The National Cash Register Company and the Neighborhoods: New Perspectives on Relief in the Dayton Flood of 1913

It is quite obvious that contemporary events shape the writing of history. By viewing their own times, historians ask new questions about the past. The hurricane that hit the Mississippi-Alabama Gulf Coast in August 2005, dubbed Katrina, is turning out be such an event. Scholars have pointed out the devastation wrought by the storm, the slowness in rebuilding New Orleans, and the failings of government. Approximately 1,800 people lost their lives. Systemic relief efforts were few and far between, and the recovery of the city moves at a slow pace. Why did this happen the way it did? Certainly part of the answer lies in the history of the place where it happened, namely the Gulf Coast. Other answers are political, social, and economic.

In searching for some answers, it may be useful to reinvestigate the floods that covered the state of Ohio at the end of March 1913—particularly the most devastated location, the city of Dayton. Approximately 360 people perished in the Dayton flood. Yet in just a few months’ time the city was returning to normalcy, and by 1922 the Miami Conservancy District was established to prevent future floods from repeating the episode of 1913. In light of Katrina, the relief and recovery efforts in the Dayton flood of 1913 seem all the more remarkable. Evaluating the events surrounding the Dayton flood provides an instructive case study in the history of relief and recovery from natural disasters.

Coming as it did in March 1913, the flood hit Dayton at a specific moment in the city’s history. Therefore, a brief examination of conditions in Dayton before the flood is necessary. The city, as one historian put it, “is at the mercy of the swollen Miami River.”¹ Dayton experienced significant floods in 1814, 1828, 1847, 1866, 1883, 1896, and 1898. After the flood in 1898, Daytonians responded by constructing levies on both sides of the Miami. But their efforts were insufficient in protecting downtown Dayton. Yet, being adjacent to rivers had its advantages. In the early and mid-nineteenth century, waterways were economically valuable to cities in America’s midwestern heartland. The Miami Canal “provided Dayton with cheap transportation, water power, and connections with the outside world.”² In spite of periodic flooding, and because of the city’s position along the water, Dayton’s population grew from 10,977 in 1850 to 85,333 by 1900.³

Prior to the turn of the century, Dayton underwent an economic shift away from agriculture toward industry. With machinery replacing human labor and a factory boom from steam and gas power, Dayton, in a region of the country that led in industry, science, and invention, stepped early into the industrial age. It witnessed the growth of corporations with its adjunct of salaried managers. Chief among them was the National Cash Register Company (NCR), founded in 1884 by John H. Patterson. Others included the Barney and Smith Company, Davis Sewing Machine Company, Dayton Power and Light Company, Speedwell Motor Car Company, and Dayton Engineer Laboratories Company.

The growing wealth of the city could be seen in the urban consumer culture that was well established in Dayton by 1900. The generous selection of goods offered by department stores made the downtown a growing destination for shoppers. The major neighborhoods of the city all had grocery and drugstores, some owned by recent immigrants. The North Side, for example, had nine in-neighborhood grocers.⁴ Other small business included bicycle shops and printing presses. Around the turn of the century, wealthy residents moved out of downtown Dayton, making more space for banking, business offices, restaurants, and motion picture theaters. Between 1900 and 1910, Dayton grew by 31,000 people, and “the downtown would reap the benefits as more people shopped, banked, ate, and visited the city’s business center.”⁵ Business districts developed at the intersections of Keowee and Valley and Third and Williams, the Dayton Arcade was constructed in 1904, Elder and Johnson opened for business in 1905, and the Rike-Kumber...