Heads Above Water: Gender, Class, and Family in the Grand Forks Flood

283 Pages·2011·1.25 MB·English

by  Alice Fothergill

H
Gender,
EADS
Class,
and Family
ABOVE in the
Grand
W Forks
ATER
Flood
A F
LICE OTHERGILL
Heads above Water

Heads above Water
Gender, Class, and Family
in the Grand Forks Flood
Alice Fothergill
State University of New York Press
Cover photo courtesy of FEMA (website).
Published by
State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2004 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever
without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic,
electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise
without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, address State University of New York Press,
90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany, NY 12207
Production by Judith Block
Marketing by Michael Campochiaro
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fothergill, Alice.
Heads above water : gender, class, and family in the Grand Forks flood /
Alice Fothergill.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7914-6157-2 (alk. paper) — ISBN 0-7914-6158-0 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Floods—Social aspects—North Dakota—Grand Forks. 2. Floods—
Red River Valley (Minn. and N.D.-Man.) 3. Women disaster victims—North
Dakota—Grand Forks. 4. Women—North Dakota—Grand Forks—Social
conditions. 5. Sex role—North Dakota—Grand Forks. I. Title.
HV6101997.N9 68 2004
978.4'16—dc22
2003058781
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Dedicated to my parents
Priscilla Royce Fothergill
and
William Rolston Fothergill

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
1. Introduction: Red River Rising 1
2. Disaster Strikes 17
3. Women’s Roles 35
4. Financial Fallout 53
5. The Stigma of Charity 79
6. Threats to Mind and Body 105
7. Family and Religion: Havens in a Flooded World? 137
8. Domestic Violence 157
9. The Re-Creation of Domestic Culture 173
10. Everything in Her Path 203
Appendix: Notes on Methodology 223
Notes 239
Bibliography 253
Index 265
vii

Acknowledgments
Many individuals helped me to produce this book. I would like
to begin by thanking the forty women in Grand Forks, North
Dakota, who shared their stories, their time, energy, and emotions
with me. Having promised to keep their names confidential, I can-
not thank them personally for having confided in me. They were
open, generous, and kind.
I would like to thank Professor Dennis Mileti and the entire
staff at the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado,
where I worked from 1994 to 2001. In my first year of graduate
school, Dennis recruited me to work on a large National Science
Foundation (NSF) research grant documenting issues of inequality,
including gender, class, and race, in the disaster context. That pro-
ject planted the seed for this dissertation. Dennis provided generous
material support and strategic career guidance, as well as never-
ending confidence in my work. Mary Fran Myers, a North Dakota
native, was the seed for my “snowball” sampling, so without her, I
would not have known where to start. Dave Morton, now retired,
was the best librarian one could have hoped for while working on
such a large undertaking. He always found exactly what I was look-
ing for, even when I did not know exactly what it was. Gilbert
White provided valuable weekly advice: “The best dissertation is a
finished dissertation.” All the rest of the staff and graduate students
at the Hazard Center—Janet Kroeckel, Dave Butler, Sylvia Dane,
Diane Smith, Fay Tracy, Wanda Headley, Jackie Monday, Lori Peek,
Eve Passerini, and Len Wright—provided a wonderful home base
during graduate school, full of good humor, computer assistance,
potlucks, and support. Thanks also to Steve Graham in the sociol-
ogy department for his friendship and assistance.
ix