AFTER THE ‘DEVIL CLOUD’: NAVIGATING MODERNITY IN THE WAKE OF THE 1913 EASTER SUNDAY TORNADO IN OMAHA, NEBRASKA A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Catherine Marie Biba August 2015 © 2015 Catherine Marie Biba AFTER THE ‘DEVIL CLOUD’: NAVIGATING MODERNITY IN THE WAKE OF THE 1913 EASTER SUNDAY TORNADO IN OMAHA, NEBRASKA Catherine Marie Biba, Ph. D. Cornell University 2015 In this dissertation, I use a localized “natural” disaster as a way of sifting through the competing ideologies, priorities, and power structures of a developing city in the embryonic stages of what we now often consider “modern” America. My research challenges dominant narratives of the United States’ march toward modernity as a relatively linear transformation, one where traditional and conservative ways of understanding the world died with the Victorian Era, and emerged fully formed by the end of the first World War. The first few decades of the twentieth century reveal that not only was this process not at all linear, even, or easily explained, but that it was full of contradictions and fraught with confusion. Omaha’s 1913 Easter Tornado ripped a swath through the city, and the destruction and disruption to the city offers a way in to better understand the tensions within a young western city at a pivotal time in the United States’ history. Chapter One surveys Omaha’s political landscape in 1913, particularly the machine-controlled city government. This chapter attempts to disentangle Omaha’s power structures—both official and otherwise—and provides a crucial stage for the actions in the following chapters. Chapter Two examines the development of relief apparatus both within the city and outside of it. Chapter Three studies the structures of power within post-storm Omaha, particularly the members of a hierarchical structure of relief committees empowered to act on behalf of the city, and more often concerned with Omaha’s national business reputation than with the welfare of individual victims. The concern for business interests also launches an exploration of the perception and existence of federal aid in the early twentieth century. Chapter Four considers the ways in which Omahans sought to understand the storm on an individual level, primarily through the lenses of religious explanations and scientific understanding. Finally, in Chapter Five, I analyze the construction of narratives about the tornado in the year immediately after the storm and the ways in which certain storylines or themes about Omaha, its citizens, or racial minorities were promulgated or challenged with the help of the Easter twister. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Catherine Marie Biba studies the Gilded Age and Progressive Era in the United States. She earned her B.A. in English and history from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and her M.A. and Ph.D. from Cornell University. Born and raised in Nebraska, her longtime fascination with the dramatic weather of the Great Plains came to fruition in this dissertation, which marries a catastrophic meteorological event in Omaha, Nebraska in 1913 with an in- depth study of the United States’ often-fraught and uneven transition to “modern America.” v For my family vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS As anyone who has ever attempted to write a dissertation knows, it is far from a solitary undertaking, no matter how many hours alone the historian spends researching and writing in archives, libraries, or the local coffee shop. Awareness of my own limitations makes me keenly aware of how impossible it would have been to finish this project without the extensive network of knowledge, wisdom, and support with which I was blessed. First, my advisor, Derek Chang, deserves enormous thanks for the kind and calm guidance he offered throughout my years of work on this project. Derek never really knew if a meeting with me would find me enthusiastic and excited about some new development in my material, or find me fighting the urge to hurl my laptop into one of Ithaca’s famous gorges. Thankfully, and largely due to his unfailing and generous encouragement, my MacBook never made a final flight, and I owe much of my perseverance in my project to him. In addition to the much-needed humanity and kindness he brought to my years in Ithaca, he also had a knack for helping me identify points of emphasis or needed development in my often-muddled early drafts and fragments of writing. Even in my most rambling and over-descriptive passages, he could always find some redeeming or underlying point, a practice that improved my writing exponentially, as well as built my confidence as a scholar. Edward Baptist and Julilly Kohler-Hausmann, my other committee members, deserve warm gratitude as well. Ed, easily one of the smartest people I have ever met, gave critical feedback on both the project more generally and portions of my writing, and helped me to navigate my earliest