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The Flood Year 1927: A Cultural History
The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, which covered nearly thirty thousand square miles across seven states, was the most destructive river flood in U.S. history. Due to the speed of new media and the slow progress of the flood, this was the first environmental disaster to be experienced on a mass scale. As it moved from north to south down an environmentally and technologically altered valley, inundating plantations and displacing more than half a million people, the flood provoked an intense and lasting cultural response. The Flood Year 1927 draws from newspapers, radio broadcasts, political cartoons, vaudeville, blues songs, poetry, and fiction to show how this event took on public meanings.
Americans at first seemed united in what Herbert Hoover called a "great relief machine," but deep rifts soon arose. Southerners, pointing to faulty federal levee design, decried the attack of Yankee water. The condition of African American evacuees in "concentration camps" prompted pundits like W.E.B. Du Bois and Ida B. Wells to warn of the return of slavery to Dixie. And environmentalists like Gifford Pinchot called the flood "the most colossal blunder in civilized history." Susan Scott Parrish examines how these and other key figures--from entertainers Will Rogers, Miller & Lyles, and Bessie Smith to authors Sterling Brown, William Faulkner, and Richard Wright--shaped public awareness and collective memory of the event.
The crises of this period that usually dominate historical accounts are war and financial collapse, but The Flood Year 1927 enables us to assess how mediated environmental disasters became central to modern consciousness.
Americans at first seemed united in what Herbert Hoover called a "great relief machine," but deep rifts soon arose. Southerners, pointing to faulty federal levee design, decried the attack of Yankee water. The condition of African American evacuees in "concentration camps" prompted pundits like W.E.B. Du Bois and Ida B. Wells to warn of the return of slavery to Dixie. And environmentalists like Gifford Pinchot called the flood "the most colossal blunder in civilized history." Susan Scott Parrish examines how these and other key figures--from entertainers Will Rogers, Miller & Lyles, and Bessie Smith to authors Sterling Brown, William Faulkner, and Richard Wright--shaped public awareness and collective memory of the event.
The crises of this period that usually dominate historical accounts are war and financial collapse, but The Flood Year 1927 enables us to assess how mediated environmental disasters became central to modern consciousness.
- GenresNonfictionHistory
416 pages, Hardcover
First published December 26, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
May 9, 2025
Learned several new words. Learned a lot about the flood of 1927. Sadly I’ve already forgotten the new words I’ve learned.
November 7, 2019
Introduction
The 1927 Mississippi River flood was a major eco-disaster, framed as an unavoidable act of nature when in fact it was to a great extent exacerbated, if not caused, by human behavior. 100 years of agriculture and deforestation in the vast area drained by the Mississippi greatly reduced the capacity of the land to absorb extra moisture during rainy times. The political/economic decision to rely on levees to control rising water levels meant that the system was only as strong as its weakest link.
The purpose of this book is not to recount how the flood happened and the destruction it wrought, except as those facts serve the central purpose of the book: to examine how this eco-disaster “took on form and meaning as it was nationally and internationally represented across multiple media platforms.” That is, the book examines the cultural moment within which the flood was situated, the way that moment shaped the construction of society’s understanding of the flood, and the repercussions of that understanding in both the short and the long term.
Major strands of inquiry will include the fact that many of the flood victims were southern African Americans, the historical backdrop of the US Civil War and its highlighting of North-South differences, the “modern” reliance on technology to solve problems, and the emergence of mass media as shapers of perception.
Chapter 1: Modern Overflow
From the beginning, the flood was viewed as a social, not an ecological, crisis. Newspaper reports emphasized death and displacement. Southerners viewed this water from the north as only the latest example of Northern damage inflicted on the South. No acknowledgement was made of the effects of agricultural practice, deforestation and levee politics. Also, no acknowledgement was made of the impact of the flood on Black labor and families.
The flood unfolded as a slow motion disaster. No direct federal aid was offered. Rather, the Res Cross coordinated efforts, using private donations to set up refugee camps. The Red Cross mission was “restoration,” not improved lives for those displaced. The racist overtones were clear, and camps practiced discrimination.
The mastermind coordinating federal oversight was Herbert Hoover, so appointee by president Coolidge. Hoover’s reputation as a creator of effective systems created the perception that the recovery effort was a well-oiled machine.
Nature, too, was seen as a self-correcting and self-improving machine. The random nature of an event such as this flood was thus theorized away.
Section 1, introduction: Disaster’s Public
The flood had two publics: the cohort of those directly affected and the cohort of those whose perceptions of the event were shaped by newspapers, magazines, radio, records, movies and vaudeville performances.
This media climate was a product of the Great War and the lessons learned there about machine-age propaganda.
