The 981 Project Podcast

Trivia Time: How Did Pittsburgh Turn Flood Relief into a Blueprint for Feeding America?

Read Part One of Flood to Food Banks here. [https://the981project.com/p/how-did-a-1937-flood-became-the-blueprint] By the spring of 1937, the Ohio River had retreated to its banks, but the questions it left behind were harder to contain. Across the valley, local officials and federal administrators began asking what might happen if the same machinery that fed the stranded could be used to feed the poor. That question found its first real test in Pittsburgh, a city still defined by its mills and smoke. In the months after the flood, the Red Cross and the Works Progress Administration (WPA) turned their emergency kitchens into an experiment. Instead of closing when the waters receded, they stayed open—serving families displaced not by water, but by chronic unemployment. The effort became known informally as the Pittsburgh “trial project.” The idea spread quickly. Relief experiments cropped up in other cities—St. Louis, Cincinnati, Louisville—each adapting WPA labor and surplus commodities in its own way. None were as formally structured as Pittsburgh’s, but all were feeling their way toward a similar question: how do you feed people once the emergency ends? But Pittsburgh stood out for its scale and precision. Backed by federal administrators who had cut their teeth on flood relief, the city developed a system for inventorying, storing, and distributing food that could function even when emergency funds dried up. At its core, the project asked whether public welfare could operate with the efficiency of disaster relief. WPA clerks cataloged household needs; local grocers became distribution partners; surplus commodities from the U.S. Department of Agriculture—flour, beans, lard, canned fruit—were tracked, stored, and rationed according to family size. The Red Cross supplied social workers, and city officials provided warehouses and trucks. Together they built a prototype for what would later be called food security logistics. The trial wasn’t perfect. Federal funding ebbed with each budget cycle, and the social stigma of “relief food” remained. But the administrative bones of the system—the inventories, supply chains, and coordination among civic and charitable agencies—became a model. The project didn’t design the Surplus Commodities Program, but it mirrored the same principles—standardized inventories, warehouse distribution, and coordinated logistics—that federal policymakers would embrace by 1939. The Great Flood’s legacy, it turned out, wasn’t only the levees that kept rivers in check—it was the blueprint for a nation learning to feed itself in good times and bad. And here’s a picture of Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins, with Pittsburgh steelworkers in 1933. Now that you’ve read about the Pittsburgh “trial project” and its sister cities, test what you know about how these experiments evolved into the modern food-bank system in this month’s quiz. Note to my fantastic new subscribers: It’s the rare person who can answer all ten trivia questions without any prep. I couldn’t answer them without a significant amount of research, either! Do your best and enjoy learning something new. QUESTIONS: Each question has one correct answer, found in the footnotes. 1. What made Pittsburgh the ideal testing ground for the “trial project?” A. It had strong labor unions and civic coordinationB. It had an existing network of flood-relief warehouses and staffC. It was home to one of the nation’s largest steelworker populationsD. It was the operational capital of the New Deal’s relief agencies in the East 2. Which New Deal administrator was known for saying, “People don’t eat in the long run—they eat every day?” A. Harold IckesB. Eleanor RooseveltC. Harry HopkinsD. Henry Wallace 3. Which prominent women helped shape Pittsburgh’s approach to relief work? A. Frances PerkinsB. Eleanor RooseveltC. Mary McLeod BethuneD. All of the above 4. What immediate challenge did Pittsburgh face once the floodwaters receded? A. Contaminated food suppliesB. Unemployment in the millsC. Housing shortages in the suburbsD. Labor strikes in city services 5. Which local partner helped the WPA convert emergency kitchens into year-round distribution centers? A. The Heinz CompanyB. The City Department of Public WelfareC. Carnegie SteelD. The Allegheny Conference on Community Development 6. What role did the Red Cross play in Pittsburgh’s trial project? A. Operated soup kitchens independentlyB. Supplied social workers and coordinated volunteersC. Focused solely on medical careD. Distributed industrial food waste to the poor 7. What was unique about Pittsburgh’s data collection? A. It used punch-card tabulators from local millsB. WPA clerks tracked every meal and household servedC. It relied on volunteer recordkeepers from churchesD. All records were destroyed after the project ended 8. What type of food filled Pittsburgh’s relief warehouses? A. Locally grown produce and dairyB. Imported European goodsC. USDA surplus commoditiesD. Restaurant leftovers donated by civic clubs 9. Why did some Pittsburgh residents resist the program? A. Fear of socialism and stigma around “relief food”B. Dietary restrictions in immigrant communitiesC. Disputes between union and non-union householdsD. Concerns about federal control of local farms 10. What enduring lesson came from Pittsburgh’s “trial project?” A. Feeding systems could be industrialized like steelB. Charity worked better than coordinationC. Flood control was more important than hunger reliefD. Relief should be handled only by private agencies Up next in Part Three of Flood to Food Banks: How Did the U.S. Government End Up in the Grocery Business? Intermission Here’s a great documentary about the Great Flood of 1937 in Pittsburgh, which peaked at 46 feet. The segment featured an interview with Dr. H. Ward Ewalt, a Pittsburgh optometrist who filmed the flood and the damage it created around the city. It includes footage of the flood in downtown Pittsburgh, the J&L mill in Hazelwood, Lawrenceville, Manchester, Etna, Turtle Creek, Bellevue and Millvale. Ewalt passed away in 1995 after a long career in optometry. ANSWERS Get full access to The 981 Project at the981project.com/subscribe [https://the981project.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

How did a 1937 Flood Became the Blueprint for Food Banks?