vii years of graduate school. He remains one of the most penetrating question- askers I have ever known, and while this can be unnerving, it has been invaluable in developing the way that I am able to think about history. Julilly, whose warmth and enthusiasm seemingly know no bounds, offered contagious excitement about what I was working on, and extensive feedback on my writing, even though my project is well outside her field of study. She also brought to my committee some tough love: over one lunch at the Temple of Zeus early in the fall of 2014, she sketched out a no-nonsense reality check of how much writing I needed to do if I wished to graduate in 2015. It was, frankly, terrifying. But it was absolutely necessary, and as I put the finishing touches on my dissertation in 2015, I know that it may not have happened without this small act by Julilly. I only wish that our time in Ithaca had overlapped more. I found further support at Cornell from the history department, American Studies department, and the Graduate School, all of which lent academic and financial support. I am especially indebted for the Sage Fellowship, the Walter and Sandra LaFeber Research Assistance Fellowship, and the Michael and Carol Kammen Fellowship. Barb Donnell deserves thanks for her assistance in navigating the forms and requirements that inevitably accompany a long stay in graduate school. Larry Glickman and Molly Geidel deserve special thanks for their kind interest and support of me during my final semester of school. Tim Borstelmann, whose class (“The United States Since 1945”) I took as an undergraduate at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln first awakened my interest in becoming a historian, has viii offered warm support throughout my graduate career. My Skype Reading Group (we never came up with a catchier name than that) put up with some very ugly early drafts and provided extremely thoughtful and useful feedback, despite our group’s research interests spanning time and geography. Thank you, Maeve Kane, Mari Crabtree, Nicole Maskiell, and Abi Fischer. Research for this project often involved me calling on the same archives and libraries many times over. I am particularly indebted to the Nebraska State Historical Society (especially Matt Piersol); the Nebraska Jewish Historical Society (especially Renee Corcoran); the Douglas County Historical Society, and the University of Nebraska-Omaha. I also found some surprising sources thanks to the archivists at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland. I am very thankful for the library staff at Cornell University, in particular the interlibrary loan staff, who went above and beyond to find rare books, articles, and papers that could be sent to New York for my use. Because my dissertation has an undeniably local appeal, I also received generous help from friends; in particular, Gertrude Schneider, who connected me with the story of the Sacred Heart nuns and with Duchesne Academy’s resources about the storm, and Jean Ashby and her family, who graciously lent me material from their family’s keepsakes about the Easter tornado. Chase Becker answered an array of questions for me about the Society of Jesus, and Brandon Biba helped me decipher the hierarchy of military officers and the labyrinth of military citations. Any errors, of course, are my fault and not theirs. ix My friends, in Ithaca and beyond, forever hold a place in my heart for their love, support, encouragement, and, at times, distraction from the multi- year odyssey of dissertation composition. Jackie Reynoso, Taomo Zhou, Amy Kohout, Susana Romero, and Mari Crabtree were fellow travelers who made the long Ithaca winters much, much better, and I am grateful for their friendship. Sarah and Jesse Livingston, Karen Daly, Jocelyn Midgett, Nicole and Jason Schiller, and Malikie Fornah likewise enriched my time in Ithaca with humor, faith, and friendship. Rachel Creager, Melissa Vanderpool, and Liz Gleason have been my rocks since 2003-2004, and even living far from one another, it feels as though they have been here for every step of this process. Esteban Camargo, in addition to contributing superhuman editing prowess, has given me an inexhaustible source of love, support, and encouragement, even on days when providing it was asking a lot. I do not exaggerate when I say I could not have done this without this uniquely configured group of beloved friends. To my family, I owe a similar debt. My grandparents, James and Ruth Biba, and Maurice and Joan Hendrickson, have always held education in the highest esteem, and their pride and support throughout my (many) years of schooling enabled its completion. My extended family has likewise been a source of encouragement and love, and Deb Biba and Rob Everts, as the lone eastern outpost of my family, deserve kudos for their generous welcoming of me (and many of my friends!) to Boston seemingly innumerable times throughout my years in Ithaca.