on a micro-level and the community, nation and international relief community on a macro-level. Chapter II of this paper serves as a record of the disaster event, including a picture of Johnstown before the flood, a description of the flood event itself, and some information on the town during the post-disaster stage. Chapter III looks at the theoretical framework of the field of disasterology. In this chapter, I would like to discuss the Johnstown Flood in relation to the study of disaster theory in order to fulfill the final phase of the critical incident technique – the analysis.
Dynes’ Disaster Definition
Clearly the Johnstown Flood fits into Russell R. Dynes definition of a disaster. The flood was an event that is documented to having occurred over a few days in May over a hundred and ten years ago. It has become a part of the fabric of the American experience and changed the community of Johnstown forever. Personal losses tallied in the thousands while property damage occurred in the tens of millions. The social structure of Johnstown was catastrophically affected and many residents moved on from Johnstown changing the texture of the community. In addition, many organizations and volunteers came in to Johnstown impacting the community and social structures even further. It could be argued that as a result of the flood of 1889, Johnstown became a “disaster subculture” (Quarantelli, p.131). Johnstown continued to be a victim of flooding (there was a second major flood in 1960), but a prepared Johnstown never again suffered the losses of the original 1889 event. The identification between Johnstown and disaster became an international phenomenon, as is documented by the international press and the abundance of international relief monies. Johnstown’s economy, with the destruction of the Cambria Iron Works was halted, and Johnstown went from being an industrial city of producers to being dependent on external sources for its survival.
Culture and Class in Relation to Johnstown
It has been noted that diverse communities often come together in the face of an emergency or disaster – Johnstown was no exception. Although the population of Johnstown was primarily of diverse immigrant ethnicities, these cultures were united in their efforts to survive the “foe” of the disaster agent (or the flood). In Johnstown, however, the community also came together in opposition to the neglectful wealthy class that was represented to them by the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. This “one-up and one-down relationship” gave the community another reason to come together. The community joined forces and files a lawsuit against South Fork – which was never won. In a “one-up/ one down relationship”, the population which is one-up is seldom held responsible for its actions. Even when responsibility is found, it is hard to prosecute them as they are in control of the media and the judicial system (in many cases).
In Chapter III, I briefly discussed the relationship between religion and disaster, acknowledging Western society’s biblical myths and disaster predication. While the population of Johnstown supported its twenty-seven churches, and most families were members of the Catholic, Lutheran or Protestant churches, it could be argued that the people of Johnstown were united as members in the “Gospel of Wealth” or in the pursuit of their own role in the peak of the Industrial Revolution. Johnstown’s identity was based in what fueled its economy, not necessarily in the separation of religious groups. Once again their diversity was present but did not have a greater impact than their work lives or community reality as laborers in the steel industry. It would be interesting to delve deeper into an examination of the role of religion in general in the United States, at that time, due to immigration and abnegation of religious identity in favor of a national spirit.
In any time of conflict, there seems to be a scapegoated population that the community is riled up to persecute in one way or another. Although most of the historical accounts of Johnstown do not emphasize any cultural breakdowns after the flood, James Herbert Walker’s sensationalized account of the flood seemed to need a “dark and dirty group of thieves” to further dramatize the struggle and strife in the aftermath of the calamity. (See Appendix B.) General Hastings made it clear to outside news editors that these untrue reports were unwelcome and unnecessary.
Perhaps most interesting in a discussion of culture and disaster with Johnstown as an example, is the social or cultural phenomenon that was developed after the flood. The Johnstown Flood is an internationally famous event filled with accounts of heroism, gruesome details of deaths, the arrival of the relief workers and the socioeconomic responsibility angle to give it even more of a timeless place in the realms of legend. It is important to note that there had not been a “natural” disaster of this magnitude in the collective memories of the citizens of the United States and European countries at that time. Willis Fletcher Johnson writes that it was “a blow scarcely paralleled in the histories of civilized lands” (Johnson, Preface). One of the reasons why the Johnstown Flood took on mythic proportions nationally and internationally was due to the fact that this was the first major disaster in “modern” times in an “industrialized” nation. Mankind began to realize the consequences of concentrating populations in major centers. It seemed logical that the more people in a particular area, the greater the chance of loss of life should a disaster occur. This accentuates the idea that human error and lack of planning could potentially have grave consequences. The Johnstown Flood, then, became a sort of foreshadowing of disasters yet to happen.