This is Part One of “Flood to Food Banks,” a three-part exploration of how the Ohio River became America’s testing ground for social uplift. With American hunger back in the national headlines, I’ve been thinking about how this story of hunger relief began. I was surprised to learn it wasn’t with pantries and food drives, but with the Ohio River’s most devastating flood at the start of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s second term. My own research on the topic started several years ago, when I visited the Blennerhassett Museum of Regional History in Parkersburg, West Virginia, during the summer of 2021. However, at the time, I wasn’t looking for the origins of the modern food bank system—I hadn’t even thought about it. It was just part of my general reconnaissance of the region and its many historical facets. I bought an admission ticket and stepped into the first-floor gallery, where a black gauge climbs the white brick wall, ending past the landing of the second story balcony. It was like a ruler of reckoning showing flood levels from 1884, through 1964. If you look at the picture below, the scale begins at forty feet, because that’s the elevation of the museum floor above the river’s normal height. I tilted my head up, then back a little farther, squinting to see the highest line of its record crest: 55.4 feet, January 26, 1937. The number is tidy, and the mark is exact, but the mind resists it without context, so here’s mine. At five-foot-one, I calculated it would take nearly eleven of me stacked head to toe to reach 55.4 feet. And yes, if you look closely in the mirror beside the gauge, you can see me in the reflection—small against a wall that once marked catastrophe. Now, imagine the whole town underwater to understand what fifty-five feet really means in human terms. What began here as an act of rescue in 1937—feeding, housing, and clothing the displaced—would teach government and charity alike how to manage hunger, and other human needs, long after the waters receded. It didn’t invent the modern food bank, but it changed how the nation understood feeding as logistics — a mindset federal agencies would soon build into national food programs. Even before the river crested, the Red Cross was on the ground, issuing rations and setting up shelters in churches and schools. When the flood reached its peak, President Roosevelt declared a national emergency—one of the first in response to a natural disaster—and released ten million dollars for relief. In today’s dollars, we’re talking $220 – $250 million. His order unlocked every corner of the New Deal: Works Progress Administration [https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/surviving-the-dust-bowl-works-progress-administration-wpa/] crews (WPA), Civilian Conservation Corps [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_Conservation_Corps] (CCC), the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Red Cross all moving in a single rhythm. Harry Hopkins, Roosevelt’s trusted advisor and briefly his Secretary of Commerce, oversaw the WPA’s seven divisions, from heavy construction to public service, education, and the women’s sewing and nursing projects that reached into every county. The WPA had begun as a jobs program employing more than 8.5 million people for an average monthly salary of about $41. Under Hopkins, the seven divisions moved as one—not only repairing infrastructure, but also delivering food, sewing blankets, and keeping disease at bay. Within a week of the crest, field kitchens were serving thousands of meals a day—a wartime scale of feeding in a peacetime disaster. The flood proved that compassion, when well organized, could act on a scale it had never attempted in peacetime. Back at my tour of the Blennerhassat Museum, I walked into another exhibit hall featuring a wooden skiff resting beneath a photograph of a long-ago packet boat. It’s small, flat-bottomed, and open to the air—the kind of boat that Parkersburg’s police and firemen rowed to deliver food and evacuate families, scraping across flooded porches and telephone wires along the way. For weeks, the city was an archipelago of rooftops and rescue routes, as were sister cities for all 981 miles of the river. But police and fire crews weren’t the only ones rowing skiffs. Younger men from the Civilian Conservation Corps were pulled from their usual duties—planting trees, building bridges, and breaking the ground—literally—on the Blue Ridge Parkway. My grandfather was a “CC man,” as they called themselves, but wasn’t serving at the time of the flood. Had he been, he would have rowed a skiff through flooded streets, delivering food and medicine, and disinfecting the mud with lime and kerosene to prevent disease—plus anything else the relief effort required of him. So yes, before America could build a system to feed its hungry, it had to learn how to feed its stranded. The Ohio River flood didn’t just reshape levees and zoning maps—it rewired the nation’s sense of how care could be organized. By the spring of 1937, the Ohio was back in its banks, but the idea it unleashed kept flowing east. Relief workers and engineers carried their notebooks