The Flood Year 1927: A Cultural History

Using vivid explanations of key literary and musical works complemented by contemporary illustrations, Parrish (American Curiosity), professor in the Department of English Language and Literature and the Program in the Environment at the University of Michigan, successfully demonstrates that the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 left a lasting, modernizing cultural imprint. Rather than recreate the flood’s geographic or chronological progress, Parrish details the disaster’s aftermath, charting its evolution from a sad but unifying event into one that recalled antebellum divisiveness and man-made environmental destruction. The flood covered seven (mostly Southern) states, inspiring “Vaudeville fund-raiser acts” as well as unprecedented private donations. The reality for the affected included segregated refugee camps and other horrors described in Richard Wright’s fictionalized treatments of “Jim Crow environmental disasters.” Government officials boasted about their extensive—and failing—levee system from afar, but Bessie Smith’s mournful “Backwater Blues” and Faulkner’s flood novels, so evocatively documented here, encapsulated the human cost while irrevocably changing music and literature. A thoughtful comparison of 1927’s events to 2005’s Hurricane Katrina aftermath highlights continuing issues concerning the manipulation of natural flood controls and its effect on impoverished, low-lying neighborhoods. Throughout, Parrish successfully and eloquently captures the sense of humanity and personal loss among the million refugees whose experiences gave rise to artistic efforts and environmental issues that continue to resonate. Maps & illus. (Jan.)