Calamity from the Jamestown Colony to the johnstown flood. Copies will be available for sale. I am thrilled to be with you to hear her talk. I hope you will join me in a very warm welcome. [applause] prof. Kierner in 2012, Superstorm Sandy destroyed many places i love. I found toys about the storm very riveting. Especially the Human Interest stories about its victims, survivors, different efforts to provide Disaster Relief. Which the whole system became politicized. I also found it interesting what this told us about the larger worlds of new york and new jersey. I notice that the news followed a pattern that was familiar to me from katrina and other disasters. First claim the quantitative information about what happens. How may people died. How much property was destroyed. And the value of that property. Interestme the human stories, mostly uplifting stories about relief and resilience. Third and finally came the postdisaster investigation. This is a threestep process. It is how we do disaster. When sandy struck, i was looking for a new book project. Seems to point me in a fertile direction. Had written a book about a sex scandal that occurred in virginia in the 1790s. That book was what is called a micro history, a project that uses a single specific event as a window into the past. Not find an early american disaster and write a micro history about it . It seems like a great idea. And it was. Until i encountered a major problem. I could not find an early american disaster suitable for a big book length study. For stories about cheerful sufferers, inspired efforts at Disaster Relief. Found. As little to be bad things happened all the time. There were epidemics, hurricanes, fires, all sorts of bad things happening. These events did not have the same expansive Cultural Impact back then. They did not result in a voluminous full troll cultural production. My project evolved. Astead of writing about specific event, i began with a new research question, which is something we try to teach our students to do. Again with a question. How and when did the ideas about the causes, consequences, and meanings of floods and earthquakes and at the epidemics become recognizably modern . I will give you my answer briefly and then talk about more stuff. How we do disaster today, our culture of calamity, is a product of the enlightenment. This was an intellectual and Cultural Movement that celebrated human reason, the encouragedknowledge, people to believe in the possibility of progress, that people can make things better. Information is a lot more available to people during the enlightenment. Information travels by way of letters written by government officials. It becomes even widely accessible in the growing world of and culture. This new belief in human agency and progress. To find ways to limit their effect. Science. The enlightenment is all about using reason to understand things. This is what science is also mentally all about. Finally, a new appreciation for emotion. Sympathy for the suffering of others. Being able to experience fellow feeling. It was seen as a time sign of virtue. If you could feel your pain, that meant you were a good person. This is a quality that people of the time cults and since sensibility. It is mostly associated with the scottish enlightenment. In thea huge factor popularity of sentimental novels. The book begins with jamestown. Roughly five out of every six settlers died between the founding of the colony in 16 oh seven and 6024, when the king revoked the Virginia Company charter and made virginia a royal colony. Jamestown was a deathtrap. Colonists died mostly of famine and disease. Things we today would likely characterize as disasters. The culture surrounding these episodes was nothing like the response to the famine in ethiopia in the 1980s. Specificew about the situation in jamestown. The londonbased corporate sponsors of the colonies did everything they could do situation quiet. They did not want people to know jamestown was such a deathtrap. People would stop coming and investing. There was really no information about these troubles. The only Disaster Relief was to send more people and hope they did not die. But of course they did. Five out of six. Most of them did. Jamestown was kind of my baseline. It is a time and a place where bad things happen. The response was nonexistent. I would call it premodern. It is not at all the way we need respond to disasters today. A thorough search of every source i could get my hands on for the century or so after jamestown led me to shipwreck stories. Became an important literary genre. The books Second Chapter is about shipwrecks. Information about shipwrecks was widely available. People were really interested in this stuff. More sentimental accounts became common. I will show you this. If you look at this painting, what it is telling is a story of not just the wreck of the ship but the sad situation of the people suffering as a result. Shore,trying to get to hanging on the mast of the ship, half naked on the beach trying to recover. To ask raising her hands for gods help. The full title of the book is a sentimental and descriptive poem. This poem is quite a slog to read. It went through many additions editions. On both sides of the atlantic. In england and in north america. We are getting sentimental stories about shipwrecks. The way we will later get them about katrina and sandy. Shipwrecks and the losses they caused went to important efforts by scientists and inventors to prevent maritime disasters. Or to limit the loss of life that occurred as a result of them. They experiment with improvements and maritime architecture. They also invent a variety of flotation devices. Here are two notable examples. This is the first lifejacket made of cork. Britishtented by a inventor in the 1760s. This is one of my favorites of the books illustrations. Is a high drop since hydropsis. There are hinges, so it opens and you can put it around your waist if you are