to Pittsburgh, where federal and local leaders began asking a new question: could the same system that fed the stranded be adapted to feed the poor? That experiment—the Pittsburgh “trial project”—is where this story turns next week, and yes it will include trivia. This post is public so feel free to share it. This essay is part of “Flood to Food Banks,” a three-part exploration of how the Ohio River corridor shaped America’s approach to organized care. Here’s a documentary about the 1937 Flood [https://www.pbs.org/video/a-time-of-peril-the-great-flood-of-1937-r1wfux/], filmed in 1980, so it’s not Ken Burns-quality production values. But that doesn’t matter. Its focus is Evansville, Indiana and the Tri-State, with a panel of people who lived through it. Great stuff. Get full access to The 981 Project at the981project.com/subscribe [https://the981project.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Kentucky Trivia: The Birth of a State

I don’t mind embracing my age, so I’ll confess to watching The Daniel Boone TV show (1964–1970). I can even sing the theme song. If you’re a youngster, you may have seen it on cable reruns: Boone as the all-around good guy and frontier hero, conducting surveys and expeditions around Boonesborough, running into both friendly and hostile Indians, before, during, and even after the Revolutionary War. Of course, there’s the TV Boone and the historical one—the Boone who symbolized Virginia’s land policies more than he shaped them himself. Multiple states claim Daniel Boone because of his travels across the frontier — Pennsylvania, where he was born; North Carolina, where he came of age; Kentucky, where he blazed the Wilderness Road and helped open the interior to settlers; and Missouri, where he lived out his final years. Today, our focus is Kentucky: how Boone’s surveying and trail-blazing symbolized Virginia’s land policies, and how those policies paved the way for statehood in 1792. The explanation begins in1609 when King James I granted the Virginia colony a charter that stretched “from sea to sea,” sweeping aside the French, the Spanish, and of course the Indigenous nations already here. During the Revolution, Virginia organized Kentucky County (VA), and by the 1780s it was further divided into Fayette, Jefferson, and Lincoln Counties. Together these counties formed a distinct bloc that petitioned Congress for separation from Virginia again and again. With over 70,000 settlers by 1790, Kentucky had the numbers and leverage to become a state in 1792 and added the counties of Nelson, Bourbon, Madison, Mercer, Mason, and Woodford. For comparison, Ohio didn’t qualify for statehood until 1802, and that was through an exception called The Enabling Act. [https://remarkableohio.org/marker/8-71-the-statehood-riots-the-enabling-act-1802/#:~:text=Clair%20faction%20in%201801%20divided,state%20admitted%20to%20the%20Union.] “Wasted Land” The Virginians of 1790 often described Kentucky as “wasted land,” which is not a legal term. “Waste” in property law usually referred to land not in active agricultural use (unfenced, uncleared, unplowed). Colonists and early legislators often borrowed this language to justify dispossession. Today, we can appreciate that just because the land wasn’t managed with European methods doesn’t mean it was not being managed at all. For centuries, Shawnee, Cherokee, Mingo, and other nations had hunted, farmed, and burned the forest here. They moved seasonally between river bottoms and uplands, and their claims overlapped, making Kentucky one of the most contested landscapes in eastern North America. Virginia dismissed this history and parceled Kentucky out as if it were empty. This language laid the groundwork for legislation like Virginia’s Land Law of 1779 [https://www.sos.ky.gov/land/resources/legislation/Documents/Land%20Law%201779%20%28A%29.pdf], which opened “unpatented lands” in the Kentucky district to Revolutionary War veterans of the Virginia Line [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Line#:~:text=The%20Virginia%20Line%20was%20a,states%2C%20formed%20the%20Continental%20Line.], through bounty warrants. This swath of land is the Military District of Kentucky, shown in gray on the map below. Many veterans never came — selling their warrants to speculators — but the district shaped settlement patterns all the same. The Land Law also legalized settlers’ preemption claims—squatters’ rights that gave anyone who had already built a cabin or cleared fields the first chance to buy land. Encouraged by these policies, thousands funneled through the Cumberland Gap along Daniel Boone’s Wilderness Road, transforming the region within a generation. The Dodgy Deal Behind Boone’s Road Boone became the symbolic scout, but in reality he was on the payroll of the Transylvania Company, a massive speculative land venture of dubious legality. In 1775 its founder, Richard Henderson, tried to buy twenty million acres directly from the Cherokee at Sycamore Shoals, paying with trade goods. Boone, then living in North Carolina, was hired to blaze the Wilderness Road and help build Fort Boonesborough to anchor the claim. But the Royal Proclamation of 1763 