Speaking Of the Mississippi River Flood of 1927 ...

I could not help but notice the brief discussion on the Mississippi River Flood of 1927 that has occurred within the past day or so. Why? Well, one of the reasons is that this flood was talked about briefly in one of my classes a couple of weeks ago when the class was studying about floods. Plus, I read a book on the flood a couple years. But my interest was mostly sparked by a couple of blog posts. One of the two posts that I happened to notice was a post on West Carroll Parish, Louisiana. The other post was on The Ancestry Insider.

So, why am I writing this? I thought I would mention an excellent book on the 1927 Mississippi River Flood in case someone wanted to do some more reading on the flood. The book I read a couple years ago was Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How it Changed America by John M. Barry. (This is the same author who wrote The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague In History, another excellent book.) The first half gives background on the different attempts made to control the flooding of the Mississippi River prior to the 1927n flood, while the second half of the book is on the flood and its aftermath. The author also writes about how the flood changed the policies of flood management of the federal government, and how it affected the 1928 presidential election. In addition, he also writes about how the flood changed the demographics of northern cities like Chicago. If you are interested in the history of the Mississippi River Valley, I believe this one book you should read.