MAHAMPDE-L Archives

Archiver > MAHAMPDE > 2005-04 > 1112385419


From: "Laurel O'Donnell" <>
Subject: Re: Mill River Flood Presentation
Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2005 14:56:59 -0500
In-Reply-To: <003601c536f0$5f59d1a0$0100a8c0@rclark>


Sorry ... I was about to post this message but became sidetracked. If you
are interested in obtaining the flier I mentioned in the last message
regarding this presentation, I would contact Lynne directly at:



This is the essence of the flier:

A Presentation by Elizabeth Sharpe – Public Invited



Tuesday, May 24th, 2005, 3:30 - 5:30 p.m., $35

Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, 10 Memorial St., Deerfield, MA,
01342. Please make checks payable to PVMA.



To register, call Karen Kappenman at 413-774-7476, ext. 28; email
; or fill out the form below and mail it
to 10 Memorial St. Box 428, Deerfield, MA. 01342. Limited seating – please
register early!

Elizabeth Sharpe is the former director of education at the Smithsonian
Institution’s National Museum of American History. Her
great-great-grandfather, Ezbon Sharpe, survived the Mill River flood of 1874
by escaping from his tiny tin shop on the water’s edge.



Early one Saturday morning, in May 1874, the dam holding back a reservoir
high in the Williamsburg hills of Massachusetts suddenly burst. A towering
floodwave crashed down the valley, sweeping up trees and boulders,
waterwheels and turbines, cows and horses, houses and human beings. Within
forty-five minutes, the four mill villages between Williamsburg and
Northampton and their factories were washed away. The valley and the nation
were stunned.



How could this tragedy have happened? What insights does it offer into
America’s golden age of industrialization and our still uneasy relationship
with technological advancement? Drawing on contemporary newspaper reports,
eyewitness accounts, and legal records, Elizabeth Sharpe discusses the
forces behind what the Springfield Daily Republican, The New York Tribune,
and magazines like Harper’s and Frank Leslie’s declared “the largest flood
caused by a dam failure America had ever seen.”



A Barnes & Noble Book Fair of books on this and similar topics will
accompany the presentation. The author will sign copies of her book.



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