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The final two chapters of Isaac’s Storm, are about the aftermath of the Hurricane and how the city went about fixing the resulting problems. In the book it says that the first thing anyone that as approaching the city of Galveston, whether from land or from sea, was the smell of death that lingered in the air from all of those whom had died in the Hurricane, as attested to by Captain Simmons and Col. William Sterett. Although anyone approaching the city of Galveston on a train could unfortunately see all of the personal and emotional destruction in the waters that the Hurricane brought so far inland that the train could not get all the way into Galveston making the passengers need a boat to approach the city properly. One thing all the survivors could agree upon was to try to locate any missing persons from their families until they were found alive or as a corpse. Often times the families found their missing family member because they were listed as one of dead in the newspaper. All of these dead as stated by gravity21 were first “attempted to bury the dead but as the stench of dead started to overpower the city and so many bodies remaining to be buried, they eventually resorted to mass burnings in attempt to quicken the process,” eventually having to resort to burning the excess corpses.

Isaac had stated he felt a sense of guilt for not having thought the storm would be so severe, even attested some of his anger to Joseph for having the forethought to warn people to evacuate before the Hurricane could hit. Of course afterwards the town built a wall and lifted the town up several feet. All of these contribute to allowing people of present-day to see the reactions to similar storms of the present that had happened in the past.

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The last two parts of Larson’s book covers over the events after the storm has passed by. One of the top priorities that were mentioned in the reading was the disposal of the dead. At first people attempted to bury the dead but as the stench of dead started to overpower the city and so many bodies remaining to be buried, they eventually resorted to mass burnings in attempt to quicken the process. Disposal teams were formed but could only work in shifts of 30 minutes because that was the amount of time they could handle the stench of dead people and animals.

Along with dealing how to dispose of the dead, another topic I wish to bring up is the looting of corpses. The book talks about how black men were looting and chewing bodies to take something. (242) This mentioning of taking loots from dead bodies relates back to what CLUNA3 said about how people wanted to take something in order to remember the Johnstown Flood. What is different about this part however is how Larson specifies who was doing the looting. After word of these black men looting, word gets out and local papers decide to blow the story out of proportion.

Two key points I wish to address before ending this blog relates back to Isaac. The title of the work is Isaac’s Storm and in the beginning could lead others to question why it was done this way. It was towards the end of “Not Dead” do readers understand why, Isaac made a report, to which he was going to send to the bureau about the storm and called it his storm because he experienced the events. Also want to note how he mentions the report is personal because of the way he experienced. The final point I want to talk concerns on who is to blame. There seems to be a few directions in which this could go. Isaac filing the reports struggles in what to say when dealing with the failures. He thinks about the failure of headquarters and West Indies Service failing to recognize the storm as a hurricane; he also blames himself for not recognizing the signals himself earlier.

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Chapter’s 5 & dealt with the aftermath of the Galveston Hurricane.  As relief groups are making making their way into Galveston or at least trying to make their way into Galveston, people who left before the hurricane immediately take notice on how different Galveston looks post hurricane.  The account of Captain Simmons and his crew is given as they enter Galveston to give us readers an understanding of just how bad the hurricane had hit Galveston. The book says “nothing was as it had been when the ship left.” (Larson pg.224) Different rumors go around about the number of dead, but one thing that is the same is that “a powerful storm had struck Galveston without warning and done the city great damage.” (Larson pg.227)  I found this quote very interesting because as readers we know that there were several warnings given to the Weather Bureau, but ignored.  Unlike to the reader, to the people of Galveston the hurricane did come without warning because they weren’t informed until it was to late unfortunately.  This resulted to the great number of deaths.  The number of deaths was so large that corpses had to be burned because there was no more room to bury the dead.  After reading I noticed that the hurricane caused a divide among the people of Galveston, especially against people of color.  There were claims that “black men were said to have begun looting bodies, chewing off fingers to gain access to diamond rings.” (Larson pg.242)  The book states that these claims turned out to be true, but among whites and blacks alike not just blacks.  This to me reaffirmed that there was racism towards people of color during this time, because black families were failed to be identified when they took refuge at homes during the hurricane.  Not only that, but on page 239 the book mentions how “the city’s racial harmony began to erode” during the hurricane.  This is in contrast to what occurred during the Chicago Fire in which Smith claims in her book came a unity among Chicago’s people.  In their post “Faith and Doubt, Identity and Diversity” by Zhedrick my classmate states that “With this understanding, it is possible to take the accounts of the individuals and create an image of Chicago as a center of diversity that can overcome adversity in its ranging forms.”  It seems to me that compared to Chicago where unity flourished during a tough time, in Galveston it was the opposite because “soldiers rounded up fifty black men at gunpoint and forced them onto the barge, promising whiskey to help make the task of loading, weighting, and dumping the bodies more tolerable.(Larson pg.239)

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In this section of the book it is clearly stated that the Galveston storm was Isaac’s storm. “What he knew of it came from living it” (pg. 149) So what exactly does this section of the book cover? Most of these two chapters recall Isaac’s personal events, within that it talks about the incorrectness of the news and the Weather Bureau. Were both of these sources actually in the wrong?