forbade private purchases of Indian land, and both Virginia and North Carolina dismissed Henderson’s colony as a usurpation of their authority (the treaty at Sycamore Shoals took place on land that was then part of North Carolina). Congress also refused to recognize it. Virginia eventually voided the purchase, though it granted Henderson and his partners 200,000 acres in Kentucky as a consolation prize, while North Carolina compensated them with land in present-day Tennessee. It was an audacious bit of what people used to call “frontier lawyering”—an illegal land grab dressed up as a colony whose backers walked away with hundreds of thousands of acres. Henderson wasn’t just any dreamer and schemer—he was a North Carolina judge, with the connections and confidence to push further than most men would dare. And if the playbook looks familiar, that’s because versions of it are still making headlines today. Transylvania collapsed as a colony, but Boone wasn’t a shareholder or speculator — he was the hired scout. When Virginia voided the Transylvania Company’s deal, Boone lost nothing personally, and his service was rewarded with land rather than reproach. His association with Henderson’s speculative scheme faded in popular memory, leaving behind the heroic figure of Boone the pathfinder—a symbol of Kentucky’s opening, even if the machinery of land policy mattered far more than one man’s ax and rifle. Metes and Bounds Unlike Ohio, with its tidy federal grid of townships and ranges [https://the981project.com/p/june-24-trivia-time], Kentucky land was surveyed the old Virginian way: metes and bounds. A deed might run “from a white oak to a creek bend, then along the ridge to a large boulder.” This irregular system produced overlapping claims, and lawsuits that shaped county borders and political fights for generations. The questions that follow will trace how these land policies—from Boone’s trail to the Military District—helped Kentucky emerge as America’s fifteenth state. Note to my fantastic new subscribers: It’s the rare person who can answer all ten trivia questions without any prep. I couldn’t answer them without a significant amount of research, either! Do your best and enjoy learning something new. Not a subscriber yet? It’s free! QUESTIONS Answers in the footnotes. I’ll tell you if there is more than one correct answer. 1. Why did Virginians in the 1790s describe Kentucky as “wasted land?” Only one answer is correct.(a) It lacked mineral resources.(b) They didn’t recognize Indigenous land use methods like seasonal migration, controlled burns, and unfenced fields.(c) Because it was too remote to govern effectively from Richmond.(d) Because Native peoples had already abandoned it. 2. Which Native nations actively used and claimed Kentucky, making it one of the most contested landscapes in eastern North America? More than one answer applies.(a) Shawnee(b) Cherokee(c) Mingo(d) Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) 3. What was Kentucky County, Virginia, and how did it pave the way for statehood? One correct answer.(a) A single super-county created in 1776 that was later subdivided, forming a political bloc for separation.(b) A military district organized solely for veterans.(c) A western extension of Fincastle County, created to manage the frontier.(d) A territory directly administered by Congress. 4. Why did Kentucky become a state in 1792 while northwestern Virginia counties had to wait until the Civil War to separate in 1863 (becoming West Virginia)? One correct answer.(a) Kentucky’s fertile farmland and central location drew migrants rapidly, giving it the numbers to press for statehood.(b) Northwestern Virginia’s rugged mountains and poor transportation kept its population scattered and politically weak.(c) Congress wanted to balance free and slave states, which helped Kentucky’s case.(d) All of the above. 5. How did Virginia encourage migration into Kentucky? One correct answer.(a) By offering veterans bounty land warrants.(b) By legalizing squatters’ “preemption claims.”(c) By promoting migration through the Cumberland Gap and Boone’s Wilderness Road.(d) All of the above. 6. Daniel Boone was celebrated as the heroic trailblazer of Kentucky, but in reality he was… One correct answer.(a) A contractor for the speculative Transylvania Company.(b) A figurehead whose Wilderness Road became popular mainly because Virginia policy created courts, militias, and land offices on the other side.(c) A wealthy land baron who accumulated thousands of acres and held them until his death.(d) Both a and b. 7. Imagine you are a farmer in 1790s Kentucky. Your deed says your land runs “from a white oak tree to a bend in the creek, then along the ridge to a large boulder.” Your neighbor’s deed says nearly the same thing. What happens next under Virginia’s “metes and bounds” survey system? More than one answer is correct.(a) The two deeds overlap, and you end up in a lawsuit that could last for decades.(b) The county court gets stronger, since everyone needs it to sort out overlapping claims.(c) Speculators step in, buying up “disputed” land and reselling it to multiple buyers.