audiobook Major Problems in African American History; Vol. 2: From Freedom to Freedom Now; 1865-1990s by Thomas C. Holt; Elsa Barkley Brown in History

Description

The stunning story of one of America’s great disasters; a preventable tragedy of Gilded Age America; brilliantly told by master historian David McCullough.At the end of the nineteenth century; Johnstown; Pennsylvania; was a booming coal-and-steel town filled with hardworking families striving for a piece of the nation’s burgeoning industrial prosperity. In the mountains above Johnstown; an old earth dam had been hastily rebuilt to create a lake for an exclusive summer resort patronized by the tycoons of that same industrial prosperity; among them Andrew Carnegie; Henry Clay Frick; and Andrew Mellon. Despite repeated warnings of possible danger; nothing was done about the dam. Then came May 31; 1889; when the dam burst; sending a wall of water thundering down the mountain; smashing through Johnstown; and killing more than 2;000 people. It was a tragedy that became a national scandal. Graced by David McCullough’s remarkable gift for writing richly textured; sympathetic social history; The Johnstown Flood is an absorbing; classic portrait of life in nineteenth-century America; of overweening confidence; of energy; and of tragedy. It also offers a powerful historical lesson for our century and all times: the danger of assuming that because people are in positions of responsibility they are necessarily behaving responsibly.