After the storm had hit telephone lines were down for days, from Saturday to Tuesday. (pg. 116) This is a key contributor to why information could have been incorrect. The news became the city’s main source of information about friends and relatives. So what happens when the news is not being reported correctly? In the Newspaper there was a “Not Dead” list, however this list was not completely accurate. People could be named here then found a few days later. It should be noted that people could not tell the difference from a white or black corpse, another reason this list could have not been accurate. The news also made false claims about black citizens. The news claimed that black men were looting bodies and “chewing off fingers to get diamond rings.” (pg 242) This was due to racism, while the looting did occur, people over exaggerated stories and claimed only blacks participated. Days after the storm, one the telephone lines were open, other weather reporters and newspapers began reporting about Galveston. These accounts were also wrong. Stories came in changing Isaac’s story and debating if people were actually notified by the coming storm of not. However, Moore was another weather reporter that under estimated the storm, yet Isaac got the heat. (pg. 252) It was due to these inaccurate accounts that people began to embarrass the Weather Bureau and try to eliminate them. Then on Monday September 10^th the Weather Bureau reported that the storm had left. However, in Medina Ohio they did not believe this. When high winds came through they messaged back asking for why nothing was mentioned about the large “blows”. (pg. 263)

So why did so many people write about the Galveston storm, even if their information was wrong? Humans like disaster and are drawn to it. For example, after the flood was over the fathers vowed to rebuild the city. They created an exhibit at the World Fair of 1904. This exhibit explained the city’s plans to build a seawall and a new city. At the World Fair the Galveston exhibit became one of the most popular. Just like McKennedy21 states the Johnstown Flood went from a natural disaster to a leisure event.

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This finale to the book Isaac’s Storm covers what happened after the storm that had annihilated the town Galveston had moved on from the area. It encompasses the destruction that had been wrought to the town stating that entire areas of housing and buildings had in fact been simply swept away in the tide of the storm. Along with this the amount of wounded and deceased were staggering, with numbers of dead being estimated at the end in the 6000 range.It goes into the clean up stages of the town directly after the storm with the searching of individuals, both alive and dead, as well as the disposing of corpses that now littered what was left of the town. These tactics included burial, both in the ground as well as at see with the latter coming back to haunt them, and finally mass burning. During this time help and aide came to Galveston from many other areas of the country including the aide of the red cross. Soon the town was being rebuilt, along with added defenses against future storms including a seawall and the rising of Galveston itself up a predetermined amount of feet. Isaac would record what had transpired before and during the storm for the weather bureau who would both stretch the truth as though to seem as though they had tried to mitigate the destruction in some way. For as Peter Rossi stated the weather bureau at the time, and even now, has a lot less accuracy in the prediction of weather and storms than is let on. It is due to this most likely that the events of Isaac’s Storm were as bad as they were, though it is of little consequence to focus on a what if scenario. The book ends with a brief outline of Issac and Josephs dealings in later life as well as the time of their deaths As well as a look at the Galveston for what it was, is, and could have been.

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In the final two chapters of Erik Larson’s Isaac’s Storm he finds a interesting way to wrap up his book on the Galveston Storm of 1900. The book starts off the morning after the storm has passed and gives vivid detail of the wreckage throughout the town. It follows a couple story lines which one of them being Isaac Cline and his account of the town after the storm. He writes about the dead bodies and how landmarks had been all but washed away and destroyed. He began his search for his wife who he had lost the night before in the flooding. Soon the Army had arrived bringing shelter, food, and other supplies to help start rebuilding the city. The body count had risen by hundreds every week and seemed to go on forever. The book talks about the smells and sights of the dead bodies in detail in which I think Larson does this to get you more emotionally invested in the story of Galveston and the storm he is telling. The point he is trying to make is that the people in the path of danger generally don’t take precaution or the warnings of danger as seriously as they could. By telling the story of the crews rounding up the dead bodies floating in the ocean or in the mud it really gives a perfect example of what happens when you don’t prepare for things as serious as the power of nature. There is always someone or something to blame for loss of life when it could be prevented and it was well put in the post by peterossi1, “I think that ignoring the warnings of a storm, is a form a negligence that can be blamed for the loss of life in the storm. In the same way that in the modern era the government/metrologists not letting a town know a disaster was coming, would be held partially responsible.” Whether you blame the meteorologist Isaac Cline or you blame the people for not taking the warnings as they should, there was a large number of lives lost that day and we should take this example as warning for the future.

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The entirety of Larson’s Isaac’s Storm is centralized on an idea that this storm belonged to Isaac Cline and no other individual in the devastated town of Galveston, leaving the reader to question how this storm belonged to a single individual and not the town as a whole.  Throughout the book Larson not only gives the perspective of Cline, but that of other individuals within the town and their own experiences with the tragic event that took the lives of their neighbors and loved ones.  To make this event accountable to a single individual comes across as artistic leeway to retell the event from the perspective of a single individual.  However, to make this claim Larson gives an analysis to the character of Cline during the course of his work to show that Cline in fact takes the storm as his own.  Cline’s own recounting of events during the storm are at constant odds with those of his own brother Joseph, a contradictory force that undermines the “well meaning” elder brother.  Isaac’s own inflated hubris allows him to make large claims of his heroic actions prior to the storm hitting land and the 6,000 lives he saved, a number that later grew to number 12,000.  Later telegrams to the Weather Bureau sent by Isaac say that the warnings of the storm were widespread and sent to areas beyond Galveston as well.  Contradicting the telegrams sent by Joseph that tell of death and devastation, Isaac continually downplayed the destructiveness of the storm and allowed it to take a personal tone within him.  Mckenzie Jackson states that many of the town’s inhabitants were given warning signs to evacuate given the weather conditions.  Though it is possible to foresee the coming dangers from a modern lens, the people of Galveston witnessed storms yearly and were accustomed to them.  The only individual who could have given credence to the dangers of the coming storm was Isaac Cline and because of his inaction and competition with his brother he failed to adequately warn the town.  This storm is Isaac’s and it is through his inherent in his own abilities that allowed for the devastation of Galveston.

