Before the Flood

Destruction, Community, and Survival in the Drowned Towns of the Quabbin

Elisabeth C. Rosenberg

• Publisher: Pegasus Books
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9781643136448
• eBook ISBN:
  9781643136455
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

In the tradition of Silent Spring, a modernparable of theAmerican experience and our paradoxical relationship with the natural world. Though it seems a part of the "natural" landscape of New England today, theSwift River Valley reservoir, dam, dike, and nature area was a triumph of civil engineering. It combined forward-looking environmental stewardship and social policy, yet the"little people"—andthefour towns in whichthey lived—got lost alongtheway.Elisabeth Rosenberg has crafted BeforetheFlood to be both a modern and a universal story in a time when managed retreat will one day be a reality. Meticulously researched, BeforetheFlood, is the first narrative book onthe incredible history of the Swift River Valley andthe origins Quabbin Reservoir. Rosenberg dive intothesocioeconomic and psychological aspects oftheSwift River Valley's destruction in order to supply drinking water for the growing populations of Boston and wider Massachusetts. It is as much a human story as the story of water and landscape, and Before the Flood movingly reveals both the stories and the science of the key players and the four flooded towns that were washed forever away.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Prologue
• Introduction: “A Well-Watered Place”
• Chapter One: Birth of a Valley: Prehistory–1900
• Chapter Two: A Long, Slow Decline: 1880–1920
• Chapter Three: Boston’s Thirst for Water: 1630–1930
• Chapter Four: Plans for the Reservoir and New Experiences for the Engineers: 1926–1930
• Chapter Five: The Engineers Arrive: 1926–1930
• Chapter Six: ‘ Human Moles’: 1929
• Chapter Seven: Poverty and Wealth
• Chapter Eight: Exams and Promotions—and, Finally, a Name: 1931–1932
• Chapter Nine: “The Bends”: 1932–1935
• Chapter Ten: Social Organizations and Entertainment
• Chapter Eleven: All Hell Breaks Loose: 1936
• Chapter Twelve: The Calm Before: 1937
• Chapter Thirteen: Quabbin Park Cemetery
• Chapter Fourteen: The End of Everything: 1938
• Chapter Fifteen: Two Dances, an Auction, and a Hurricane
• Chapter Sixteen: “Valley of a Thousand Smokes”: 1939
• Chapter Seventeen: Preparing the Path to Boston—And to War: 1940–1941
• Chapter Eighteen: The War and After: 1942–1946
• Chapter Nineteen: Conclusion: Modern “Letters” from Quabbin
• Chapter Twenty: Coda: Their Own Words
• Photographs
• Appendix A: A Quabbin Timeline
• Appendix B: People Mentioned in This Book
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Endnotes
• Copyright