On May 31, 1889 the South Fork Dam gave way and a 20-million-ton wall of water reaching 70 feet high raced down a mountainside and destroyed the industrial town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Beyond the fact that this was the deadliest flood disaster in American history with over 2,200 people losing their lives, I knew very little about this famous disaster, although I was always struck by the fact this great flood took place in the mountains of Pennsylvania. But then I was raised on television images of towns being flooded because of rain-swollen rivers or hurricanes, and not because a dam breaks, which always smacks of some sort of Hollywood movie. However, this look at the Johnstown Flood by Jim Gallagher for the Great Disasters: Reforms and Ramifications series gives young readers a comprehensive look at the city of Johnstown, the causes of the flood, the extent of the death and destruction, and the heroism and determination of not only those who survived the flood but those who tended the survivors as well.

Gallagher begins by telling of the storm that dropped rain on the Johnstown area that Decoration Day as the 30,000 people living in communities in the Conemaugh Valley went to sleep that night. The book then goes back and tells the story of Johnstown as a mountain boomtown with iron and steel mills as well as abundant railroad links that made it an industrial center. Gallagher also tells of the construction of the dam that would play the fateful role in the disaster and the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, a.k.a. the Bosses Club, that was developed as a summer resort for the elite of Pittsburgh society and their families (including Andrew Carnegie and Andrew Mellon). After a chapter detailing the rising of the water, the South Fork Dam gives way and a 40-foot high way of water moving 10-15 miles per hour rushed down the valley towards Johnstown. Gallagher details the progress of the water and the resulting destruction as other small towns were washed away and a mountain of debris was carried along with the water. Black & white photographs taken of the aftermath of the flood provide mute evidence to what happened, but it is Gallagher's descriptions that make the disaster seem real.

The final two chapters of the book deal with the aftermath of the flood as families were reunited and the survivors organized to deal with the emergency, and the reforms that resulted. One of the heroes emerging from the story was Clara Barton, whose Red Cross volunteers established the organization's reputation working for five months in Johnstown and distributing nearly a half million dollars' worth of blankets, clothing, food, and cash. Gallagher also details what the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers did to prevent this disaster from being repeated in the Conemaugh Valley. I appreciate Gallagher's sense of irony: the book ends talking about how you can still visit some of the original cottages from the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club that still stand in Saint Michael.

In keeping with the focus of this series there is an emphasis on the important reforms and ramifications resulting from the Jonestown flood. This includes not only how the safety of dams throughout American was reexamined but also at how legislation was passed regulating new dam construction. Young readers will get a sense that thousands of lives have been saved because of these changes, which is exactly the point the editors want to underscore. A land developer wanted to create a lake for his exclusive resort club in the Allegheny Mountains, ignored warnings from experts, and cut corners in reconstructing an earthen dam. Other volumes in this series look at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company Fire of 1911, the "Titanic," the influenza pandemic of 1918-1919, the Stock Market Crash of 1929, the "Hindenburg," Pearl Harbor, and Terrorism.

After a brief visit to the Johnstown Flood National Park in Pennsylvania, I started digging at my local library for books and videos. I found this book, which was also for sale in the Park gift shop.

I found this to be very readable. Lots of photos and illustrations that broke up what could have been a very dry, but dramatic text... as a result, this book works for BOTH kids and adults. It frequently refers back to the definitive work from 1968, David McCullough's "Johnstown Flood"... but is a much briefer book designed to tell all sides of the story and illustrates it as well.

From the graphic cover painting, to the wide margins and easy to read type face, this book has been positioned to stand on most school library shelves.... The only problem is that it won't stay there long enough for you to find it.

A fine gift for those of any age who are interested in the Greatest Flood disaster in the USA, that helped to launch the American Red Cross to national prominence.

Definitely consider this book! Reasonably priced, very accessable, recently published in 2000.

*(Now, I'm looking for the other books in the series....)
Enjoy!