The Johnstown Flood took on legendary and mythic proportions in other ways as well. For example, Johnstown Pennsylvania has become a tourist stop for those students, scholars and common people fascinated by the event both for its gruesome drama and for its historical significance. Johnstown has erected a museum documenting the event and there is a “rest stop/picnic area” at the site of the South Fork Dam. Many visitors make the pilgrimage to the Grandview Cemetery, on a high hill above Johnstown, to see the hundreds of plain marble headstones that mark the graves of the flood’s unknown dead. In the street of modern day Johnstown, steel plaques mark the waterline of the flood and of successive floods. Besides the Guggenheim documentary made about the flood, there have also been several books, major Hollywood films, plays (Neal Bell’s On the Bum or, the Next Train Through), theses and dissertations and even a children’s book. (See Appendix D). My own fascination with the Johnstown Flood has been a lifetime passion, and this current study now adds to the body of scholarly knowledge about this social and cultural phenomenon.
Power Structures and Social Infrastructure in Relation to Johnstown
The Johnstown Flood is also an excellent example of how power structures and community infrastructures are affected by a disaster event. Quarantelli notes that in the early post-impact of a disaster, the community turns inward relying on itself for immediate relief. David McCullough, in his book, The Johnstown Flood, documents the community’s reaction. The townspeople met at three o’clock on the afternoon on June 1st.
A meeting was called in Johnstown to decide what ought to be done there. Every able-bodied man who could be rounded up crowded into the Adams Street Schoolhouse. The first step, it was quickly agreed was to elect a “dictator”. John Fulton (Daniel Morrell’s successor) was the obvious choice but he was no where to be found, so it was assumed he was dead, which he was not. The second choice was Arthur J. Moxham, a remarkable young Welshman who had moved to Johnstown a few years before to start a new business making steel rails for trolley-car lines. Moxham was a fortunate choice. He took charge immediately and organized citizens committees to look after the most pressing and obvious problems. Morgues were to be established under the direction of the Reverends Beale and Chapman. Charles Zimmerman and Tom Johnson were put in charge of removing dead animals and wreckage. Dr. Lowman and Dr. Matthews were responsible for establishing temporary hospitals. Captain Hart was to organize a police force. There was a committee for supplies and one for finance, to which George Swank and Cyrus were assigned. (McCullough, p. 190)
In the days immediately following the flood, those who survived were commissioned to begin the rebuilding of Johnstown. Quarantelli’s theory of “exchange values” most certainly came into play as those workers with carpentry, stone masonry and rudimentary medical expertise became more valued than the bankers whose money had been washed down stream.
This community-based post-impact infrastructure, however, was temporary and limited by the condition of the volunteers who were in various states of physical and psychological trauma after the flood. Resources, of course, were also quite limited. With a couple of days, the Pennsylvania railroad sent men and machines to help with the clearing away of debris and to establish transportation and communication lines to the “outside world”. Most importantly, however, was the arrival of Clara Barton and her Red Cross – five days after the flood hit Johnstown.
When the news of the disaster had first reached Washington Friday night, she had postponed doing anything for twenty-four hours; the stories seemed too frightful and improbably to be true. But once there, she knew that her Red Cross had arrived at its first major disaster. The organization, she had long argued, was mean for just such emergencies, and now she intended to prove it. She set up headquarters inside an abandoned railroad car and using a packing box for a desk, began issuing orders. Hospital tents were to be opened immediately, construction was to start on temporary hotels for the homeless, and a house to house survey was to be conducted to see how many people needed attention. (McCullough, p. 230)
Clara Barton stayed onsite in Johnstown for the next five months, never leaving the scene even for a day. The Red Cross had clearly arrived. Because of her fame and international reputation, she was entrusted to manage the huge amount of international and domestic aid that poured into Johnstown. It was unusual for a woman to be trusted with such a level of responsibility at this time in history. Her presence in Johnston was a testament to the possibilities made available by a community’s fractured power structure and complimented by organizational opportunism. Although she made use of the work crews and newly developed leadership and community structure in Johnstown, Clara Barton and her Red Cross were clearly now in charge of the relief efforts. This shift from an internal infrastructure to an external infrastructure is documented in the study of disasterology.
