The Great Johnstown (PA) Flood of 1889, the result of a record-setting rainstorm speeding the failure of an earthen dam, was the top media story of its day. The catastrophe, in which over 2,200 were killed, dominated the front pages of newspapers around the world just as the terrorist strikes of September 11, 2001 did in our generation. In fact, until 9/11, the 1889 Flood was the single largest loss of American civilian lives in one day (the greater number of deaths of the Galveston hurricane disaster of 1900 happened over several days).
Despite the fact that their hometowns were nearly scoured off the map, the survivors of the Great Johnstown (PA) Flood of 1889 almost immediately began rebuilding their homes and businesses. The world responded to stories of the Flood with an unprecedented out-pouring of charity.
To an amazing extent survivors of the Johnstown Flood of 1889 were able to put the trauma of the Flood behind them. As the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina suggests, perhaps we should not be so quick to forget. Teachers will find three very relevant-to-today thematic threads to explore with their students before, during, and after field trips to the Johnstown Flood Museum (classes too distant to make a field trip will find that enough of the Museum’s collection has been posted online for an effective study of the Flood).
Emphasis: Social Studies, Civics, Economics, Character Education, Visual Arts (architecture)
After witnessing the destruction at Johnstown and surrounding communities, it is a wonder that everyone didn’t abandon the ravaged Conemaugh Valley. The enormity of personal and financial loss makes rebuilding even more unimaginable.
This thread looks at the process of rebuilding:
The decision to rebuild or move on was a personal, as well as a community, decision. Many individuals, having lost every family and physical tie to Johnstown, did move on. Others who went to stay out-of-town with friends or relatives simply stayed away.
The majority of flood survivors did stay in the Valley. Cambria Iron and Steel rebuilt its mill and people got back to work. Incredibly, by 1910, Johnstown’s population had more than doubled since 1889. Its steel production had quadrupled! An inspirational story any time, it is especially so at a time when western Pennsylvania is trying to rebuild after its economic base was destroyed by less obvious, but just as devastating, market forces.
To prepare them for considering the massive challenges involved in rebuilding Johnstown or a family’s life in Johnstown after the Flood, students should read the following short descriptions of Johnstown before the Flood and during the Flood.
The readings are short with just enough detail to arouse interest and suggest the huge challenges involved in rebuilding a city from scratch. We suggest wrapping up the readings with a few questions to check for understanding, then moving on to the first activities without delay. The goal here is to help students empathize with Johnstown Flood survivors emotionally first. They can better understand the facts about rescue, relief, recovery, rebuilding, and remembering against the backdrop of those feelings. Survivors could not help but make decisions about their future in light of the horrors they had experienced and continued to experience throughout the summer of 1889.
Johnstown has become so famous for its devastating flood of 1889 that we sometimes forget what a growing, bustling town (or more accurately, collection of towns) it was before the Flood. In fact, its population was greater than it is today! To briefly make this point, have students read from Chapter 1 of David McCullough’s book The Johnstown Flood. (Alternatively, depending on your students’ reading levels, you might read it yourself and tell them an age-appropriate version of the story.)
The Simon Schuster Web site has posted Chapter 1, “The Sky was Red” from David McCullough’s The Johnstown Flood in its entirety, nearly 20 pages.
For this lesson, we’ve chosen two shorter passages from the full chapter. Opens in a new window; close the window to return to this page.
Start and stop points for McCullough readings:
Explore the photo gallery of Johnstown before the Flood, if you wish.
This brings us to the events of May 31, 1889. What happened to nearly wipe this busy town and the valley where it lived off the map? Have students read the story and examine the map:
People had spent the night after the Flood listening to the sound of water and the groan and crash of buildings finally giving up and plunging into the water. Worst of all were cries of the wounded humans and animals caught in the rubble unable to move, especially the screams of those in the jam at the bridge as the fire grew nearer.
Everyone was relieved when morning came, but with it came the first stunning look at what used to be home. A lake of filthy water still covered much of the area. Wide spaces were completely empty, the Flood having scraped the earth clean down to rock. The buildings, trees, trains, and living things that the Flood scraped off the ground it deposited in huge jams of rubble — the jam at the stone bridge was 14 blocks long. As Rev. Beale wrote later wrote about The Day After:
…The flood had reached and passed its climax, leaving a torn and devastated town, upon whose wreck the stoutest heart on that Saturday never dared to dream would be rebuilt a town.
This activity helps students put themselves in the place of Flood survivors seeing their town at first light on Saturday morning June 1 after a night of terrors. What emotions would they be feeling? What thoughts would they be having? Most couldn’t stay were they were — on top of wreckage that could cave in at any moment; stranded in trees, trapped in debris. But how could they possibly make plans and decisions about what to do next?
