The Flood Year 1927 - A Cultural History (Paperback)

A richly nuanced cultural history of the Great Mississippi flood The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 was the most destructive river flood in U.S. history, drowning crops and displacing more than half a million people across seven states. It was also the first environmental disaster to be experienced virtually on a mass scale. The Flood Year 1927 draws from newspapers, radio broadcasts, political cartoons, vaudeville, blues songs, poetry, and fiction to show how this event provoked an intense and lasting cultural response. Americans at first seemed united in what Herbert Hoover called a "great relief machine," but deep rifts soon arose. Southerners, pointing to faulty federal levee design, decried the attack of Yankee water. The condition of African American evacuees prompted comparisons to slavery from pundits like W.E.B. Du Bois and Ida B. Wells. And environmentalists like Gifford Pinchot called the flood "the most colossal blunder in civilized history." Susan Scott Parrish examines how these and other key figures-from entertainers Will Rogers, Miller & Lyles, and Bessie Smith to authors Sterling Brown, William Faulkner, and Richard Wright-shaped public awareness and collective memory of the event. The crises of this period that usually dominate historical accounts are war and financial collapse, but The Flood Year 1927 allows us to assess how mediated environmental disasters became central to modern consciousness.

General

Imprint:	Princeton University Press
Country of origin:	United States
Release date:	December 2018
First published:	2017
Authors:	Susan Scott Parrish
Dimensions:	235 x 155 x 24mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback - Trade
Pages:	416
ISBN-13:	978-0-691-18294-0
Categories:	Books > Earth & environment > The environment > Environmental impact of natural disasters & phenomena Books > Humanities > History > American history > General Books > Humanities > History > World history > From 1900 > General Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social issues > Social impact of disasters > General Books > History > American history > General Books > History > World history > From 1900 > General
LSN:	0-691-18294-9
Barcode:	9780691182940

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