1927 Flood and the Republican Party

I watched a story about this on the Weather Channel. I then decided to look into it further. This disaster was the leading cause for black people to stop supporting the Republican Party. This flood also affected parts of Kentucky.

The Flood of 1927 was the most destructive and costly flood in Arkansas history and one of the worst in the history of the nation. It afflicted Arkansas with a greater amount of devastation, both human and monetary, than the other affected states in the Mississippi River Valley. It had social and political ramifications which changed the way Arkansas, as well as the nation, viewed relief from natural disasters and the responsibility of government in aiding the victims, echoing the Hurricane Katrina disaster in the present day.

In largely agrarian Arkansas, the Flood of 1927 covered about 6,600 square miles, with thirty-six out of seventy-five Arkansas counties under water up to thirty feet deep in places. In Arkansas, more people were affected by the floodwaters (over 350,000), more farmland inundated (over two million acres), more Red Cross camps were needed (eighty of the 154 total), and more families received relief than any other state (41,243). In Arkansas, almost 100 people died, more than any state except Mississippi. In monetary terms, the losses in Arkansas (totaling over $1 million in 1927 dollars for relief and recovery) surpassed any other affected state.


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Quote :

The 1927 flood also led to a change in attitudes regarding the government’s role in helping its citizens in time of crisis. Prior to this time, people generally feared “the dole” and preferred work to “charity.” However, the enormity of the catastrophe led many to support the type of New Deal programs proposed by Franklin Roosevelt’s Democratic administration in 1932. People now looked to Washington for help, for the misery was not over.

This paragraph is a bit telling to me of why the shift as well.

That stuck out to me also.