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I decided to watch rewatch the film The Imitation Game since i saw that it had recently been added to netflix. I would say for the most part that the film stays true to the actual historical facts but I’m sure Hollywood might have taken some liberties with the source material. One of my favorite thing about learning history is how we can look past at a certain point in history and compare to other parts of history or even the present day and we can look at how much progress and regress we’ve made as a society since then. In the film we see that Alan Turing, the man who is responsible for the invention of the modern computer, breaks the Enigma Code which was a cryptographic code used by the German military in world war 2 to conceal their radio messages. Turing, through the use of a computer he built was able to solve the Enigma Code which allowed the British military and later the allies to intercept the German radio messages. Statistically speaking, the breaking of this code shortened the war by 2 years. However, one of the subplots of the film which takes place years later is on Alan Turing and his homosexuality. Until 1967 it was considered illegal to be gay in the United Kingdom and he was convicted on a charge of gross indecency and received hormonal treatment and later committed suicide because of the affects of his treatment. To look back at this it almost makes you shudder at how much progress we’ve made as a society and i feel like this idea of looking back at history to see how far we’ve come can be applied to any movie that’s a period piece, novel, or textbook.

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Natural disasters are an occurrence that is part of living on this planet, they are powerful and uncontrollable, but that doesn’t mean people can not take precautions to make these natural disasters least devasting. For example, Johnstown tried to keep the flow of water controlled in their lake by creating a dam to block the water, but as CLUNA3 says in their article Johnstown Flood of 1889, “This flood occurred  because the dam had been poorly patched with straw and horse manure.” If the town would have built a well-developed dam and made sure it was patched up correctly thousands of lives would have been saved. In the next two chapters, Larson starts off by blaming more people than just the Cubans. He first blamed the Weather Bureau saying it was their fault for not predicting this storm was actually a hurricane and that they were trying to keep their status by covering up their mistake of not being able to predict like the Cubans. They then blame the newspaper and editors of Galvenstien and uses the newspaper of Saturday (the day the storm hit) as proof seeing that the weather reports were all scattered throughout the newspaper with the most important report of the storm located in the middle of the paper where many readers would not look to find it.

The rest of te section is about different people’s stories at the beginning parts of the storm as it reached Galvenstien. Through reading these sections Larson is pointing out that people had many warning signs to know to evacuate their homes and the city altogether, but people choose to wait until the last minute resulting in many people’s deaths. For example, the business men in downtown ignored the strong winds and continued to their favorite lunch spot, Ritter’s Cafe, the windows would shake every few moments, but no one questioned it until the roof flew off the restaurant and killing five people in the process. We were asked why this book was written during class and after reading this sections I believe Larson wrote this to bring people’s unpreparedness when it comes to natural disasters and their common sense when it comes to trying to survive them.

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I recently rewatched the HBO tv show ROME. It is a surprisingly historically accurate drama about Julius Caesar and the fall of the Roman Republic take from the point of view of two legionnaires, Titus Pullo and Lucius Vorenus. In the episode I just saw it was focused on after Caesar marched on Rome and was following Pompey across the Adriatic Sea into Greece to engage him in battle, but there was a large storm while Caesar was crossing and large amount of his fleet sunk. Among those caught up in the shipwreck were the two main characters, who then washed to shore and had to find their way back to Caesar’s camp, thus missing the iconic battle between the two legendary generals. Now this battle was most likely skipped due to budget reasons, normally I would have disappointed that they skipped the battle but now that I’m learning the importance of historical perspectives it brought an interesting thought to my head. I’ve only heard about this battle from two perspectives, that of Pompey and Caesar, no one else. Not a soldier who got caught up in the shipwreck, not a soldier who fled in fear, not anyone else but the rich senators who wrote accounts of this battle.  This reminded me that events happen from different perspectives, and it’s very common to see a major event from only one point of view. History is all about learning events from different perspectives and determining the truth and bias. Even though this fake retelling of this historical event, it opened by eyes to seek out new perspectives on events I know from only one.

