In 1889 a poorly maintained dam failed in Pennsylvania and water from a deep mountain lake deluged the coal-mining

town of Johnstown. Horrified eyewitnesses described a wall of water nearly thirty-five feet high, which took approximately ten minutes to kill twenty-two hundred people and totally destroy the town. Thousands were left injured and homeless.

Recovery from the Johnstown flood took years. One person whose galvanizing effectiveness was felt in the months after the disaster was a woman who was only five feet tall. Her name was Clara Barton, and she had just established the American Red Cross. Barton's Red Cross tents were set up in Johnstown within days. David McCullough in his book The Johnstown Flood describes the way Barton took charge:

Within a very short time several large tents were serving as the cleanest, best-organized hospitals in town; six Red Cross hotels, two stories...