The World Comes to the Aid of Johnstown
Although the wealthy members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club gave small donations to the people of Johnstown, their contribution in no way compared to the national an international donations received by Barton’s Red Cross. In the pamphlet Facts About the Johnstown Flood of 1889, it is quoted that a total of “$3,742,818.78 was collected for the Johnstown relief effort from within the United States and 18 foreign countries.” On the Saturday after the calamity more than $100,000 had been raised in Pittsburgh. New York City gave $560,000. Nickels and dimes came in from school children and prisoners. Churches sent $25, $50, and $100. Salt Lake City held a concert at the huge Mormon Tabernacle and sent all the proceeds to Johnstown. Material and goods were also donated. Relief trains kept rolling in to Johnstown containing furniture, lumber, tar, resin, embalming fluid, potatoes, food and clothing. A New York butcher sent 150 pounds of bologna.
The Rebuilding of Johnstown
After the flood, Johnstown had short-term rebuilding needs and long term planning needs. Although some survivors left, most of the survivors stayed on to rebuild their city. Thanks to the relief efforts of the Red Cross, the monetary donations that came in from all over the world, and the committed work ethnic of the townspeople, Johnstown did reemerge as a productive and progressive city. At the time, many journalists transformed Johnstown in to the metaphor of the phoenix who arose form the fires. One of the first items of business was the rebuilding of the Cambria Iron Works – which was the very center of the steel industry and the economic foundation for the city. This allowed them to revitalize their economic platform and gave them a sense of stability and purpose. Psychologically, however, their own sense that the resort with the “sailboats on the mountains” held great responsibility in the intensity and enormity of the disaster was a deep wound. The robber barons of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club’s reluctance to admit their liability further deepened this wound.
Chapter V
Conclusion
As David McCullough quotes from an article in the Chicago Herald, “The ghosts of Johnstown are the ghosts of American labor that is dead” (McCullough, p. 250). He continues on to quote a man by the name of Isaac Reed who wrote a widely read poem that opened with the lines:
Many thousand human lives –
Butchered husbands, slaughtered wives,
Mangled daughters, bleeding sons,
Hosts of martyred little ones,
(Worse than Herod’s awful crime)
Sent to Heaven before their time;
Lovers burnt and sweethearts drowned
Darling lost but never found!
All the horrors that hell could wish,
Such was the price that was paid for – fish! (McCullough, p. 250)
There was really never much mystery in anyone’s mind in Johnstown about the cause of the flood. George Swank spoke for just about everyone when he wrote, “We think we know what struck us, and it was not the hand of providence. Our misery was the work of man” (quoted in McCullough, p. 253). When people in a position of authority think of their needs as greater than the community at large they influence the conditions that lead to disaster. When the waters receded from Johnstown, the aftermath included a search for those who were responsible. Many modern day accounts of the flood begin and end with South Fork’s role in this disaster. Their power, circumstances, influence and neglect are perhaps the greatest lesson from Johnstown.
In this paper I set out to examine what I thought might be separate factors in the dynamic of the Johnstown Flood. It was my intention to look at the flood as a critical incident through the lens of disasterology in an effort to identify the relationships between culture and disaster and class or socioeconomic status and disaster. What I discovered was in some ways more complicated and in other ways more simplified. Many of my questions have been answered.
Does modern disaster theory have retrospective application and validity? Disasterology is a very young field of study. The writers and scholars of the disasterology texts included in this work undoubtedly had some knowledge of the Johnstown flood, but in each case, the case histories, and major disasters of focus all occurred in the later half of the 20th century. With the speed and turnaround of generational influences and technology, modern day disaster theory speaks directly toward contemporary disasters and disaster relief efforts. However, the themes, basic principles and patterns of human reaction to disasters and the circumstances that lead to these disasters can clearly be applied to Johnstown and are seemingly historically constant.
What are the relationships between culture and disaster and class and disaster?