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In Erik Larson’s Isaac’s Storm, the 1900 Galveston Hurricane is explored through the perspective of Isaac Cline and those around him affected by the disaster. Isaac serves as the focal point of the novel, allowing readers to experience the events leading up to the disaster through his viewpoint and understanding on hurricanes. As a meteorologist, Isaac studied past hurricanes that had been documented, including the three-part back-to-back hurricanes that ravaged the British naval forces in 1780. In this particular instance, Isaac comments that “clearly hurricanes posed a greater menace than any single nation’s forces” (Larson, 52). Isaac, having studied the destruction and the death tolls brought by hurricanes, clearly understands the potential threat of such storms. In Zhedrick’s post on Faith and Doubt, it is stated that religion is used at the “primary reason for the fire.” This coincides with a description of hurricanes that Larson gives, that hurricanes are “another hazard of venturing upon the sea – acts of God, still, and against which one could do nothing” (Larson, 52). Isaac sets out to predict the activities of hurricanes, to predict these “acts of God.” The dramatic irony comes from the reader knowing that the Galveston Hurricane will occur and that Isaac’s predictions of it not occurring are wrong. Despite his knowledge of a hurricane’s destructive power, he wrongly predicts that even if it strikes, the damage will be minimal.

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In Isaac’s Storm, Erik Larson analyzes the Galveston Storm of 1900 through the perspective of the town’s meteorologist Isaac Cline.  Using a unique perspective to evaluate the devastating effects of the storm,  Larson uses his beginning chapter to create the circumstances that gave rise to the storm and the subsequent mismanagement of the entire affair.  Unlike a historical writing, Larson depicts the events leading to the storm in a literary narrative of the events and portrays the storm as the antagonist seeking  to destroy the island city of Galveston and push Isaac to the limits of heroics.  However, this approach removes the severity of the storm and lends itself more to literary imagination than a disaster that took the lives of thousands of people.  Rebekah Benninger says that the devastation of Galveston is found in the poor communicative efforts and over reliance on a single individual to dictate the necessary actions to notify of the impending storm.  Though the poor communication and reliance on Isaac directly impacted the fate of Galveston, the fault is better placed in the Weather Bureau for the lack of confidence it instilled in the American people prior to the storm.  Perceived as a lecherous and incompetent division, the maintenance and repair of a public image concerned the upper echelons of the  bureau more so than advancing the science behind meteorology.  The fault can’t be placed on Isaac solely, due to the history of hurricanes in the area.  Using the data available to him and the visible trends of the ocean, Isaac assessed the dangers accordingly and was unaware of the growing dangers of the building storm.  The severity of the storm can best be described by Larson’s butterfly opening its wings, a natural occurrence.

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The book Isaac’s Storm, by Erik Larson, is a dramatized historical retelling of the events preceding and proceeding the Galveston Hurricane which totally decimated the town. The first couple of chapters follows Isaac Monroe and his his life leading up to his assignment at Galveston, as well as giving the reader some background information on hurricanes and tropical weather systems. The first chapter goes on to explain the science behind how hurricanes from from thunderstorms and how they affect barometric pressure gauges. The thing that struck me as surprising is how little we still know about the weather and how unpredictable it is.  In the second chapter the Larson explains how the Signal Corps were receiving data about an incoming storm from Cuba and when the leader of the organization got wind of this (no pun intended) they shut down all incoming information from Cuba. This mistake is probably what led to the storm being much worse than it could have been, according to Isaac Cubans had almost perfected the art at predicting hurricanes.  In SANCHEZRON13‘s blog post on the flood in Jamestown they talk about how the flood was a manmade disaster and after reading about all the warning signs that were ignored by the Signal Corps I think one can make an argument for loss of life in Galveston being a man made disaster, the property destruction is inevitable. I think that ignoring the warnings of a storm, is a form a negligence that can be blamed for the loss of life in the storm. In the same way that in the modern era the government/metrologists not letting a town know a disaster was coming, would be held partially responsible.

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Erik Larson’s book “Isaac’s Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History” is told from the viewpoint of Isaac Cline, the Galveston meteorologist in the year 1900, during the hurricane that hit the town of Galveston. In the Prologue of Isaac’s Storm Larson starts by telling the reader about some of Isaac’s background that lead him to being the Galveston meteorologist. Larson also tells throughout the Prologue about Isaac’s day leading up to the hurricane that would eventually hit Galveston.

Throughout the first chapter Larson describes the different weather phenomena’s that were major discoveries that all lead to Isaac Cline eventually being interested in hail and going from a scientific interested child to an army surgeon, and eventually to a meteorologist. From these major discoveries us readers can take that while storms are always being searched for, there will always be some amount of death toll because there are always some that cannot get away. Much like how it was stated in johnkane’s Johnstown Flood post that the dam used against the Conemaugh River was “doomed to break and people all around the dam knew that it was not gonna be long until it happened.” Larson also has in the latter half of the first chapter that Isaac at “only twenty-nine… considered himself a weather sage,” and thus knew better that others. We can take from the first chapter not to rely on one source for all information because the people of Galveston relied on the word of only one person for weather protection. The second chapter seems to be that throughout the chapter that because if poor communication and mapmaking, ship captains had been allowed to sail their ships into the oncoming hurricane.