(d) The problem disappears once the federal survey grid reaches Kentucky. 8. Where was Kentucky’s Revolutionary War Military District located? One correct answer.(a) North of the Ohio River.(b) South of the Green River in south-central Kentucky.(c) Along the Cumberland Gap.(d) In eastern Appalachia. 9. Why did many veterans never settle in the Kentucky Military District? One correct answer.(a) They sold their warrants to speculators.(b) Some found the land too remote or already contested.(c) Many preferred to remain in Virginia or move further west.(d) All of the above. 10. How did Kentucky’s different settlement zones shape its antebellum identity? One correct answer.(a) The Bluegrass became a slaveholding plantation core.(b) The Military District was a mix of small farms and speculative claims.(c) The Appalachian east remained poor and isolated.(d) All of the above. Intermission Here’s a list of pertinent books from our topic today: * Steven A. Channing, [https://www.abebooks.com/9780393056549/Kentucky-Bicentennial-History-States-Nation-0393056546/plp]Kentucky: A Bicentennial History [https://www.abebooks.com/9780393056549/Kentucky-Bicentennial-History-States-Nation-0393056546/plp]—concise, thematic overview. * Lowell H. Harrison & James C. Klotter, [https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?ds=20&kn=Lowell%20H.%20Harrison%20%26%20James%20C.%20Klotter%2C%20A%20New%20History%20of%20Kentucky&ref_=ds_ac_d_64&sts=t]A New History of Kentucky [https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?ds=20&kn=Lowell%20H.%20Harrison%20%26%20James%20C.%20Klotter%2C%20A%20New%20History%20of%20Kentucky&ref_=ds_ac_d_64&sts=t]—the standard survey. * Robert Morgan, [https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?ds=20&kn=Robert%20Morgan%2C%20Boone%3A%20A%20Biography&ref_=ds_ac_d_33&sts=t]Boone: A Biography [https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?ds=20&kn=Robert%20Morgan%2C%20Boone%3A%20A%20Biography&ref_=ds_ac_d_33&sts=t]—balanced, myth-busting Boone. Here’s a Boone documentary by Kentucky’s PBS affiliate, KET. I couldn’t embed it here, so you’ll have to follow this link. [https://ket.org/program/daniel-boone-and-the-opening-of-the-american-west/daniel-boone-and-the-opening-of-the-american-west/] Want to get a jump on next month’s quiz? Read Steven Stoll, [https://www.abebooks.com/9780809095056/Ramp-Hollow-Ordeal-Appalachia-Stoll-080909505X/plp]Ramp Hollow: The Ordeal of Appalachia [https://www.abebooks.com/9780809095056/Ramp-Hollow-Ordeal-Appalachia-Stoll-080909505X/plp] — enclosure & the Appalachian commons. One of the most meaningful nonfiction books I’ve ever read. ANSWERS Get full access to The 981 Project at the981project.com/subscribe [https://the981project.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

A Week Along the Ohio

I rode my motorcycle to Athens, Ohio, for a BMW Riders Association rally [https://bmwra.org/2025-bmw-riders-association-national-rally-info/] over the Labor Day weekend. Some of my non-riding friends assume rallies are always boozy events with wet T-shirt contests, but rallies are as diverse as the people who sponsor and attend them. The quieter variety just doesn’t make the headlines. The BMW rallies I attend feel more like family reunions—the chance to connect with like-minded friends and swap stories about destinations, roads, motorcycle mishaps, and everything except politics and religion. Honestly, I can’t tell you what most of my riding friends do (or did) for their livelihoods. We’re too busy enjoying the one thing we have in common: a deep love of motorcycles and the road. Many rallygoers camp on the grounds, which adds to the sense of community—and sometimes the humor. Case in point: this sign I spotted. If you don’t see the unintended humor, give it a minute. I extended my time in Southeastern Ohio for another week so I could do deep research for the book I’m writing for the University of Illinois Press, tentatively titled, Along the Ohio: Stories the River Still Holds. While in Marietta—a river city that was the first settlement in the Northwest Territory—I learned that one of the most respected makers of historical markers is headquartered there. This is the kind of serendipity that makes my pulse race. Please treat yourself to this video about Sewah Studios, which includes scenes from each phase of the manufacturing process. I’ve watched it a couple of times now. Evolution of a Late-Blooming History Buff I didn’t study history in college, mostly because I wasn’t cut out for teaching (which is what I thought the field would necessarily lead to). Besides, my parents weren’t about to bankroll a degree without a solid career plan, so I majored in business. What’s funny is that the part of business that has always fascinated me is its role in cultural history. But that’s a story for another day. Motorcycle travel became my history professor. Out on the road, I’ve picked up lessons in geology and paleontology (Wyoming is top-notch in that department), along with human and cultural history, and plenty of “what-happened-right-here” lessons. Despite my history education being scattershot—it’s more like postcards than a sequenced curriculum—those fragments