In this study I have come to the conclusion that class and culture cannot be cleanly separated. This seems to be especially true in the United States, and especially true at this particular moment in time. The late 1800’s were a time for nation building, a time for the development of industry and the potential for national growth. Instead of looking at class and culture separately, it better serves the scholar to look instead at how these positionalities are affected and effect the stages of the disaster. Once a disaster hits, there is a leveling of cultural and social strata. This is indicated in the disasterology theory of the generation of a new community in the face of disaster. Cultural needs and values are set aside in the human efforts of survival, shelter, identifying and burying the dead and preliminary rebuilding of the community. Where culture and class diverge, is in the circumstances leading up to the disaster and in the long time recovery from the disaster. How the social phenomenon of the disaster “lives” in that culture as myth, legend and moral lesson differs cross-culturally.
How are power structures affected by disaster?
The story of the Johnstown Flood affirms disasterology research that power structures are greatly altered by disaster. These power structures are effected both internally and externally. The disruption in a predictable power structure allows individuals typically given authority to step forward and make contributions. A good example of this is the concept of “exchange values” as demonstrated in the Johnstown Flood post-disaster period. The onset of the Red Cross and its authority and control over the rebuilding of Johnstown is a strong example of this. In addition, private individual lives gained greater meaning through the eyewitness accounts and the accounts of individual heroism. The disaster and its documentation create a mythic power that lives beyond both the disaster itself and the natural lives of the survivors. Interestingly, the “villains” are in a sense dis-empowered in the case study in light of the historical judgement that followed the recovery from the disaster.
How does the era in which the disaster occurred affect the scope and depth of the disaster?
It is clear from this study that advancement of a civilization, the concentration of population, the greater the separation between rich and poor and man’s capacity for greed all greatly affect both the probability of and the intensity of disaster. Barry A. Turner would argue that natural disasters are a thing of the past and all “natural disasters” that occur in this century and centuries to come are magnified by the presence of man. It is this simple fact that makes Johnstown a milestone or marker in disaster history. In a sense, Johnstown was a warning of the potential of disasters to come.
Methodological Conclusions
The value of the critical incident methodology is that it allows the scholar to isolate an incident at a point in space and time. In this paper, it was crucial to dissect the Johnstown Flood into three stages: before the flood (setting the scene); the flood itself (the process and content of the disaster agent); and after the flood (or the post-disaster stage). Critical incidents are also based on perspective and in fact must be looked at from a variety of angles. And ultimately, the value of using a critical incident is to learn from it. There are a number of models that could be set down as templates to aid in understanding what happened at the Johnstown Flood: Marxist economics and social capitalism, religious predestination, protestant work ethic, or theories of social change. Stanley Hinckley’s perspective of the “one-up/one-down” dynamic includes many of these theories in a simplified form. It is also particular appropriate for this critical incident as the final judgement on the disaster is connected to the social oppression which occurred through the neglect of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club.
Need for Further Study
As mentioned above, it would be fascinating to explain the circumstances of the Johnstown Flood though different models. For instance what would be the Marxist interpretation of the Johnstown flood.? Would V. I. Lenin say that the disaster was predicable and demonstrates the inevitable collapse of capitalism by implosion? How would a fundamentalist religious scholar perceive the Johnstown Flood? If man is an instrument of God would his actions, neglectful or otherwise, be seen as a reflection of God’s great plan?
In order to connect the role of culture with disaster, it would be interesting to look at similar disaster agents, their affect on two or more different cultures, and complete a study of how each culture reacted to, explained and learned from the disaster. While this would be almost impossible to set up, it is actually one of the challenges of the field. In order to understand a tornado, you have to chase it and capture it. And no one tornado is like another. Perhaps this is why scholars in the field of disasterology all agree that more work needs to be done in looking at culture and disaster. None of the scholars had yet found a way to draw correlations of behavior as each disaster incident is unique in its conditions and effects. As the field of disasterology gains more momentum and respect in the academic community, it is hoped that more will be learned. In a sense we need to wait for the disasters themselves to occur and provide us with the lessons.
Modern man experiences disaster and catastrophe primarily through the media. Journalistic accounts, eyewitness reports, tables of statistics and insurance reports of losses tell the stories of the disasters. It would be interesting to write about the interpretation of disaster through these various media. Media is cultural construct, therefore it would be of interest to see how disasters are described and reported by local, national and internal presses. In this modern day of immediate reporting and visual images broadcast via satellite all over the world, disaster has become a form of voyeuristic entertainment. How has time and history affected the telling of the “disaster story” and a culture’s sensitivity to destruction?
