Deep'n
as It Come
The 1927 Mississippi River Flood
Pete Daniel
In
the spring and summer of 1927, the Mississippi River and
its tributaries flooded from Cairo, Illinois to New Orleans,
Louisiana, and the Gulf of Mexico, tearing through seven
states, sometimes spreading out to nearly one hundred miles
across. Pete Daniel's Deep'n as It Come, available
again in a new format, chronicles the worst flood in the
history of the South and re-creates, with extraordinary
immediacy, the Mississippi River's devastating assault on
property and lives.
Daniel weaves his narrative with newspaper and firsthand
accounts, interviews and survivors, official reports, and
over 140 contemporary photographs. The story of the common
refugee who suffered most of the effects of the flood emerges
alongside the details of the massive rescue and relief operation—one
of the largest ever mounted in the United States. The title,
Deep'n as It Come, is a phrase from Cora Lee Campbell's
early description of he approaching water, which, Daniel
writes, "moved at a pace of some fourteen miles per
day," and in its movement and sound, "had the
eeriness of a full eclipse of t he sun, unsettling, chilling."
"The contradictions of sorrow and humor. . . death
and salvation, despair and hope, calm and panic—all
reveal the human dimension" in this compassionate and
unforgettable portrait of common people confronting a great
natural disaster.
Pete
Daniel
is
a retired curator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum
of American History, and specializes in the history of the
twentieth-century South. He has curated exhibits that deal
with science, photography, and music, and he is author of
Toxic Drift: Pesticides and Health in the Post-World
War II South (2005). His Lost Revolutions: The
South in the 1950s (2000) won the OAH Elliott Rudwick
Prize. He is also past president of the Southern Historical
Association.
1996
232 pages, 160 photographs, maps and illustrations
notes, index
$24.95 paper (s)
978-1-55728-401-3 | 1-55728-401-6