shipwreck. There are secret compartments built into it. Only important papers that you want to save from the war but food and stuff so if you are shipwreck for a long time you have stuff to eat and drink. You have a small child with you, this is one of my favorite things. I dont think it ever caught on. But the lifejacket stated. These innovations are important early examples of people using science not simply accepting bad things that happen an act of god acts of god that they cannot do anything about. I love those pictures. Disasterof a specific with a huge Cultural Impact, the watershed moment was the great lisbon earthquake of 1755. It utterly destroyed the portuguese capital. It is considered the first modern disaster. That phrase is used for a variety of reasons. News of it spread very quickly by letters and newspapers. It elicited cultural commentary who wasically everyone anyone in 1755. The people who wrote about it where secular people like volterra. Candide. E author of he also wrote a poem upon the english lisbon disaster. Ofis very graphic in terms describing what you would have seen. I have chosen the sexiest verse for my slide. Close your eyes and imagine. Heap upd children mountain hi, limbs crushed. Mangled, torn, and panting for their breath. And their wretched lives and torment. This is pretty hot stuff. Some people did indeed view the earthquake as a sign of divine vengeance. Society sustained Scientific Investigation of earthquakes and their visible causes. Science was very important in terms of understanding what happened. This inspired an unprecedented number of visual images. I got this from the royal picture collection at windsor castle. This before and after set up was something that was very popular. This was done significantly before the earthquake. The after part as kind of a mess. Im not sure what you would do with this. When we are talking about lisbon, we are talking about not just poetry. This gave rise to the First International relief effort. I am interested in the british empire. What becomes the united states. I would argue that the earthquake had a profound impact throughout the englishspeaking world. For my purpose, what was most significant about the earthquake was its effect on reddish lamp. At the time, in the 1750s, philanthropy was growing enormously and great britain. Especially with newly wealthy merchants looking for ways to use good works to enhance their stature. Different about this response was the unprecedented contribution of government to post Disaster Relief. He was not a clamorous king. Publicly donated 100,000 pounds of money and provisions to help the portuguese. On both sides of the atlantic, his subjects praise him for his generosity. People are writing poems, saying what a great guy king george is. Of some ofexample that bad poetry. It praises georges bounties. They are really enthusiastic about the king. Colonists in america lavishly praised their benevolent monarch. This is something they had previously not expected nor received. Between the lisbon earthquake in 1755 and american independence in 1776, colonists look to london for relief after hurricanes, floods, fires. Some,ypically did get though it was more likely to come from these philanthropic committees. Disaster relief kind of becomes a thing. Themselves assaw part of the larger british community. This signaled their sympathy for people who are suffering. I will stick with four for now. Otherwise you will all be hungry and leave to have lunch. There was a big fire in boston. They called it the great fire. There were fires all the time but people rarely died. About 400 buildings were destroyed, totaling about 50,000 pounds sterling and property loss. More than 200 families were left homeless. What happens . The kings representative in massachusetts, the royal governor, decides he needs to step in. He creates this successful contacting effort by all of the royal governors from nova scotia to virginia and asking them to help. There is another fire and montreal five years later. Montreal and 1765 is a relatively recent addition to the british empire. The overwhelming majority of people were french. They said they spent their lives hating the british, they are not real keen about being there is. That is not cool. Was the in montreal perfect opportunity for the abouth empire to do pr how great it was to be in the british empire. We will take care of you. It killed 10 people. Property losses were comparable to boston. Quebecal governor of decided he wanted to do a fundraising effort that was similar. A Fundraising Committee raised about 9000 pounds or montreal. The third, who had succeeded his grandfather but this time, pitched in 500 pounds and humanitarian relief. A statue of his benevolent self. Pr. Eventually was pulled down by english residents. It was replaced with this inscription that basically talks about what up evelyn dude king george was. Olent dude king george was. Figure is brittania. The other figure is supposed to represent montreal. There is a beaver right next to her. Montreal being the center of the first trade. Fur trade. Then you see the city burning in the background. There is a good response to that. 1772, in august, there is a major hurricane in the caribbean. All there hurricanes time. Particularlywas bad. Hundreds of people died. Property losses totaled about a half a Million Pounds sterling. 