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What is interesting about this reading is that it does not follow the same style of readings we have been done previously. Before we were given either primary or secondary sources that give out facts and analyze them. This reading is a nonfiction novel by Erik Larson, Isaac’s Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History. The Novel started off with a prologue giving a description of the protagonist to say, a meteorologist Isaac Monroe Cline, along with a little background information of what was occurring at the time with Galveston the day before the hurricane that would eventually take the lives of 4000 people. Shortly after that, Larson goes into the back into the past of Isaac Monroe and how it led to his decision to become a meteorologist. There are a few interesting points that is made in the first part of the novel. In the chapter, “What Isaac Knew” Larson talks about how men are stepping away from the realm of God and more into science to which some of the people find questionable. It relates back to what ZHEDRICK about “city searched for answers to the inferno, religion acted as a reinforcement of Chicago’s divine nature among the urban centers of the world.” The people sought towards the act of God as a way to punish those sinners. However thanks to the journals that have been passed down, the meteorologists have been able to conclude that the disasters are not from God’s will. I found this to be interesting because we can start to see some sort of shift from God’s Realm to more of the secular side in this reading. Besides this little portion of the reading, what I did enjoy about the novel was how it broke the parts into chapters, some of which dealt with Isaac’s training in the field. However it was the other part where it describes briefly how far the storm is from reaching Galveston. This fascinated me because Isaac was sure that a hurricane would not hit Galveston and even made the claim that even if did hit them, the damage will be minimal.

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In the book, “Isaac’s Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History,” Erik Larson explains the events of the Hurricane that hit Galveston, Texas in 1900 through the eyes of the real meteorologist of Galveston, Isaac Monroe Cline. He became one of the central figures of the Galveston Hurricane. cluna3 says in their post that “Throughout American history there are multiple disasters that have shaped our nation.” And the hurricane that struck Galveston, Texas in 1900s is one of those disasters. An interesting technique that Larson uses throughout the first part of the narrative, Larson explains Isaac’s background in how he got into meteorology, and also gives accounts of the approaching hurricane as it travels to Galveston. I actually like this method of storytelling because it breaks up the more larger parts of the first part of the book and gives different viewpoints of people that saw the start of the hurricane as it made its way to Galveston, Texas. Another part that i find interesting is one of the first chapters in the book that mentions different storms in history that Isaac Cline studied.In the chapter “Dirty Weather” it chronicles Isaac Cline’s personal experience with a flood that had come about due to a hailstorm that hit San Angelo 10 days prior to the flood in Concho river. Soon after this Cline becomes obsessed with hail, tracking accounts of it wherever they appeared.Ironically at the end of part 1 of the book, Larson mentions an article that Cline wrote in 1891, about how Galveston would escape hurricanes and his theory about how if there ever was a hurricane that would hit Galveston, that it would spread over the lowlands behind Galveston instead of hitting Galveston directly.

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The Johnstown Flood is just one of many disasters to hit the United States.  The journal “Disaster Tourism and the Melodrama of Authenticity: Revisiting the 1889 Johnstown Flood” by Emily Godbey goes on to discuss several ideas that arose after this disaster.  For example Godbey points out the fact that even though the Johnstown Flood is “commonly referred to as a natural disaster, the Johnstown Flood was clearly man made”. (pg. 276)  She pointed out that the Conemaugh Dam had been patched with horse manure and that the relief pipes were sold as scrap metal.  These man made mistakes among other things led to the dam’s collapse.  Through this tragedy Godbey goes on to explain this weird amusement for “disaster tourism”.  The  disaster brought about a curiosity in  people from other parts of the state.  People flocked to Johnstown through the Baltimore  & Ohio railroads.  As a matter a fact the Baltimore & Ohio rail roads let tourists come into Johnstown, when word was put out that tourists were not welcome to come to Johnstown because they were getting so many tourist wanting to see the devastation and aftermath of the Flood. The amount of tourists was so much that people were getting in the way of the relief groups.  Trains were getting super packed and the claim was made that the majority of people on these trains were tourists instead of people from disaster relief.  What brought about this much attention to Johnstown was newspaper coverage of the Flood. Just like my class peer jessicabode mentions in her post “Setting Fire- “Did the Cow Do it?” that “Bales brings up different viewpoints throughout the article about what supposedly happened with Harry Albert Musham’s take on the events of the fire.” Godbey views the Johnstown Flood through different view points in her journal.  She mentions how people made money off it by selling excursion packages that would show tourists different sites of the aftermath.  Not only that but relics were also sold as souvenirs.  She also went on to make the comparison that people were interested in seeing the Johnstown Flood’s aftermath just like people today go to visit Holocaust museums and the concentration camps.  These places brought about  mass deaths, but yet people go on to visit such places every year.  Her journal made me think about my interests in such things like the Holocaust and World War II and why it is that I am so interested in these things.

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     On May 28, 1889  the destructive force of a broken dam decimates  an entire city that is in its path. At peak velocity this flood, with the equivalent force of Niagara Falls kills roughly 2,200 people.  This natural disaster killed more than seven times that of the Chicago fire, which Peterrossi1  explains, “killed around three hundred people”. The Conemaugh River which was blocked by a crumbling dam was patched by “straw and horse manure” and “relief pipes that were sold for scrap metal”, was doomed to break and people all around the dam new that it was not gonna be long until it happened. When the dam broke, it was stopped by  a wall of people and debris that sent the water back into Johnstown.  The problems that followed included fires and hoards of people flocking in to see the destruction. This was known as “Tragic Tourism”  because the death and destruction was interesting for people across the U.S. The two main Railroad companies, P.R.R. and B&O  which were in competition with each other, were starting to prevent travelers to visit the city of destruction in order to get workers in to rebuild.  these rubbernecking  tourists wanted to go on tours of the city, get photographic souvenirs and and physical mementos that they could bring back home with them. These same people also took souvenirs from the Chicago Fire and the San Francisco Disaster later on. People also toured morgues to witness the mass volume of lifeless bodies that were occupying the buildings, and the morticians that were disemboweling them. What is interesting is that the U.S. copied that morgue structure from Paris where morgues were massive and in public areas. the aftermath of the flood was described by Willis Fletcher Johnson  as ” all of the negatives of a military camp and new mining camp, with none of the pleasures of either”. The author finishes the article by comparing the tourist attraction of the Johnstown flood to the “Katrina Tour” which happened in the 21st century to show that people will always be attracted to disaster.