Hoover and the Red Cross manufactured a belief in the “relief machine” as a national battle against an invading (natural) enemy.
Walter Lippmann warned against the danger of distortion inherent in state-managed information in the wake of W. Wilson’s establishment of the WW1 Committee on Public Information, which its administrator called “a vast enterprise in salesmanship.” Lippmann contended that the complexity of reality was not reducible to a shape that can be known. When propagandists create a narrative that implies understandability, they inevitably distort. Lippmann laments the public’s lack of capacity to see what’s being foisted upon them.
Also considered are the more nuanced views of John Dewey and Walter Benjamin, as well as more recent theorists of disaster.
“The consensus in these studies of large-scale disaster mediation after WW1 is that the upheaval these events inflict seems to demand a ritualistic reintegration of populations into coherent meaningful publics.” Ritualistic means include parades, scapegoating, or communal resolutions of transformation.
This sets up chapter two, where the initial response to the flood is to band together as a nation to mobilize against the flood and to assist its victims.
Chapter 2: A Northern Army of Relief
From the start, the national public was presented with the flood as spectacle, either to entertain or to raise money for relief.
Newspapers, magazines and radio stations had overlapping regional, socio-economic and racial audiences, yet patterns of representation emerged. One was the malevolence of nature, with the Mississippi depicted as a snake or dragon. Another was the language of war against the water enemy. Yet another was the image of the north coming to the aid of the south, regardless of where the contributions actually came from. This last image revived the idea of completing the work of national reunification after the Civil War, or of restoring/creating the idea of one national community.
Print and imagery created the image of Hoover as “national patriarch” and simultaneously the master organizer of the relief effort.
Newspaper images emphasized that white people were recipients of relief aid. Black recipients were caricaturized for comic relief.
The chapter closes with an examination of a charity presentation of Iphigenia in Taurus in Washington DC for flood relief. The contextual appropriateness of that play is explored.
To conclude - “Coolidge and Hoover encouraged, through media channels, the nation to imagine itself as an ‘army of relief,’ guided by technocratic urban experts, coming to the rescue of an ‘army of unfortunate people,” ...restag[ing] the ideal, Wilsonian version of World War 1.”
Chapter 3: Crosstalk in the Press
While the flood had commanded front page status as the catastrophe mounted, it became “unsatisfying news because of both its scale and its duration.” Other stories, such as the Lindbergh flight, supplanted it. Also, the scale of human ineptitude which contributed to the catastrophe became more evident, as the story turned from rescue to blame.
Yankee Water
Southern states blamed federal government policies, and resented the northern press’s shaping of the story. Will Rogers reported that southerners were saying “we don’t want relief, we want protection” from what they saw as “Yankee water.” Southern papers called for a coherent national river management strategy and derided the supposed expertise of Washington. This southern animosity toward the north engendered accusations that once again (i.e. post civil war) the south was being ruined by the north.
The Color Line
“For the powerful white interests in the delta, this flood was about property and crop values...For poor whites...and blacks who represented the overwhelming majority of sufferers, the flood represented direct threats to their bodily integrity and freedom. “ Relief efforts, though favored whites. Conditions in relief camps for blacks were reprehensible. These conditions were chronicled and condemned in the northern Black press, to little avail. In fact, black refugees were pressed into flood cleanup duty, sometimes at gunpoint. Conditions for black refugees drew comparisons with slavery.
Nordic Tribalism
Led by H. L. Mencken, northern journalists painted a picture of a backwards “sick” south, ill-equipped to deal with the catastrophe on its own. Relief efforts were paternalistically offered.
Chapter 4: Bessie’s Ecologue
In the fall of 1926 and winter of 1927, Bessie Smith went on a concert tour that took her from NYC as far south as Birmingham AL and as far west as St. Louis. Her path crossed the rising flood. Upon returning to NYC, she wrote and recorded “Back-Water Blues,” which became the pop culture anthem of the flood, articulating the story of displacement, hardship and pain in an emotional counterpoint to all the intellectual and political framing that had previously taken place. Other artists followed up with their own flood-related music, but none matched Smith’s power.
Chapter 5:Catastrophe Comes to Vaudeville
Parrish’s project is to excavate the cultural record of recognizing and dealing with the flood. She here turns her attention to a popular culture phenomenon of the day, vaudeville, and examines the way the flood is constructed and received in that context.
Part 2 - manifestations of the flood in the fiction of William Faulkner and Richard Wright.
I’m the first section, Parrish uses the methodology and the tools of literary criticism to examine the way the culture constructed and understood the flood. In the second section, she uses those tools in a more standard manner, examining works of fiction. She finds many instances in both Faulkner and Wright that demonstrate awareness of the flood (and other floods) and making fictional comment on causes and effects.