taught me to look harder at what’s missing, as well as what’s been preserved in public memorials and commemorations. Side note: my kids will someday have the joy of sorting through the 1,000+ postcards I’ve collected on my travels. I’m not doing Swedish Death Cleaning [https://www.thespruce.com/swedish-death-cleaning-4801461] on that collection. I spent the better part of a day in Special Collections at Marietta College poring over brittle papers and pamphlets from 100+ years ago, and it occurred to me that the wording on some of the historical markers didn’t line up with what I was reading. So which version should we believe—the plaques or the papers? You’d think the archives would settle it, but there’s a counterargument to sticking with what’s held in any one collection. After all, history is collected in many different places, and hauled across rivers and seas by descendants of those who lived it. Think about it: history isn’t set in stone. New stories—and new information about old ones—surface all the time: in journals used as insulation for an old home, in the margins of a family Bible, in overlooked archives. Women’s lives are often missing from “the record,” as are the histories of marginalized and ostracized people. I’m enamored with discovering new angles on old stories I thought I knew—the narratives erased or ignored because they didn’t matter to those entrusted with recording the news at the time. When I asked the Special Collections librarian what it takes to get a marker approved, she gave me a wry smile. “Anyone can put up a sign on their property and call it a historical marker”—distinguishing between informal commemorations and the formal program. She continued, “But if you want the official emblem, or to be included in recognized history trails, you have to apply to the sponsoring organization.” She went on to explain that Ohio’s formal system—with the Ohio History Connection’s emblem and inclusion on official trails or registries—is distinct from whatever individuals might erect on their own property. In other words, there is an “official” class of markers in Ohio, and acceptance into the state program is what makes the difference. Still, this doesn’t ensure an error-free or fulsome accounting of the historical place or event being marked. Sometimes local history projects—whether a roadside plaque, a county museum, or a “heritage tourism” trail—are there to reassure the hometown crowd of their historical importance, or to entice visitors to come and spend a little money. They elevate local heroes, polish away contradictions, and speak in absolutes—”first,” “leader,” “freedom’s shore.” What they sidestep is what remains contested, unknown, or uncomfortable. That’s one reason why you can’t count on a marker to tell the full story; the other is the small space available for telling it. Markers are written in their own moment, reflecting the priorities—and blind spots—of the people and institutions that sponsored them. What counted as “the story” a century ago may not be the story we’d choose to tell today. They bear the stamp of their time, and they age quickly. What once read as civic pride can, in hindsight, read as erasure. And that gap between pride and omission is exactly where I’ve been finding the stories worth telling. Case In Point: Portsmouth, Ohio While in Portsmouth, Ohio, I had the good fortune to interview Dr. Andrew Feight, a professor of history at Shawnee State University and a leading authority on the Underground Railroad in southern Ohio. He pointed me to a marker on Shawnee State’s campus and noted some of its shortcomings. Read it for yourself and see what you notice: The marker isn’t technically false, but it is partially true. Take, for instance, “loosely connected safe havens.” The phrase makes the Underground Railroad sound casual or ad hoc. In reality, it was highly organized in some places, with networks of Black and white activists, churches, and communities. Sure, there was the occasional solo actor, I grant you that. Or consider the list of services rendered, “nursed, concealed, disguised, and instructed.” It implies a universal experience, when the level of assistance varied widely depending on place and circumstance. It wasn’t like the Red Cross with a mission statement and list of services. And then there’s the claim that this was “one of America’s greatest social, moral, and humanitarian endeavors.” That’s boosterism. It elevates the moral heroism of Ohioans while glossing over contradictions like Ohio’s Black Laws [https://eji.org/news/ohios-black-laws/], violent resistance to Black settlement, and the complicity of locals who aided slave catchers. The Case of Hannah Putnam Here’s a story from Marietta, Ohio worth considering. David Putnam Jr. was the town’s most outspoken abolitionist, a banker turned activist whose home became its best-known Underground Railroad stop. There’s even a marker on Fort Street [https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=209303]in his honor. What’s not mentioned are the laws and neighbors who made his work so noteworthy, including the state’s Black Laws. [https://eji.org/news/ohios-black-laws/] Putnam is