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Throughout American history there are multiple disasters that have shaped our nation. This flood occurred  because the dam had been poorly patched with straw and horse manure.  In the Johnstown flood over 2,200 people lost their lives. As horrific as this flood was, it brought the onset of sightseers. The amount of tourists that came to see the floods aftermath was unfathomable. So why is it that Americans are drawn to trauma and disasters? American’s view tragic tourism as a form of entertainment for two reasons: the human mind is a curious thing, and this was a new form of entertainment.

After the flood an outbreak of sight seers arrived. People came down so fast and in so many there had to be signs and articles written telling people to keep away. One of the hardest things the native population had to deal with is people’s curiosity. Tours were soon held to see the ruins caused by the floods. This act of tourism, or rubbernecking took forms in large groups. People might say that they did want to see such things, but their actions told another story. Tourists were said to have even taken objects from corpses, such as shoes, and bandannas. Everyone that came to visit wanted a souvenir to remember their time at the Johnstown flood. This was not uncommon, even after the Chicago fire people wanted a relic. Just like in the Chicago fire people had and optimistic and pessimistic way of viewing things.  A new term, tragic tourism, was invented to describe the dark side of tourism. The fact that people liked to come down on their day off to see corpses, and disaster. This is human nature at its finest, morbid curiosity. The site of the Johnstown flood became a memento where people could contemplate good and evil.

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Through Emily Godbey’s essay, she addresses how the Johnstown Flood went from being a natural disaster killing over 2,200 people to becoming a leisure event where rubbernecks could come to sight see and tour. Godbey first retells the story of how the flood happened and how it could have been prevented if people would have built the dam correctly the first time and then checked on it during the storm to make sure it hold it up it could have prevented a natural disaster. She actually goes as far as saying, ” the Johnstown Flood was clearly manmade” and after going over the story twice myself I believe she has the right to state that. She then goes into to discussing how sight seekers flocked to Johnstown several days after the disaster and how newspapers and railroads tried to keep them from coming to the town because they would get in the way of the workers trying to restore the city to working conditions; the city later became a mixture of a military base and a mining town. During this time there were rises of tourist economics in the city. Some locals opened up stores for people to buy from the wreckage while some tourists just took random objects they found while walking around Johnstown, photographs became a very popular trend as well and people would pay money to get these rare photos while some spots like John Schultz’s house became hot spots for people to take pictures in front of. Melodramas were created with the disaster being the setting for journalist’s characters. Just like in chriscobar post about the Chicago fire, Godbey points out that the flood did not pick its victims based on their social class, but destroyed everything and killed everyone in its pass. As she pointed out people came to look at all the deaths in the morgue as if it was a museum for them to go to on their day off, I couldn’t help but think about how many people actually got claimed by their loved ones and further thought about how many people on average get claimed after any disaster and the closure their loved ones get.

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In the work Faith and Doubt, Carl Smith analyzes the societal state of Chicago following the fire through various accounts and articles of individuals effected by the disaster.  Rather than try and find a primary cause of the fire, Smith focuses on the post-fire reactions of the public and the use of religion as the primary reason for the fire.  As the embers died down and the city searched for answers to the inferno, religion acted as a reinforcement of Chicago’s divine nature among the urban centers of the world.  As sin and avarice descended upon the city, a divine flame cleansed the city of its wrongdoings and allowed for the rebirth of the city’s purity.  Through examination of this theme of zealotry in Chicago society, Smith states that “need for reformation was quickly buried under the theme of ultimate good,” subsequently allowing for the city to look towards an enriched future.  However as Smith examines other accounts of valiant acts of heroism, the humility of the brides or the reactions of the investors, the core sentiments extracted from these works is that of a united people of a single identity joining together to create a Chicagoan spirit to rebuild the devastated city.  Justin Rodriguez notes that the progression of works regarding the actions of individuals lead away from religious fervor and into self promotion, however the differing accounts of piety, humility and valiance do not contradict each other.  Rather than prescribe themselves to a single notion of character, the varying accounts presented by Smith allow the reader to understand the nature of the thriving urban centers and the unique identity that forms among its populace.  With this understanding, it is possible to take the accounts of the individuals and create an image of Chicago as a center of diversity that can overcome adversity in its ranging forms.