PS: I also found the PBS America Experience "The Johnstown Flood" video and thought it did a WONDERFUL job of telling the tale... with emphasis on the life around the lake and townspeople's lives BEFORE the flood. The actually depiction of the flood is fairly short, and comes late in the program, but very worth waiting for. The original short 20 minute documentary won an academy award, and the hour-long expanded video will not disappoint. WARNING: Avoid the Descriptive Audio for the visually handicapped version, unless you need help. The skillful narration sandwiched between the original narrator's voice is distracting and spoils the mood. [David McCullough does a stand-up intro and close at the National Park display too!)
But do watch any version you can find at your library, or order it from Public Broadcasting Service or your local station.!!!!)

The 1889 Johnstown Flood is a story that is frequently difficult to tell to children, but with this book, Mr. Gallagher succeeds.

He tells the story honestly, and, most importantly, he does not "dumb down" the story.

Text is well researched and presented, and the illustrations are expertly chosen.

After using this book, which both kids and adults should enjoy, the reader will have a true appreciation for why the Johnstown Flood is such a significant story, and one that cannot be forgotten.

This book is great!It has all the "ingrediants" for a good book!Like suspense buy it you'll like it.

Ever since their trips back in time to the eruption of Mount Saint Helens in 1980 and a Minnesotta blizzard in 1940 nearly ended in disaster, Warren and Betsy have vowed never again to use the Instant Communter, invented by Warren's grandfather, to travel back in time. When assigned a report on the Johnstown Flood in 1889, they interview a ninety year old man whose parents survived the flood, years before he was born, but whose sister, Anna, died. Betsy and Warren decide to travel back in time to attempt to save Anna's life. But can two kids from the present actually change history - and will they be able to get back to their own time without complications?

Dr. Morawska is a brilliant scholar. Her prose is lucid and well-formed. Her 10 years of interviewing at Johnstown, PA and her wealth of knowledge about the Jewish diaspora produced this monuemental work. The book reads quickly even for someone with little or no background knowledge of Jewish Americans. And I thoroughly enjoyed Dr. Morawska's book. She is a great teacher and writer.

This title is one of the best ever published on the May 31, 1889 Flood. It is a good combination of powerful text and unbelievable pictures.

It was printed in limited quantities, but you can still find it at the Johnstown Flood Museum by calling (814)539-1889 or (888)222-1889.

Find it and hold on to it.

This book provides an easy-to-read, excellent overview of early Johnstown, NY history. The format of the book consists of many photos with three to four sentences describing the signifigance of each photo.

As a twenty-five year Johnstown resident, it was fascinating to see and read about the origins of the historical buildings and sites of the city.

While the descriptions of the photos tell you what the buildings or sites are today, few pictures from the last ten to fifteen years are contained in the book. This is the one downfall of the book.

Overall, the book allows you to obtain a quick and consise history of the city. It's an enjoyable book for any area resident to read.

The Johnstown flood symbolizes the sweeping hand of an elite, distant class of people with little regard for those "beneath them". To create a sense of country life in the Pennsylvania mountains, a few very wealthy people played with Mother Nature, building a cheap damn to form a lovely lake. But the lake proved to be more powerful than the dam, and tragedy poured out. Country lifestyles of the rich and famous came tumbling down a narrow gorge, nearly wiped Johnstown off the map, and forever changed the way Americans looked at dams.

Any school child or any adult who believes that history is boring or absent color simply needs to read this fine book, not only to enjoy a good story but also to learn how charmed lives, misplaced hope, ill-managed technology and simple human error can combine to make tragedy.

If this were fiction, you'd marvel at how he made it up. But it's real, and all the more marvelous in the telling and in the detail.

I first became familiar with the Johnstown Flood by the book _In Sunlight, In a Beautiful Garden_ by K. Cambor. Intrigued furthur, I bought this book and was not disappointed.

Carefully researched and brought to life in words, the event is just incredibly horrible. Even worse is the reality that this was preventable, and had it not been for immensely self-centered, wealthy men (Mellon, Carnegie, Frick) the damn dam would never have been inadequately restored and improperly maintained. For the benefits of so few (rich), so many people lost their lives. Towns virtually disappeared, wiped off the face of the earth along with livestock and every tree, bush and flower for miles down-river. The human impact stories are over whelming. Children were torn from their parent's arms in the crush of water that swept through their homes. Families were separated, their relatives buried in mud leaving their bodies unrecoverable for eternity.