The presence of the Red Cross at Johnstown was a significant event it is development as an organization. It would be interesting and useful from a development/ management perspective to see how the events of the Red Cross at Johnstown led to the methods and techniques still employed by the Red Cross today. It would also be useful to do an in depth study of Clara Barton’s management technique and relief strategy as this was, in her own words, a critical incident for her as an individual – and hence for the Red Cross as a whole.
Finally, I think it would be of great interest to take a psychological, qualitative approach to the flood and the aftermath of its survivors. Early descriptions of the emotional and physical state of the people of Johnstown read very much like a symptom paragraph for posttraumatic stress-disorder. How did these individuals continue on in their lives and what were the long-lasting emotional and psychological affects of this great calamity?
The Johnstown Flood would be a wonderful unifying curricular unit for high school or college level students in that it could be examined from a number of levels and disciples: - American History, Civil Defense, Law, Geography, Meteorology, Psychology, Research Methods, Economics, Literature (first person narrative), Biography, Civil Engineering, Urban Planning and Mathematics (flood quantities, rate of speed, economic losses, etc). An entire year could be dedicated to a study of this critical incident with many lessons to be learned.
Obviously, there are many questions still to be answered about the Johnstown Flood. This critical incident is rich with possibilities. It is my hope that this study of the Johnstown Flood encourages a greater use of critical incidents in history for case study evaluation and the application of theory.
Appendixes
Appendix A: Title Page from The Johnstown Horror
Appendix B: Pictures from Johnstown
Appendix C: Johnstown Bids Farewell to Clara Barton
Appendix D: The Terrible Wave (children’s book)
Appendix E: One-Up, One-Down Model
Appendix F: Self-Evaluation
Appendix A
Title page from James Herbert Walker’s sensational account of the Johnstown Flood of 1889. This book was written, published and on sale in Johnstown within one month of the disaster.
Appendix B
General view of the ruins, looking up Stony Creek
[photo from Willis Fletcher Johnson’s History of the Johnstown Flood]
Ruins of the Cambria Iron Company’s Store
[from Willis Fletcher Johnson’s The History of the Johnstown Flood]
The Moorhouse House, one of the “cottages” at the South Fork
Fishing and Hunting Club
[from David McCullough’s The Johnstown Flood]
An “artists” rendition of the Hungarian thieves who supposedly raided dead bodies
in the wake of the flood
[from James Herbert Walker’s The Johnstown Horror]
Scene from the days following the flood
[from David McCullough’s The Johnstown Flood]
A photograph of the ruins after the flood, most likely a staged photo
[from David McCullough’s The Johnstown Flood]
Temporary housing set up for volunteer workers and soldiers
[from David McCullough’s The Johnstown Flood]
The body of a child carried into the Adams Street schoolhouse,
a temporary morgue
[from David McCullough’s The Johnstown Flood]
One of the Red Cross Hotels built in Johnstown within a week of the flood.
[photo courtesy of the Red Cross]
Appendix C
Article written in local paper on Clara Barton’s leaving Johnstown
[courtesy of the Red Cross]
Appendix D
“On a rainy Friday afternoon in May, 1889, Megan Maxwell sat on the window sear in the attic of her large house, watching the water level rise in the street below. The spoiled daughter of a prominent family in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Megan was more preoccupied with thoughts of her first grown-up party the night before than by the unusual amount of water swirling by. She little realized that at that very moment the South Fork Dam had broken, unleashing the tremendous mass of water that caused the great Johnstown Flood.” (from book jacket)
Appendix E
Appendix F
Self Evaluation
1) What have I learned from the research?
I feel that I have learned a great deal about industrial America before the turn of the century. I have a heightened appreciation for the people who manned the blast furnaces, mined the coal, and built the infrastructure that allowed the United States to become a global leader. Their sacrifices were immense and in many ways immeasurable, yet we in our current national state still reap the benefits of their labors.
I feel a strong connection to issues of social justice and labor rights. Long before coming to SIT I took a class in disasterology which is rare to find in a university. The perspective of this class focused on issues of survivability and responsibility. Understanding that development leads to population, economic growth and industrial development through my studies at SIT, and the geopolitical restructuring of people is a fundamental platform of knowledge previously missing from my study of disaster. By approaching the flood at Johnstown with the lens of both disaster theory and economic and industrial development, it is possible to create a forum for learning. Understanding how people’s lives can be influenced or even destroyed in an ever-increasing world of man-made disasters is directly related to my personal commitment to equal economic access, social up-leveling and cultural justice.
