Heavy Ground: William Mulholland and the St. Francis Dam Disaster

By DC Jackson, Cornelia F. Hugel Professor of History, and Norris Hundley Jr.

Lafayette’s Cornelia F. Hugel Professor of History DC Jackson received the Society of the History of Technology’s prestigious 2017 Sally Hacker Prize for his latest book, Heavy Ground: William Mulholland and the St. Francis Dam Disaster, which he co-authored with the late Norris Hundley, Jr. This award honors a scholarly book that integrates the history of technology into social, cultural, and economic contexts. Heavy Ground, published in 2015 by the Huntington Library and the University of California Press, details the history of the design and construction of the St. Francis Dam in the 1920s and its tragic failure. The poorly designed dam collapsed late in the evening of

March 12, 1928, releasing 12 billion gallons of water and creating a massive wave that
killed an estimated 400 people in the Santa Clara Valley of Southern California.