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In the book by Steven Biel, American Disasters, There was a chapter that Carl Smith wrote on called Faith and Doubt. This touches base on the fire that broke out in Chicago, but with a story about faith. Some people see that the fire that broke out in Chicago was God punishing the people for living in a very sinful city. With the fire burning Chicago, some of the people saw this as a blessing as stated on page 136. Smith also writes about how some people remained calm and quite as they retreated from their homes being burnt. He goes on to write that the fire did not exclude any class and went after the rich and poor. From reading this I can see this relating back to the earlier pages about God smiting the city and of course he would not exclude anyone from his wrath on the city. But going back to the fire, Smith explains something that caught my eye on page 151. He writes about how the fire brought out the worst in the supposedly good people. So now people are showing their true nature and people are realizing that not even the high-class people are so high and mighty but they too might have a drinking problem or have problems at home. And with what jessicabode wrote on the fire that “Peg Leg”  Sullivan started, you can probably assume many people were going out to drink their sorrows and asking why God must have done this and why was their house affected by this fire.

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In Smith’s  interpretation of the aftermath of the Chicago fire, He explains that there were two different feelings that emerged. On one hand people saw the fire as a good thing that occurred from divine intervention. The fire burnt away all the bad in the city and was the pathway in which other cities must change to be like. authors like Andrew Shuman, thought that the fire was a “blessing in disguise”  that was beneficial to the city as a whole and wanted everyone else to see it also. On the other hand, many saw the aftermath of the fire as a horrible disaster, because so many people were left with out a domicile, and the myth the dangerous prisoners were set free into the city to escape the flames of death. what really happened was that the more dangerous prisoners were lead out of the city in chain lines and transferred to different prisons; but nevertheless this caused citizens to panic and caused trust issues to strangers in the city.

The idea of “New Chicago” was what branched from the fire, many saw it as a fresh start and the opportunity to create a better city. As peterrossi1 states “It was the biggest fire and disasters the city [Chicago]  ever suffered”. Because of this people need to look forward to a more optimistic future, especially since the centennial of the city was only 5 years away. Overall, Smith explains both the optimistic and pessimistic

views that erupted following the Chicago fire.

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Smiths work on the Chicago fire of 1871 looks deeper into the “fire literature” that came from the disaster and how the views of the act were discerned. Over all Smith states that the immediate thought to come from the fire were those of a religious ideal and showed the fire, for a smaller portion, as a punishment from the divine for the sins committed and represented within the boundaries of the city. However this perspective was over shadowed by the idea, as Smith states, that the fire was a clear indication of Chicago’s singular importance and individuality. Of course the written pieces on the fire range away from the ideas of Christianity and religion leading to the considered glory of the Chicagoan’s as they valiantly and stoically reacted to the burning. Smith gives quite a few individual statements of the time in regards to the abilities and bravery of the Chicago people. This sense of disaster bringing out the best of us extended to the rest of the country as articles defined the immense relief effort done in order to help the city of Chicago.  However with such a disastrous event there comes a need to blame someone or something and this is not abandoned in this disaster. Smith continues his work with the description of works that told of satanism, hidden societies, and other such things that could have played a part in the cause and destruction of the fire. This effectively as Smith stated showed Chicago as an innocent bystander hurt by a much more nefarious plot. A bleaker outlook on the events also took hold with the statements of looting and alcoholism ravaging the town as the people fled the fire. This was also coupled with other maladies coming from the fire including the release of convicts into the populace as an escape from the raging inferno. Smith gives credence to the less then appealing articles as a coping mechanism of the populace by scapegoating those that they had already had a fear and dislike of, similarly seen in the story of Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow.

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Having recently visited the Richard Nixon Presidential Library again, I overheard many of the guests commenting on the exhibits in the museum. I heard various comments, such as “I read about this in class,” and “I never knew that Elvis Presley met Richard Nixon.” These types of comments are common since many students come to the museum. During many of my visits, I overheard one particular comment that has always fascinated me: “I remember that.” This comment comes from the elderly, people who are old enough to have lived during the Nixon Administration, either as a child or a young adult. The elderly guests sometimes stare at the pictures of Nixon meeting Zhou Enlai or the pictures of the POW’s coming back from Vietnam. “I remember that,” they’ll say. Or when they watch President Nixon leave the White House in his helicopter, they sometimes get emotional because they remember the very same broadcast from forty years ago.

I feel that as historians, or people in general, we have  a tendency to view history as something far away from us, existing only in the past. Many of us learn about the 1960’s and early 70’s through textbooks, neglecting the fact that there are people among us who lived through these eras, even as young adults.  The elderly are living history, proof of a generation long before us. They remember the past personally in a way that we cannot. If you want to learn more about the recent past, I recommend that in addition to scholarly research, you should also speak to someone who has experienced it. This type of personal history will not always be available. Talk to an old person today.

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The story is about a cow who was being milked by women. Of course, the woman was not going to admit to being at fault. The women had a different tale of what happen on that eventful night, she claimed she was in bed with her husband and she could not have started the fire and there was a witness who came to their side to further back the statement. “Now this story started to spread just like the fire did in Chicago,”   so from this point people were not talking about how the cow was the culprit and the people were innocent. The were also many things that could back up her story with fires that have been going on earlier in the week, the firemen being exhausted from their word, and finally the amount of time the fire took to take over the city. I see a connection from what gparker77 posted on histography. As I was reading this story I had my questions of how and why this fire was significant in Chicago’s history. How is it a cow or the women the center of all of this?  As I finished reading the rest of the article, I started realizing they had accounts from the newspapers and pictures to back up that this was an actual event. Furthermore, they had a full trial on who started the fire and finally at the end we find out it was not the cow or the women but a man named Daniel “Peg Leg” Sullivan.

