Deep'n as it Come: The 1927 Mississippi River Flood

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."

Deep'n as it come: The 1927 Mississippi River flood

History

Pete Daniel

Americas

Oxford University Press, Inc.

The shadow of slavery;: Peonage in the South, 1901-1969 (A Galaxy book, GB396)

Business & Money

Economics

Oxford University Press

The Shadow of Slavery: Peonage in the South, 1901-1969

<p>Whether peonage in the South grew out of slavery, a natural and perhaps unavoidable interlude between bondage and freedom, or whether employers distorted laws and customs to create debt servitude, most Southerners quietly accepted peonage. To the employer it was a way to control laborers; to the peon it was a bewildering system that could not be escaped without risk of imprisonment, beating, or death. Pete Daniel's book is about this largely ignored form of twentieth-century slavery. It is in part "the record of an American failure, the inability of federal, state, and local law-enforcement officers to end peonage." In a series of case studies and histories Daniel re-creates the neglected and frightening world of peonage, demanding, "If a form of slavery yet exists in the United States, as so much evidence suggests, then the relevant questions are why, and by whose irresponsibility?" Peonage grew out of labor settlements following emancipation, when employers forbade croppers to leave plantations because of debt (often less than $30). At the turn of the century the federal government acknowledged that the "labyrinth of local customs and laws" binding men in debt was peonage. They outlawed debt servitude and slowly moved against it, but with no large success. Dis-appearing witnesses and acquitted employers characterized the cases that did go to court. Each year, about fifty complaints still come to the Justice Department, few of which are investigated. Daniel holds that peon-age persists for many reasons: the corruption and apathy of law-enforcement officers, racist traditions in the South, and the impotence of the Justice Department in prosecuting this violation of federal law. He draws extensively on complaints and trial transcripts from the peonage records of the Justice Department. The files since 1946, however, are closed to researchers.\nPETE DANIEL is assistant professor of history at the University of Tennessee. He is former assistant editor of the Booker T. Washington Papers. An article from The Shadow of Slavery was published in the April, 1972, issue of American Heritage.</p>

The shadow of slavery: peonage in the South, 1901-1969

Management & Leadership

University of Illinois Press

B&W Photographs the art of "Miss Frances Benjamin Johnston - Her portrait work immortalized Susan B. Anthony, Joel Chandler Harris, Mark Twain, the Roosevelts, George Washington Carver, Alexander Graham Bell, Booker T. Washing, Admiral Dewey, President McKinley and many others. Women workers, coal miners...."

A Talent for Detail: The Photographs of Miss Frances Benjamin Johnston, 1889-1910

Raymond Smock

Frances Benjamin Johnston

Harmony Books+

Standing at the Crossroads: Southern Life Since 1900 (American Century Series)

Hill and Wang

<p>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."</p>

Deep'n as It Come: The 1927 Mississippi River Flood

Literature & Fiction

University of Arkansas Press

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Books by Pete Daniel