The 1927 Mississippi River flood was a major eco-disaster, framed as an unavoidable act of nature when in fact it was to a great extent exacerbated, if not caused, by human behavior. 100 years of agriculture and deforestation in the vast area drained by the Mississippi greatly reduced the capacity of the land to absorb extra moisture during rainy times. The political/economic decision to rely on levees to control rising water levels meant that the system was only as strong as its weakest link.
The purpose of this book is not to recount how the flood happened and the destruction it wrought, except as those facts serve the central purpose of the book: to examine how this eco-disaster “took on form and meaning as it was nationally and internationally represented across multiple media platforms.” That is, the book examines the cultural moment within which the flood was situated, the way that moment shaped the construction of society’s understanding of the flood, and the repercussions of that understanding in both the short and the long term.
Major strands of inquiry will include the fact that many of the flood victims were southern African Americans, the historical backdrop of the US Civil War and its highlighting of North-South differences, the “modern” reliance on technology to solve problems, and the emergence of mass media as shapers of perception.
Chapter 1: Modern Overflow
From the beginning, the flood was viewed as a social, not an ecological, crisis. Newspaper reports emphasized death and displacement. Southerners viewed this water from the north as only the latest example of Northern damage inflicted on the South. No acknowledgement was made of the effects of agricultural practice, deforestation and levee politics. Also, no acknowledgement was made of the impact of the flood on Black labor and families.
The flood unfolded as a slow motion disaster. No direct federal aid was offered. Rather, the Res Cross coordinated efforts, using private donations to set up refugee camps. The Red Cross mission was “restoration,” not improved lives for those displaced. The racist overtones were clear, and camps practiced discrimination.
The mastermind coordinating federal oversight was Herbert Hoover, so appointee by president Coolidge. Hoover’s reputation as a creator of effective systems created the perception that the recovery effort was a well-oiled machine.
Nature, too, was seen as a self-correcting and self-improving machine. The random nature of an event such as this flood was thus theorized away.
Section 1, introduction: Disaster’s Public
The flood had two publics: the cohort of those directly affected and the cohort of those whose perceptions of the event were shaped by newspapers, magazines, radio, records, movies and vaudeville performances.
This media climate was a product of the Great War and the lessons learned there about machine-age propaganda.
Hoover and the Red Cross manufactured a belief in the “relief machine” as a national battle against an invading (natural) enemy.
Walter Lippmann warned against the danger of distortion inherent in state-managed information in the wake of W. Wilson’s establishment of the WW1 Committee on Public Information, which its administrator called “a vast enterprise in salesmanship.” Lippmann contended that the complexity of reality was not reducible to a shape that can be known. When propagandists create a narrative that implies understandability, they inevitably distort. Lippmann laments the public’s lack of capacity to see what’s being foisted upon them.
Also considered are the more nuanced views of John Dewey and Walter Benjamin, as well as more recent theorists of disaster.
“The consensus in these studies of large-scale disaster mediation after WW1 is that the upheaval these events inflict seems to demand a ritualistic reintegration of populations into coherent meaningful publics.” Ritualistic means include parades, scapegoating, or communal resolutions of transformation.
This sets up chapter two, where the initial response to the flood is to band together as a nation to mobilize against the flood and to assist its victims.
Chapter 2: A Northern Army of Relief
From the start, the national public was presented with the flood as spectacle, either to entertain or to raise money for relief.
Newspapers, magazines and radio stations had overlapping regional, socio-economic and racial audiences, yet patterns of representation emerged. One was the malevolence of nature, with the Mississippi depicted as a snake or dragon. Another was the language of war against the water enemy. Yet another was the image of the north coming to the aid of the south, regardless of where the contributions actually came from. This last image revived the idea of completing the work of national reunification after the Civil War, or of restoring/creating the idea of one national community.
Print and imagery created the image of Hoover as “national patriarch” and simultaneously the master organizer of the relief effort.
Newspaper images emphasized that white people were recipients of relief aid. Black recipients were caricaturized for comic relief.
The chapter closes with an examination of a charity presentation of Iphigenia in Taurus in Washington DC for flood relief. The contextual appropriateness of that play is explored.
To conclude - “Coolidge and Hoover encouraged, through media channels, the nation to imagine itself as an ‘army of relief,’ guided by technocratic urban experts, coming to the rescue of an ‘army of unfortunate people,” ...restag[ing] the ideal, Wilsonian version of World War 1.”
Chapter 3: Crosstalk in the Press
While the flood had commanded front page status as the catastrophe mounted, it became “unsatisfying news because of both its scale and its duration.” Other stories, such as the Lindbergh flight, supplanted it. Also, the scale of human ineptitude which contributed to the catastrophe became more evident, as the story turned from rescue to blame.