There are “Johnstowns” all over the world these days, cities on the brink of progressive development and industry driven communities. There are “South Fork Clubs” as well in the form of corporations, countries and individuals with great wealth and little awareness. The dynamic for neglectful development is a very real threat to many societies. The power structures, responsibility issues and cultural and class divisions studied here in this paper could be applied elsewhere. Johnstown can be looked at as a historical event. But it is very much alive. The “flood” is still occurring – in different places, with different names, involving different parties. But it is a mistake to study the Johnstown Flood as merely an event in space and time, to look back with nostalgia. Instead, I have learned that events such as this one can be examined in hindsight for their meaning and with foresight to their very real and very current implications
Finally, on a more personal level, I have learned that time passes more quickly than I had realized. I have learned that I have a personal value that is completionist in nature that was put to the test in the completion of this thesis. I have learned that sometimes I need to be very clear in expressing my needs and limitations and that if given the chance I can complete what I have started. I have learned that disasters and catastrophes are a matter of perspective. What is tragic to one person is another person’s motivation. In writing a paper about a critical incident in history, I was stopped mid-process by my own critical incident. A “disaster” on a personal level. And like the Johnstownians I rose up out of the mud, rebuilt the infrastructure of my life and have become a producer once again.
2) Did the final document turn out as I anticipated?
The final document lacks some of the great detail and personal accounts of the Johnstown Flood that I wish it could contain. I remember the first time I read some of these eyewitness accounts of the flood and how moved I was by them. In a sense it was like reading a sacred spiritual text. Were this a dissertation, I would have perhaps devoted a chapter to detailing some of these accounts. For the purposes outlined in this thesis, however, there was no place for this detailed work. Instead I followed the critical incident model and gave enough background information on the flood to justify the discussion of the flood in the light of disaster theory. I didn’t expect that I would be able to incorporate pictures into the actual body of the document and am pleased with the texture and depth these photographic images give to the experience of learning about the flood. There are, after all, multiple ways of knowing, and it is important for this work to affect the reader on a visual level as well as through the written word.
3) What would I do differently?
If given the chance to repeat this study from what I know now, I would like to have completed a qualitative study through the voices of survivors and their descendents. Russell R. Dynes mentions that there is a great need to disaster research to be completed in this way, in addition to the empirical, qualitative methods currently being used. As narrative research gains respect and authenticity as a research methodology, the field is rich with possibilities for new and original work.
In addition, it would be fascinating to have the chance to work more closely with the historical branch of the Red Cross and look at how the work they did around the Johnstown Flood impacted their forming as an organization and their own learning about disaster response and relief. Clara Barton’s role in the flood would also be a fascinating area of study. A study of her life and her impact on the Red Cross would be a rich resource for the study of managerial structures and strategies. Gender issues around the authority and power given to (taken by?) her are also fascinating. I would also like to do a follow-up study about how the survivors coped in the long term. This study could be explored through the framework of post-traumatic stress disorder. In fact, some of the initial accounts of survivors reads like a symptomatic study of an individual’s response to great stress. Every particular aspect or facet of the Johnstown Flood could be grounds for a dissertation study. This is a critical incident rich with possibility.
4) In what way do I expect the research will be useful in my chosen field or area of interest?
Understanding that development promotes the possibility of disaster (or the increase of intensity of a natural disaster) is a crucial awareness to have if one hopes to work in the area of international development. The most important behavior in the light of disaster is prevention. Recognizing the signs and conditions that compound the probability of mortality and property destruction is the best way to impact the safety and security of a stated community.
The connection between disaster and myth, the creation of social phenomenon, and cultural reactions and interaction are also important information for the international administration, trainer or developer. The use of critical incident – and especially the use of an historical incident which can be dissected in retrospect – is a wonderful teaching tool, and could be implemented in a variety of forums, from in-service trainings, to college classroom to Peace Corps training camps internationally. It is important to understand that the human condition hasn’t changed fundamentally. We are as connected to those who came before us as we are to those who are setting the stage to come after us. The awareness that someone in the future may look back to evaluate your decisions is a wonderful motivator encouraging a thorough and comprehensive approach to the delicate and abstract work of transforming society.
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