1927 Flood Photograph Collection PI/1992.0002
The Mississippi River flood of 1927 inundated roughly 27,000 square miles of land and displaced some 700,000 persons. Property damage was estimated at $400 million, and 246 people died in the flood waters. Particularly hard hit by the disaster was the Mississippi Delta region. The 124 photographs in this collection were taken by the flood committee of the Illinois Central Railroad Company in April, May, and October of 1927. Arranged geographically, north to south, the images document flood damage along the route of the Illinois Central Railroad from Memphis, Tennessee, to Delhi, Louisiana. The collection also includes one map of the Illinois Central Railroad throughout the flooded area.
Read MoreThe Mississippi River flood of 1927 inundated roughly 27,000 square miles of land and displaced some 700,000 persons. Property damage was estimated at $400 million, and 246 people died in the flood waters. Particularly hard hit by the disaster was the Mississippi Delta region. The 124 photographs in this collection were taken by the flood committee of the Illinois Central Railroad Company in April, May, and October of 1927. Arranged geographically, north to south, the images document flood damage along the route of the Illinois Central Railroad from Memphis, Tennessee, to Delhi, Louisiana. The collection also includes one map of the Illinois Central Railroad throughout the flooded area.
Collection Description
The Mississippi River flood of 1927 inundated roughly 27,000 square miles of land and displaced some 700,000 persons. Property damage was estimated at $400 million, and 246 people died in the flood waters. Particularly hard hit by the disaster was the Mississippi Delta region. The 124 photographs in this collection were taken by the flood committee of the Illinois Central Railroad Company in April, May, and October of 1927. Arranged geographically, north to south, the images document flood damage along the route of the Illinois Central Railroad from Memphis, Tennessee, to Delhi, Louisiana. The collection also includes one map of the Illinois Central Railroad throughout the flooded area.
Image Description
Images include flooded towns, submerged automobiles, refugees and refugee camps, and levees. The files may be accessed through keyword (description, city, county, state) search on the Web site and by subject headings through the MDAH online catalog.
Provenance
The collection was donated to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History in 1992 by Ed Dean of Peoria, Illinois. The MDAH Archives and Records Services Division's Image and Sound section scanned the photographs and map in February and March 2008, creating preservation-quality TIFF images. These were then converted to Web-friendly JPEG images by the Electronic Archives section and made available online within the MDAH Electronic Archives Graphic User Interface.
Links
MDAH Online Catalog record for the Mississippi River Flood of 1927 Collection Photographs
MDAH Online Catalog record for the Mississippi River Flood of 1927 Collection Map