In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

2 4 6 On 25 January 1937, Elsa Odman left Chicago to report for duty in Evansville, Indiana. Two days later, together with nine of her fellow Red Cross nurses, she boarded a U.S. Naval Reserve boat that went up the Ohio River. The boat was an open one, as she explained in a letter to her supervisor, Charlotte Heilman, but the Red Cross had provided “a good supply of blankets and we surely needed them, as it was very cold on the river.”1 The current was so swift that they sometimes progressed only a single mile in an hour. After an overnight stay at Menburg and another eight hours of travel on the following day, they reached their first destination: Owensboro, Kentucky. Odman was impressed by what she had witnessed during her trip: “It was a sight one will never forget as the boat scarcely moved up the river. We met houses, barns, etc., floating down the stream.”2 Her trip, however, wasn’t over yet. Since she had been assigned to Stanley , Kentucky, she transferred to a small motor boat and sailed “merrily” for another eight miles “over fences, railroad tracks and trees” until she finally arrived at St. Peter’s Catholic Church Priest Home, which was now located on a twenty-acre island. There she found “two hundred head of stock, several horses and mules, many pigs and about fifty dogs,” who all belonged to the farms that were now underwater. It was pitiful to hear them, she noted, since everybody knew that they were hungry. One morning, “our dogs became quite vicious and Sisters had quite a time . . . when they started for Mass, as one of them growled and bared his teeth. One sister threw him a piece of Animals and River Floods in Modern Germany and the United States u w e lü bk en “Poor Dumb Brutes” or “Friends in Need”? “Poor Dumb Brutes” or “Friends in Need”? 2 4 7 meat before they dared venture out.” It was only after Father Bowling had managed to organize some feed for the animals that the island became more peaceful.3 As Odman’s account makes perfectly clear, natural catastrophes such as river floods challenge not only the dominant power relations within a society but also call into question the seemingly natural relationship between humans and animals. Human victims of disaster as well as the relief forces sent to aid them are often disturbed to see species domesticated for centuries turn into vicious “monsters” obeying their natural instincts for survival rather than their mistresses’ or masters’ voices.4 On the other hand, animals and humans seem to share a similar fate in times of emergency. Both are driven from their usual surroundings; both may find themselves being cared for in large camps; and, more often than not, both are dependent on outside help. However, animals are in many respects much more vulnerable to floods than humans, and some of the chief causes of this discrepancy are anthropogenic. Focusing on the Rhine, Ohio, and Mississippi rivers, this essay will look at the fate of animals facing large floods during the past two centuries, especially in rural areas. “Natural” disasters, which for a long time were neglected by historians, are no longer viewed as “acts of God” but as originating in the interplay of societal structures and power relations with catastrophic events.5 While the literature on the history of disasters in general and on floods in particular is slowly but steadily growing, the effect of such calamities on animals has so far hardly been analyzed.6 One notable exception to this rule is John J. Audubon, who, unsurprisingly , had eyes (and ears) for the fate of animals during a flood. Traveling in a light canoe on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers at flood stage in 1832, he saw hastily manufactured rafts that had been tied to trees and served as refuges for humans, provisions, and cattle. He also witnessed the inversion of the order of the riparian fauna: bears, cougars, lynxes, and several other fourfootedpredatorshadclimbedtosafetyinthetopbranchesoftrees ,wherethey waited for the water to recede. “Hungry in the midst of abundance, although they see floating around them the animals on which they usually prey,” he wrote, “they dare not venture to swim to them.” Even worse, those animals, exhausted by their attempts to reach dry land, were an easy target for hunters . “Some who have nothing to lose, and are usually known by the name of squatters,” Audubon...

Share