1772, minimal aid comes from london. The reason for that is that london is in the midst of a profound financial crisis. The king since 200 pounds to help rebuild military barracks. My fourth example, also from the caribbean, this time barbados of 1780. Ca, in october another hurricane. This one much worst. I still think it is the worst hurricane and caribbean history. As many as 30,000 people died. Nearly 2 Million Pounds sterling in property losses. Jamaica and barbados were loyal colonies. The king and parliament send 120,000 pounds sterling in Disaster Relief. All of this was raised by merchants in britain. Inh all of this crash course imperial Disaster Relief, it should tell you that Disaster Relief was a thing. The 1750s between and 1780s. It mattered what kind of a context the disaster happened in. Hurricane relief for jamaica and barbados was a political dividend. The colonists earned it by their loyalty to the king and empire. Governmentsponsored benevolence and Disaster Relief became standard practice. American to declare their established in 1776 Political Institutions that did whoprovide relief to people suffered the ravages of hurricanes, fires, and other calamities. It affects pretty much the entire city. This epidemic is important for a lot of reasons. A lot of people have written about it. Test of how the u. S. Government would respond to a deadly disaster. Philadelphia was home to three governments, federal, state, and local. All of them fled the city as soon as the epidemic happened. If you look at president washingtons correspondence with time, itet during this indicates that the nations leaders saw the war in europe between britain and france as much more pressing than the fear in philadelphia. Congress first considered something that looked like Disaster Relief legislation. In the red part of the map is where the places were affected by the fire. There was a law called the act of the relief for the sufferers. They are totally wrong. That is the entire law. It did nothing to help widows and orphans. President Thomas Jefferson sent portsmouth local Relief Committee a generous donation for humanitarian purposes. With one notable exception, humanitarian relief was not forthcoming from the federal government during the lifetimes of the founders. This was after a fire destroyed 53 buildings, leaving many people homeless. We all know that alexandria is now in virginia. But back then it was part of the district of columbia. It was governed by congress. Relief, federal disaster or alexandria was considered controversial. Spoke for a sizable minority of legislators when he condemned the measure and set it set a dangerous precedent. In reality, it did not. Instead, it was congresss decision to protect the merchants and their business interests rather than to alleviate human suffering that set the precedent that endured in the u. S. Until after the civil war. Severals benefited from similar legislation after the second big fire. So did commercial interests in norfolk and new york city after major fires occurred there. Togress took these steps help merchants in the aftermath of urban buyers. These were deemed essential to the fiscal and Economic Health of the republic. Earthquakes, and other natural disasters were also common in the early republic. Landholdings had been destroyed by the new madrid earthquakes. They allow these people to stop swap lands. That offer was to strengthen control of the Louisiana Purchase territory by encouraging white settlement. They wanted to settle that land to get away from indians. It is important to emphasize that congressional action or inaction was in keeping with the vision of the men who drafted and implemented the constitution. Not see Disaster Relief for suffering citizens as part of governments job. That they gavet the government pretty impressive powers. There was no general federal Disaster Relief law until 1950. There does not seem to have been much public demand for public intervention Government Intervention. But that began to change slowly. I would argue that the major factor behind that change was the steamboat. It was a popular new fast and often very dangerous way of moving people and goods. Between 1860 and thats 1816 and many steamboats were destroyed in explosions or related catastrophes. Annual steamboat totalitys did not get better over time, they actually got worse. These numbers might not be staggering. The lisbon earthquake had killed 40,000 people in a few hours. There were two important things about steamboat disasters that made them alarmingly compelling. Steamboats were ubiquitous. People had been on one or knew somebody who had been on one. It made them more relatable. The rise of the steamboat coincided with other important changes. The availability of cheap newspapers. The crux of popular thattainment like theater could reenact or reconstruct disasters so people could go see them. Sensational words. There is my steamboat. These images where literally everywhere in antebellum america. This came as a total surprise to me. Let me give you an indication. When this steamboat exploded in new orleans, a widely repented reprinted eyewitness account described the scene as the site of mangled bodies on every side. The grounds of the dying and the shrieks of the agonizing produced a general thrill of horror among the multitude. I love people who smile or laugh when i read this stuff. You . Is wrong with [laughter] a woman sues longhair lay matted by her side, her body was mangled. A large man having had his skull mash then lay dead on the levy levee. Crashed, scalded, burned, mutilated, dismembered. And there were pictures courier and ives are well known for celebrating american industry and growth by portraying orderly cities, western beast does, powerful machines. They also depicted the destruction of those very things. Nathaniel currier printed these lithographs. Many of them showed steamboats exploding or colliding and wrecking. Is this one those here. That appearedge on the front page of the new york Sun Newspaper just three days after it happened in 1840. That was really quick. You could buy it and hang it in your living room. The other thing interesting about this print is it is the first kind of big above the fold image in american newspaper history. It is an exploding steamboat. Generated popular demand for Government Intervention to impose and enforce safety standards. Congress law passed by in 1838 was totally ineffectual. The second one saved lives. The first represented federal regulation of private industries. The