David McCullough recalled the moments that got him started “in the history business.” In 1965, he came across a spectacular photograph of the unveiling of the Statue of Liberty. Showing it to the editors of American Heritage, he was invited to write an article which was published in the February issue the following year as “Hail, Liberty!”
He joined the staff of our magazine and was researching in the Library of Congress when a curator pointed out a collection of photographs of the Johnstown Flood the research center had just acquired. In that disaster in 1889, an earthen dam failed and sent a mass of water downriver that crushed buildings and killed 2,209 people.
“I grew up in that part of Pennsylvania and had heard about the Johnstown flood all my life,” McCullough later recalled. “I knew that a dam had broken, but, beyond that, I didn't know anything. I was astounded by the violence of what had happened and the drama of it.”
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