Fri, Jul 29
|CLE Lecture Hall
Hurricanes, Earthquakes, and Tsunamis - Natural Disasters Death, Destruction and Affected American F & D Policy
Time & Location
Jul 29, 2022, 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM
CLE Lecture Hall, 348 S 5th St, Highlands, NC 28741, USA
About the Event
In 2021 Mark smith delighted CLE with his presentation: "An Onslaught of the Senses: Sights and Smells of the American Civil War." This year, Mark, in this visually rich presentation, will not only describe the damage caused by two natural disasters, separated by almost 100 years, but also their effect on American Foreign and domestic policies. The attempt to purchase from the Danish what is now the U.S. Virgin Islands in the 1860s gets little mention in the annals of American foreign policy. smith will explain how a hurricane and tsunami derailed this acquisition and affected U.S. foreign policy. In 1969 Hurricane Camille brought death and destruction through a wide swath of American South. Professor Smith will explore the role of the federal state governments in managing disaster relief, and how recovery was achieved for some but not others.
Location: CLE Lecture Hall
Presenter: Mark Smith is an American historian, Director of the Institute for Southern Studies, and a Carolina Distinguished Professor of History at the University of South Carolina. He is a scholar of environmental disasters, southern history, and of sensory history, which he described to an interviewer as stressing "the role of senses" - including sight and vision - shaping people's experience in the past.