The Austin Disaster 1911

Social/Historical study of the Austin Dam Disaster of 1911 through the extensive use of news accounts and photographs. In addition, the social dynamics, ethical issues, and variant explainations surrounding the disaster are explored.

At 2:30 on an unseasonably cool, partly cloudy afternoon in late September 1911, the cement dam located a mile above the mill town of Austin, Pennsylvania, gave way, unleashing a wall of water cascading down the narrow valley toward the town and sweeping away everything in its path with the explosive power of a nuclear bomb. Lulled by the assurance of engineering experts that the dam would forever withstand the pressure of the pent-up waters above the town, three thousand unsuspecting residents of Austin went about their slow-paced Saturday routines. Some floundered and drowned in the raging waters that consumed the town, some were battered to death by logs and debris swept up by the torrent, and some, the lucky ones, raced to the safety of higher ground. Stories of heroism, sacrifice, cowardice, and selfishness emerged from the aftermath. The residents of Austin represented; after all, simply a crosscut sample of humanity, exposing the best and worst in times of crisis. Washed Away is a work of fiction that unfolds in the historical context of this real-life tragedy. Committed to go beyond the sensational journalism of that era, two enterprising young reporters from Buffalo, Rusty Shephard and Katie Keenan, join forces to investigate the causes and determine accountability for the disaster. As their investigation begins to unmask the deceit and greed of those responsible, they encounter desperate acts of coverup, recrimination, suicide, and murder, placing their own lives in mortal danger. In their journey to uncover the truth and seek justice, they are absorbed in the emotional turmoil of the town and of their own relationship.

The entrepreneur of phonograph concerts and motion-picture programs Lyman H. Howe was the leading traveling exhibitor of his time and the exemplar of an important but until now little examined aspect of American popular culture. This work, with its numerous and lively illustrations, uses his career to explore the world of itinerant showmen, who exhibited all motion pictures seen outside large cities during the 1890s and early 1900s. They frequently built cultural alliances with genteel city dwellers or conservative churchgoers and in later years favored "high-class" topics appealing to audiences uncomfortable with the plebeian nickelodeons. Bridging the fields of American studies and film history, the book reveals the remarkable sophistication with which exhibitors created their elaborate, evening-length programs to convey powerful ideological messages. Whether depicting the Spanish-American War, the 1900 Paris Exposition, or British colonialism in action, Howe's "cinema of reassurance" had many parallels with the music of John Philip Sousa. Originally published in 1991. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Minutes before midnight on March 12, 1928, the St. Francis Dam collapsed, sending more than twelve billion gallons of water surging through Southern California’s Santa Clara Valley, killing some four hundred people and causing the greatest civil engineering disaster in twentieth-century American history. In this carefully researched work, Norris Hundley jr. and Donald C. Jackson provide a riveting narrative exploring the history of the ill-fated dam and the person directly responsible for its flawed design—William Mulholland, a self-taught engineer of the Los Angeles municipal water system. Employing copious illustrations and intensive research, Heavy Ground traces the interwoven roles of politics and engineering in explaining how the St. Francis Dam came to be built and the reasons for its collapse. Hundley and Jackson also detail the terror and heartbreak brought by the flood, legal claims against the City of Los Angeles, efforts to restore the Santa Clara Valley, political factors influencing investigations of the failure, and the effect of the disaster on congressional approval of the future Hoover Dam. Underlying it all is a consideration of how the dam—and the disaster—were inextricably intertwined with the life and career of William Mulholland. Ultimately, this thoughtful and nuanced account of the dam’s failure reveals how individual and bureaucratic conceit fed Los Angeles’s desire to control vital water supplies in the booming metropolis of Southern California.