The following activity uses some of the great collection of photographs taken in the aftermath of the Flood to prod students’ historical imaginations. There are two options for this activity, depending on if your students have ready access to the Internet or not. For both options, you may wish to use the steps in “Reading a Photograph” if students are having trouble spending enough time with their photo to really see it.
Download and duplicate the worksheet linked below. A set of five photo pairs have been chosen and prepared on these worksheets for those without Internet access for multiple students at a time or for those wishing to use this exercise as homework.
The photo pairs on the worksheets consist of a photo of a survivor or group of survivors and a scene of the destruction that was Johnstown. Students are to imagine that they are the survivors in the top picture looking at the scene in the bottom picture. Worksheet directions appear below for your convenience.
Download and duplicate ” The Day After” option 2 worksheet. For this option, students will need access to photos in several of the image galleries on this Web site:
The activity is the same as Option 1, except that they will choose their own photos to work with for this activity — one from the survivors gallery and one from the destruction gallery — and draw their choices in the spaces provided before continuing as in option 1.
Rev. Beale summarized the situation that lead up to the first Citizens Committee meeting. Read students the following passage from his book:
But, when we consider that the community commonly called Johnstown was made up of seven boroughs, each with its own independent officers and government; that our Chief of Police was overwhelmed by the loss of his family in the flood; that no one seemed to know whether or not the Burgess of Johnstown proper survived the disaster; and that the Burgess of Conemaugh Borough was certainly among the drowned, when we consider these circumstances it will not seem surprising that we who had gathered together out of the flood, on Adam Street, felt compelled to organize a temporary government in the best and speediest manner possible.
It was, perhaps, very imperfectly accomplished, and accomplished, too, without any other authority than that of supreme necessity. The people were impressed with the feeling that something must at once be done; that some recognized authority must be immediately established.
Divide students into four groups. Each group is to act as the Citizens Committee at its first meeting to decide what has to be done immediately. In other words, what were the first steps to recovering from the flood’s destruction? The following questions appear on a separate page for students, in case you wish to assign the discussion as independent or group work.
Give each group a pack of index cards. Have them list each need that they identify on a separate card. Encourage them to rearrange the cards as they discuss priorities, resources, and other factors in their decision-making.
List the jobs that have to be done right away and how you will get them done. Assign someone to be in charge of each job.
List the jobs that have be done later and why (no resources or not as critical).
On Thursday, as soon as the waters in the rivers had fallen sufficiently for communication to be somewhat established between the different boroughs, the appointments we had made in Johnstown proper seemed by common consent to be recognized and respected throughout the entire community.
It was at the meeting held near the corner of Main and Adam Streets that the officers were chosen… General Manager John Fulton, of the Cambria Iron and Steel Company, had been first named as one competent to be at the head of all the committees that might be created but, upon learning that he was out of the city, Mr. A. J. Moxham, of the Johnstown Steel Street Railway Company, was unanimously chosen Director.
In making this choice we had a practical consolidation of Johnstown proper, of Conemaugh Borough, of Woodvale and of the new town of Moxham, having representatives from each present. Manager Moxham accepted the position to which he had been so cordially chosen, and did honor to himself by his good work for the suffering city. Under him the following named committees were chosen and set to work:
These committees at once began their difficult and sorrowful duties, most of them asking and receiving no compensation therefore. The plans of these several departments were projected and their arduous labors entered upon before assistance from abroad came to hand.
After the most immediate needs are taken care of, what has to happen next?
For Johnstown to come back, the citizens will have to go beyond these first emergency needs. Many other needs will have to be filled before Johnstown is back on its feet. To help students remember these steps on the way to coming back, introduce the vocabulary and “5 R’s of Recovery ” mnemonic we’ll use to describe the steps Johnstown took to come back from destruction. They will work more with this process after their museum visit.
A version of this 5 R’s outline for students appears here.
Tell students: On our trip to the Johnstown Flood Museum we’ll find out how Johnstown made its incredible come-back by looking at what they did — and what the rest of the world helped them do — to accomplish each of these steps along the way.
Rebuilding was a personal, as well as community, decision. Survivors whose families had been drowned and homes destroyed sometimes decided not to go back to the scene of their tragedy. Others had deep roots in Johnstown and figured if they had to start over again, it might as well be where they knew everyone. When the Cambria Iron and Steel Company announced it was staying and would pay its workers to help clean up and rebuild the mill, at least people knew there would be work. Johnstown would survive!
Assign each student a name from the list of flood survivors linked below. When known, the list includes survivors’ occupations and addresses from the 1889 Johnstown Directory. Tell students that throughout their visit to the Johnstown Flood Museum, they will be gathering information to help them predict whether or not their survivor decided to stay in Johnstown after the Flood or move on to start over somewhere else (after the visit, we’ll revisit these survivors and see whether the predictions are correct!) Before their museum visit, they should start by reading their survivors’ stories linked from the flood survivor list.