The shame is undeniable. What makes it worse is the fact that the richest men tried to make amends by contributing blankets to the survivors.

Just blankets.

This is a clear cut, tell it as it should be told book.

I became interested in the Johnstown Flood after having seen a documentary on it several years ago. I grew up in western Pennsylvania, and had always heard about the Johnstown Flood but didn't really know too much about it. After having read David McCullough's excellent book, I felt like I knew the town and people personally. I visited there afterward -- the Johnstown Flood Museum and the site of the lake and dam in South Fork -- both of which are worth a visit if you are interested in history. If you are planning to see either, read the book first!

I liked this book because it was a true story. It happened in Johnstown,Pennsylvania on the day after Memorial Day in 1889. It was one of the worst floods anyone has ever experienced. I also liked this book because it had a lot of action unlike some other books I've read. For example, everybody was yelling and running because of the 20,000,000 tons of water that came from Lake Conemaugh after the dam broke. Eveything happened so quickly. It took less then 10 minutes from start to finish.

I would recommend this book to a friend because it tells about the history of one of the biggest floods. It happened in Johnstown, Pennsylvania on May 31,1889. More then 2,000 people died.

I liked this book because it was historical and true. It was about the biggest flood in the United States history. It happened on Merch 31,1889.
I also liked the book because something nice came out of something sad. The sad thing is that 2,209 people died. The good thing is that the people of nearby Pittsburg helped Johnstown. From all over Pittsbrug they loaded up a train with supplies of blankets, canned food, fresh water, and other goods for the people left in Johnstown.

Striking Steel is well written. The author did a massive amount of research and shows an understanding of the deeper underlying labor issues. While we may not always agree on the issues, I came away with a better understanding of why it is sometimes necessary for unions to strike. Even though Mr. Metzgar did not drive the point that all of us--even those of us with comfy office jobs--have better working conditions because unions have demanded them, his recitation of working conditions in the 20th century, made me realize this is so. It is when he brings the issues home--literally--to show how they shaped his family and neighborhood that the book takes on life. Statistics, theory, and conjecture are fine--but the reality of the lives of the workers is where the book has its greatest impact.

In these memoirs by the son of a steelworker union rep, Metzger does a great job explaining how steelworkers and their Union created a middle class in steel towns across the U.S. by repeatedly striking during the 1950's. He brings to life the dry legalistic contract language, that steelworkers walked off the job for 119 days to protect and shows how when backed by a strong union and dedicated union reps, these words gave ordinary workers the tools to get respect on the job even when the boss wasn't keen on giving it. His history of the 1959 strike is well documented and he does a good job explaining why so many others got it wrong.

T. William Evans has written a novel that combines the terror of the Johnstown, Pennsylvania flood of 1889 with a wonderfully sweet love story of two young people. His story is full of well researched, historically accurate details of the area and the events that inevitably led to the horrendous flood. The romance of James, a young boy from a wealthy family and Mary, from a hard working family will touch your heart. The conversations between them alternate between realistic language and an extreme poetic nature which is a bit distracting. There also seems to be a switching back and forth of the story being told in a present tense and the past tense, which feels more like an editing problem than a writing detail. Even with those distractions, T. William Evans dramatic writing pulls you into the heart of the story and drags you along like a swift current. This book was very difficult to put down, you feel a need to stay with the characters and to know what is going to happen and how! Mr. Evans is a promising new author with the ability to grab and hold his audience.

T. William Evans has written a novel that combines the terror of the Johnstown, Pennsylvania flood of 1889 with a wonderfully sweet love story of two young people. His story is full of well researched, historically accurate details of the area and the events that inevitably led to the horrendous flood. The romance of James, a young boy from a wealthy family and Mary, from a hard working family will touch your heart. The conversations between them alternate between realistic language and an extreme poetic nature which is a bit distracting. There also seems to be a switching back and forth of the story being told in a present tense and the past tense, which feels more like an editing problem than a writing detail. Even with those distractions, T. William Evans dramatic writing pulls you into the heart of the story and drags you along like a swift current. This book was very difficult to put down, you feel a need to stay with the characters and to know what is going to happen and how!! Mr. Evans is a promising new author with the ability to grab and hold his audience.