Yankee Water
Southern states blamed federal government policies, and resented the northern press’s shaping of the story. Will Rogers reported that southerners were saying “we don’t want relief, we want protection” from what they saw as “Yankee water.” Southern papers called for a coherent national river management strategy and derided the supposed expertise of Washington. This southern animosity toward the north engendered accusations that once again (i.e. post civil war) the south was being ruined by the north.
The Color Line
“For the powerful white interests in the delta, this flood was about property and crop values...For poor whites...and blacks who represented the overwhelming majority of sufferers, the flood represented direct threats to their bodily integrity and freedom. “ Relief efforts, though favored whites. Conditions in relief camps for blacks were reprehensible. These conditions were chronicled and condemned in the northern Black press, to little avail. In fact, black refugees were pressed into flood cleanup duty, sometimes at gunpoint. Conditions for black refugees drew comparisons with slavery.
Nordic Tribalism
Led by H. L. Mencken, northern journalists painted a picture of a backwards “sick” south, ill-equipped to deal with the catastrophe on its own. Relief efforts were paternalistically offered.
Chapter 4: Bessie’s Ecologue
In the fall of 1926 and winter of 1927, Bessie Smith went on a concert tour that took her from NYC as far south as Birmingham AL and as far west as St. Louis. Her path crossed the rising flood. Upon returning to NYC, she wrote and recorded “Back-Water Blues,” which became the pop culture anthem of the flood, articulating the story of displacement, hardship and pain in an emotional counterpoint to all the intellectual and political framing that had previously taken place. Other artists followed up with their own flood-related music, but none matched Smith’s power.
Chapter 5:Catastrophe Comes to Vaudeville
Parrish’s project is to excavate the cultural record of recognizing and dealing with the flood. She here turns her attention to a popular culture phenomenon of the day, vaudeville, and examines the way the flood is constructed and received in that context.
Part 2 - manifestations of the flood in the fiction of William Faulkner and Richard Wright.
I’m the first section, Parrish uses the methodology and the tools of literary criticism to examine the way the culture constructed and understood the flood. In the second section, she uses those tools in a more standard manner, examining works of fiction. She finds many instances in both Faulkner and Wright that demonstrate awareness of the flood (and other floods) and making fictional comment on causes and effects.
May 21, 2021
On May 28, 1927, [Richard] Wright read "Another Mencken Absurdity," an editorial in the Memphis Commercial Appeal that was a response to Mencken's own Baltimore Evening Sun editorial of five days earlier, "The Mississippi Flood." In his editorial, Mencken rather blithely put salt in the wounds of the flooded region, declaring that "New Yorkers [would] refrain from sobbing" for the suffering of "the least advanced white people now living in the United States." Southerners, whom he saw as fundamentalist "yokels" and "Ku Kluxers," were not fellow Americans, but rather a "hostile tribe on our borders." The editors of the Appeal, turning the tables, accused Mencken of "ignorance" and of "pl[ying] the trade of the most credulous of the revivalists who see in every cataclysm of nature, God's visitation for sin." Wright was struck, when reading the Appeal's response, by the "scorn" flowing between northern and southern whites, prodding him to wonder: "Were there, then, people other than Negroes who criticized the South?" As Wright recalled, this discord within American whiteness opened up for him a rhetorical space and allowed him to begin to imagine belonging to a larger world of print. If mainstream print culture could provoke within itself a public discord, rather than merely project a single ideology, then perhaps he could enter into its fray. Moreover, realizing that there were whites who fiercely opposed the South made what was a private, unspoken revolt against his region feel legitimate.
December 4, 2018
This is a very scholarly (have your dictionary handy) treatise. It contains much startling information (like black people being taken out of Red Cross camps at the point of a gun by the National Guard to work on the levees; several riparian farmers blowing up the levee on the opposite side of the river in order to save their own levee and farm; etc.)
July 10, 2022
Very interesting exploration of the cultural effects of the great flood in 1927. The section exploring blues and vaudeville was especially interesting. It is a very dense read, but I enjoyed it.
September 21, 2025
(returning to finish Faulkner chapter after Wild Palms)
April 2, 2022
I will be thinking about the chapter on William Faulkner and flood literature for literally the rest of my life. What a masterpiece! Wow!
December 7, 2016
I was very interested to read this book since I live in an area that was directly impacted by this flood. Though I wasn't alive during that time I have heard stories and read a few books about it. This book looks back on that time so you can see the divide in class, race, politics and geographic location. You see through newspaper clippings and cartoons that our nation was and to some point still is very much divided from the Civil War.
I was given an advanced eARC from the publisher through NetGalley.
I was given an advanced eARC from the publisher through NetGalley.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews