The Thousand-Year Flood

August 29, 2011
In this solid narrative, Welky (Everything Was Better in America: Print Culture in the Great Depression) leads the reader though the history of the 1937 Ohio River flood, discussing both the manmade and natural causes for the extreme flood. By the time the crest passed, the flood had killed hundreds of people, buried thousands of towns, and left a million people homeless.” Yet the devastation is identified by the author as a “catastrophe lost to historians” as it probably is to most Americans. Welky, a history professor at the University of Central Arkansas, examines the role of those involved in relief efforts and the politics of flood control: President Franklin Roosevelt and his New Deal reformers, the Red Cross, WPA, Army Corps of Engineers, and the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union. He delves into the troublesome race relations and problems encountered by African-Americans during the flood and deftly traces the flood’s lasting legacy upon the cities and towns in its path—some, like Paducah, Ky., rebuilt and prospered; others, like Shawneetown, Ill., a town that once laughed at a “request for credit from someplace called Chicago,” never regained its population or vibrancy. Welky’s remarkable narrative will be of particular interest to students of the New Deal and 1930s America as well as the general reader.

Starred review from September 1, 2011

The story of the worst flood in American history and how it overwhelmed the Ohio river valley and much of the lower Mississippi in January and February 1937.

Writing that "the 1937 flood is a catastrophe lost to historians," Welky (Univ. of Central Arkansas; The Moguls and the Dictators: Hollywood and the Coming of World War II, 2008, etc.) exposes the weaknesses in the Army Corps of Engineers' approach to river management, many of which were known at the time. Had lessons been learned then, perhaps later disasters might have been avoided or had less-catastrophic results. The entire 981-mile length of the Ohio River was above flood stage at one point, along with tributaries from Pennsylvania to Illinois. Water surged 15 feet above previous records, covered 15,000 miles of highway and disrupted rail traffic across the eastern United States. Nearly 400 people died, and more than 1 million were forced to evacuate their homes. By the time of FDR's second inauguration, the flood was in full swing and was mentioned briefly in a radio address January 30th, when the President called for a "national effort on a national scale...to decrease the probability of future floods and disasters." Welky reviews the history of the process by which the Army Corps of Engineers institutionalized its role as the lead agency in river management. He argues that the Corps' insistence on building levees and floodways contributed to the scale of the disaster by channeling and accelerating the flood waters which easily over-topped the levees of towns across valley. Unfortunately, nothing ever came of FDR's vision of a national-resources council to coordinate all aspects of river-basin management.

An eye-opening account of a national disaster that has been all but forgotten, as well as a shameful spotlight on the short-sightedness of humans in the face of the awesome powers of nature.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

November 1, 2011

The immediacy of news coverage of contemporary national disasters has distracted us from their long-lasting effects. Welky (history, Univ. of Central Arkansas; Everything Was Better in America: Print Culture in the Great Depression) details the story of the catastrophic flooding of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers in 1937. The flood caused millions of dollars in damage and took almost 400 lives as the river crested, in some places at nearly 60 feet. Welky's scholarship provides a timely (75th anniversary) examination of the flood's impact and of the New Deal responses to it, both the successful and the failed, during a time of tension between a still-conservative nation and an activist administration. Welky not only examines the events themselves but seeks to understand why the flood happened and "why it happened as it did." He also ably explores the legacy of the flood and the changing nature of Americans' connection with nature. VERDICT All readers with an interest in the impact of natural disasters in American history or in 20th-century American studies will find this to be a worthwhile read.--Nancy Richey, Western Kentucky Univ. Lib., Bowling Green

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2011
Most 1930s natural calamities (the Dust Bowl, the 1938 New England hurricane) have a work of history to chronicle them, but not the 1937 Ohio River flood. Rectifying that omission, Welky produces a model of the disaster genre that embraces national and local politics, individual experiences, and philosophies of flood control within the New Deal context. Welky most intently follows the travails of Louisville, Kentucky; Cairo and Shawneetown, Illinois; and the Missouri boot heel, whose historical relationships to the river, from founding to enduring prior floods, preface Welky's day-by-day depictions of officials' evolving responses to rising waters whose magnitudethe flood displaced a million people and caused hundreds of deathsmobilized the Red Cross and New Deal bureaucracies like the WPA. Overall, relief efforts highlighted existing social problems of segregation and the sharecropping system, which Welky recounts in numerous incidents that occurred during and after the flood. A comprehensive account, including political maneuvers over flood-control bills provoked by the deluge, this well-wrought history reflects thorough research and on-the-ground acquaintance with the Ohio River region.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)