At the end of the last century, Johnstown, Pennsylvania, was
a booming coal-and-steel town filled with hardworking
families striving for a piece of the nation's burgeoning
industrial prosperity. In the mountains above Johnstown, an
old earth dam had been hastily rebuilt to create a lake for
an exclusive summer resort patronized by the tycoons of that
same industrial prosperity, among them Andrew Carnegie,
Henry Clay Frick, and Andrew Mellon. Despite repeated
warnings of possible danger, nothing was done about the dam.
Then came May 31, 1889, when the dam burst, sending a wall
of water thundering down the mountain, smashing through
Johnstown, and killing more than 2,000 people. It was a
tragedy that became a national scandal.
Graced by David
McCullough's remarkable gift for writing richly textured,
sympathetic social history, The Johnstown Flood is an
absorbing, classic portrait of life in nineteenth-century
America, of overweening confidence, of energy, and of
tragedy. It also offers a powerful historical lesson for our
century and all times: the danger of assuming that because
people are in positions of responsibility they are
necessarily behaving responsibly.
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