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the reading of the week, “Did the Cow Do It? A New Look at the Cause of the Great Chicago Fire” by Richard Bales, revolves around breaking the myth that a cow supposedly started the firestorm that swept Chicago.  Bales faced the problems that arise in history, in which stories and gossip turned into fact due to lack of contrary evidence. and as the years pass by, it becomes into truth because there is very little confrontation against it.  as jessicabode mentions, Bales does a great job in using primary sources in his writings, from people that lived there. in addition, he also had access to The Chicago Times from the time of the Chicago fire, tracking down one of the sources that spread the myth of the cow.  Bale spent a lot of time reconstructing the event by using witness and newspaper accounts that were in microfilm.  i find it very interesting that he admits that the odds are stacked against him because the fire took place over a 100 years ago, meaning that key information to finding out the truth is lost forever because it was destroyed or hidden away due to being forgotten.  yet this should not deter historians from attempting to find out the truth, either actually finding out what truly happened or clearing away the myth that has evolved around the historical event. by doing research that answers questions, in this case finding out who started the fire, allows us to better understand the past rather than just simply accepting stories as the historical truth.

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In 1871 a fire raged through Chicago,  it burnt down a large section of the city and killed around three hundred people. It was the biggest fire and disasters the city ever suffered but the fire didn’t start itself, so who did it? Well in the article by Richard Bales he explains how the city blamed an old Irish woman named Catherine O’Leary for letting her cow knock over a lantern and start a small fire which would then grow to its full destructive force, even though an investigation found no one guilty.  Bales goes on to explain how unlikely it is for O’Leary to have started the fire and how the more likely suspect is a neighbor named Sullivan who probably accidentally started the fire in O’Leary’s barn. So why did a whole city blame one woman if the courts couldn’t figure out who did it? She was a poor immigrant from Ireland.

The fire took place during the height of the gilded age and as Johnkane described it, “The Gilded Age was a time in American history….when urbanization began to increase throughout the nation.” As urbanization spread poor and rich people were living closer together than they ever did before. From the 1700s to the 1800s urbanization grew and immigrants came to fill the tall buildings scraping America’s skies.  Throughout time rich and poor people were spread far apart and the conflict between the two was limited due to the location. However as we read in the The Great Cat Massacre of the Rue Saint-Severin conflicts between the working class and the rich often presented themselves in  physical acts, rather than just complaints.  In that great fire many rich people lost property and investments and they were looking for a blame, and when the newspapers would print the supposed ‘story’ of what happened they jumped on the bandwagon to blame a foreign born poor person for their misfortune. Urbanization brought the rich, poor, native born, and immigrant closer together than ever before in history, it would lead to a future of diverse and accepting cities, the road there was bumpy and filled with accusations, violence, and unrest.

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In the article ” Did the Cow Do It? A New Look at the Cause of the Great Chicago Fire” by Richard Bales, he tells the story of how the biggest fire in Chicago’s was started by a cow that kicked over a lantern.  This article is a great example of historiography because as stated in gparker77‘s blog post that historiography is  ” a way other historians try to take a new angle at another scholar’s work or to try and disprove what their statement is with their own facts and interpretations.” This is because in the article about the Great Chicago Fire, Bales brings up different viewpoints throughout the article about what supposedly happened with Harry Albert Musham’s take on the events of the fire and stating that Mrs. O’Leary was the one to blame for the fire. And then the following analysis of Musham’s account of the fire, stating that he did not take into account the 7 factors that Bales states turned what could have been an ordinary fire into one of the biggest fires that Chicago had ever seen. Bales analysis of the Great Fire of Chicago is very convincing due to the first person accounts that he includes in his article that disprove some aspects of what has become a myth about how the fire started and gives more evidence on how really was the one that started the fire. This is because Bales includes personal accounts of other people that lived near the O’Leary’s home and witnessed the fire that broke out in the barn.

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On October 8, 1871 the Chicago fire began. The Chicago fire is said to have cost about 192 million dollars in destroyed property. This fire was an American Disaster. So who started this fire? It has been passed down that O’Leary and her cow were to blame. However, the fire department was unable to determine the actual cause. Smith gives us an insight at why O’Leary was targeted. Smith believes it may have been due to prejudices and stereotypes. The upper middle class had a common belief that immigrants were the “dangerous class.” This mindset can explain why this one accusation stuck throughout history. Smith, like most historiographers, “tries to take a new angle at another scholar’s work” and tries to “disprove what their statement is with their own facts and interpretations.” Smith takes a deeper look into all of the testimonies during the Chicago fire court case. Smith also compares to Musham, and gives ample evidence and thought to disprove his theory. When recounting the testimonies Daniel Sullivan stated that he saw the fire. Sullivan also testified that he tried to free the animals from the fire. Smith claims that this seems somewhat implausible, given all of the circumstances. Sullivan’s testimony about his whereabouts is a major loophole. He could not have seen the fire from the fence he claimed to be sitting on. Smith then concludes that it is in fact Sullivan that started the fire. The goal of this historiography was to take the blame off O’Leary and the cow, and to take the evidence and interpret that Sullivan was the culprit.