remembered in Marietta for his abolitionist zeal, but his entire family shared the danger. Hannah and the children lived with the constant risk that freedom seekers might be discovered under their roof. The children were so accustomed to the peril that they knew to close a door quickly and quietly if a stranger appeared, lest someone catch sight of a hidden guest. One cold November night in 1844, Hannah went into labor as an angry mob gathered outside their house, riled by rumors that fugitives were being harbored there. David galloped across the Muskingum River for Dr. Cotton, leaving Hannah to wait while anti-abolitionists from Washington County, Ohio and from Wood County, Virginia (now West Virginia) threatened to storm the home and tear it down. Neighbors stepped in to protect her. Dr. John McCoy, described in the press as a tall, swarthy man whose black cape and broad-brimmed hat gave him a forbidding silhouette, stood guard with other prominent citizens, including Caleb Emerson, Col. Augustus Stone, and Cortland Sheperd. They urged the mob to disperse, reminding them that no one had a warrant and no enslaved person had actually been seen inside. Still, the night and Hannah’s labor dragged on. Hours passed as the mob pressed and muttered outside, until a cold rain began to fall. At last, even the Virginians admitted they would follow Dr. McCoy’s example and go home rather than endure the weather. By the time Dr. Cotton returned, the danger had ebbed, and Hannah delivered her sixth child in safety. It was one of many nights when principle and peril shared the same roof—and one that ought to put Hannah’s name on a plaque alongside her husband’s Her absence from David’s marker is exactly what I mean when I talk about the tension between boosterism and reckoning. Markers often tell a polished version of events, but the fuller story, the one that lingers in archives and family memory, reveals who’s been left out. In summary: historical markers are useful starting points, but they rarely tell the whole story. The real work—and the real discovery—comes when you dig past the plaque. That’s what I’ve been doing here on The 981 Project and what I’ll show you when Along the Ohio is published. Next time you see a marker, take a moment to look for grand pronouncements and ask what might be missing. Did the “great man” of history have a wife or partner? Wonder what her life was like? When a marker says “the first ever,” ask yourself why it was the first ever—and what story lies behind the milestone. Those are the spaces my research keeps leading me into, whether I arrive by motorcycle or by way of an archive box. Only SUBSCRIBERS see everything I post, and it’s always free. Subscribe here: Get full access to The 981 Project at the981project.com/subscribe [https://the981project.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Trivia Time. The Great Migration in the Ohio Valley

Between 1915 and 1970, the Ohio River was more than a border between North and South—it was a corridor of change. As millions of African Americans left the rural South in what came to be called the Great Migration, cities like Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Louisville, and Cairo became places of arrival where new communities took root. Why did so many leave? Some were pulled northward by wartime jobs that could no longer be filled by low-wage immigrant workers. Others were pushed by violence, poverty, and political exclusion in the South. Trains heading to Pittsburgh or Chicago were often full of passengers carrying not much more than a suitcase and a lead from a cousin or neighbor who had gone before. Isabel Wilkerson documents this on a national scale in The Warmth of Other Suns (2010), a deeply researched narrative history of the Great Migration that uses personal stories to illuminate what moved people, where they went, and what they left behind. The book won major awards, including the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction and the Anisfield-Wolf Award. She also shared these insights in a widely viewed TED talk. The reception in the Ohio Valley was complicated. Industries needed hands, but employers often confined newcomers to the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs. Middlemen cropped up, sometimes helping, sometimes exploiting. Housing was another battle: in Cincinnati, the West End became a crowded hub later targeted for “urban renewal”; in Pittsburgh, the Hill District thrived culturally even as city planners bulldozed blocks for highways and stadiums; in Louisville, Black families were steered into neighborhoods like Smoketown and the West End. Migration also shifted the balance of political power. Where voting rights were less restricted, Black communities could organize, cast ballots, and even tip elections. That influence sparked new opportunities as well as new forms of resistance. We still see echoes of this today in debates over redistricting, representation, and voting rights — reminders that the Great Migration continues to shape American life. From steel towns to stockyards, from church basements to union halls, the Great Migration reshaped the Ohio River valley in ways still visible today. The questions that follow will help you trace how work, politics, housing, and community life along the river were transformed by this movement of people. Note to my fantastic new subscribers: Monthly trivia is for sport. It’s not a test of intelligence or character. Do your best and enjoy learning something new. Oh, and if you do, would you share the quiz with someone else? QUESTIONS Answers in the footnotes. 