During the following discussion of the next steps in Johnstown’s recovery, keep a running list of “next-step needs” that the students suggest.
Previously, we learned what the Citizens Committee decided needed to be done right away when they met the day after the Flood. What needs did the Committee decide were the most immediate? [Finances, Supplies or Commissary, Morgues, Removal of Dead Animals and Debris, Police, Hospitals]
That was just the beginning, of course. After the survivors were rescued, the fires extinguished, bodies found, dead animals disposed of, what were the next steps?
Distribute as a hand-out, project as a slide, or transfer to the chalkboard “Five Rs on the Comeback Path.”
Now we’re going to see what Johnstowners and the people helped them really did do to start rebuilding between June and December 1889.
Print out and distribute the web page “Events on Johnstown’s Recovery Timeline.”
Download worksheet “Healing Takes Time.”
Color-Code the events listed (on days with more than one event, color-code each event separately):
Cut the dates apart and arrange them on the timeline worksheet
Choose photos from the Rescue, Relief, and Rebuild Picture Galleries for each step along the way. Print the photos, and cut them out. (Hint: print out the thumbnail indexes for a full collection of photos that are a convenient size for this activity)
Arrange photos on the timeline worksheet
If time and your students’ reading levels allow, the reports by officials in charge of various aspects of relief and recovery at Johnstown make fascinating reading. Assign students or small groups of students one of the reports below:
Official reports on relief efforts
Beale’s informal reports:
While the Flood forced Johnstown to start all over, it gave the town a hard-won “clean slate” to do things differently when they rebuilt. The following two activities, “Redrawing the Map” and “A New View from the Hill,” challenge students to take on both the challenge and the possibilities. You may choose to do either the Map or View, or both, depending on your students’ abilities and your instructional goals.
Up to now, we’ve considered Johnstown’s immediate needs right after the flood and in the months following — rescue, recovery, and relief. After the National Guard, the Red Cross, and other relief workers went home, the citizens of Johnstown were left with the huge job of rebuilding.
Instead of focusing on how they would survive from day to day, they could think about what they needed to grow over the long term. It was a chance to change things and make the town better. They could modernize and make the town safer. Individual families could do the same with their houses: they could build the same exact house, a different house in the same place, or a new house in a completely different area of town.
When city planners today make decisions about what the city will be like in the future, they don’t start with a map; they start with a list of needs.
Have students brainstorm a list of needs that all cities have, then a list of special needs that apply to Johnstown. These lists will serve as guides as they work on their plans and, later, evaluate the plans. For example:
Needs all cities would have in 1889:
Johnstown’s special needs:
Since all good city planning is the result of many people’s contributions, this activity makes an ideal cooperative learning project. As each group devises its plan, individual students can champion one or more of the needs above to ensure that the plan meets those needs.
Have the planners taken into account all Johnstown’s needs (above)? What, if anything, has been left out?
What is the strength of each design?
How would you decide which plan to use, if you were on the Johnstown Citizen Committee in 1889?
How do these plans compare with what Johnstown actually ended up doing (see the “Rebuilding Johnstown … Again and Again” photo gallery for panoramic views of the rebuilt Johnstown (1891 and 1904 views)?
This activity encourages students to imagine and draw a new Johnstown.
Imagine that you are a city planner designing the new Johnstown:
Draw your vision for the new Johnstown in the cleared area of the photo below. If you did “Redrawing the Map”, try matching the drawing and map.
The Rebuilding Johnstown: Again and Again photo gallery contains panoramic photographs of Downtown Johnstown from before the 1889 Flood to the present.
All the photos are taken from the same general vantage point (from the Inclined Plane) looking toward the Little Conemaugh River valley in the background (where the Flood made its entrance). The Stonycreek River is in the foreground. You may wish to use corresponding maps on this site along with these photos to help identify landmarks.
Interestingly, the series of panoramas suggests that Johnstown (like all cities) has been rebuilt numerous times over its 200-year history. The rebuilding after the 1889 Flood — an involuntary destruction and rebuilding that happened over a very short period of time — was certainly the most dramatic! Other rebuilding efforts have been more gradual. The latest rebuilding — after the economic disaster of the 1980s and 90s — is still going on. This is the time to build “the next Johnstown” and students will play a part in planning Johnstown’s future. These are some of the conclusions that students may come to through the activities and discussion that follow.