1. Why did the Great Migration accelerate in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois during WWI? A. Northern industries recruited Black workers to replace European immigrants whose migration slowedB. Southern states began subsidizing train fare northC. Black newspapers advertised opportunities in Northern citiesD. Federal New Deal programs required quotas of Black workers 2. Who were “labor brokers” (also called “labor agents”) during the Great Migration, and why were they controversial? A. Recruiters hired by Northern industries to bring Southern Black workers northB. Middlemen who sometimes exploited migrants by taking a cut of their wages or charging feesC. Community leaders who voluntarily helped migrants find housing and jobs without payD. Organizers who tried to unionize Black workers as soon as they arrived 3. When Black Southerners arrived in Northern states, many employers assumed they would be best suited for which kinds of jobs? A. Domestic service and janitorial workB. Stockyards and meatpacking plantsC. Foundries and steel millsD. Agricultural and food-processing labor (e.g., canneries, sugar beet fields) 4.How did Black migration reshape politics in Ohio River states (PA, WV, KY, OH, IN, IL)? A. African Americans gained the right to vote without poll taxes and literacy testsB. The Black vote began to swing elections in cities like Chicago and ClevelandC. Both major political parties ignored Black voters until after WWIID. Migration triggered white backlash and restrictive housing covenants 5.What role did the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) play in the Great Migration? A. It provided free rides north for Southern migrantsB. It hired thousands of Black workers as porters, track laborers, and dining car staffC. It ran ads in Black newspapers promoting Pittsburgh and Philadelphia jobsD. It lobbied Congress to restrict Black migration to control wages 6.By 1970, how had the Great Migration reshaped cities along the Ohio River? A. Louisville’s Black population grew as rural Kentuckians moved into the city for industrial and wartime jobsB. Cincinnati’s West End became a major Black community before being decimated by urban renewalC. Pittsburgh’s Hill District flourished culturally but faced job losses as steel began to declineD. Cairo, Illinois, became a safe haven for Black migrants 7.How did U.S. Steel shape the Great Migration in Pittsburgh and other Ohio River steel towns? A. It recruited Black workers to fill labor shortages, especially during WWI and WWIIB. It smoothed the transition by giving Black workers a month of free housing in mill townsC. It sometimes used Black workers as strikebreakers, straining relations with white immigrant laborD. It helped fund Black newspapers to support migrant communities 8.What role did the meatpacking and stockyards of Louisville and Cincinnati play in the Great Migration? A. They hired Southern Black migrants into grueling, low-wage slaughterhouse and processing jobsB. They provided pathways into stable union jobs from the very beginningC. They became organizing grounds where Black workers later joined interracial CIO unions in the 1930sD. They were entirely closed to Black labor until after WWII 9.How did Pullman porters influence Black migration and community life in Ohio River cities like Cincinnati and Louisville? A. They provided steady, respected work for Black men, though under harsh conditions and low payB. They carried The Chicago Defender and other Black newspapers south, spreading word about Northern opportunitiesC. They organized one of the first national Black labor unions, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car PortersD. They ensured that Black families in river cities were exempt from housing segregation 10.How did housing policies and practices affect Black migrants in Ohio River cities? A. Restrictive covenants and redlining confined Black families to segregated neighborhoodsB. Urban renewal projects displaced Black communities, often in the name of “slum clearance”C. Federal housing programs after WWII encouraged integrated, mixed-race suburbsD. Despite barriers, Black neighborhoods like Pittsburgh’s Hill District and Cincinnati’s West End fostered strong cultural and political life If you’ve lived in or near these places — the Hill District in Pittsburgh, Cincinnati’s West End, Smoketown in Louisville — what stories have come down in your family? Intermission I was recently in Cincinnati, getting to know more about Black History and the West End. This video includes much of what I discovered there: ANSWERS Get full access to The 981 Project at the981project.com/subscribe [https://the981project.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]