Remembering David McCullough

by Richard Burkert, JAHA president and CEO

I note with sadness the recent passing of David McCullough, whose book and career have greatly influenced the Johnstown community, my career and life.

Before I interviewed for the position of executive director of the Johnstown Flood Museum, I read David McCullough’s The Johnstown Flood (1968). While the Flood Museum was going through some growing pains, David’s compelling history convinced me that, as an historian, Johnstown was the place that I wanted to start my career, and I was hired in 1979.

In 1985, David visited Johnstown to present a program at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown at the request of Rita Glosser, a friend from his school days in Pittsburgh. I took the opportunity to meet with him to solicit his support in developing the Johnstown Flood Museum. I knew that the centennial of the Johnstown Flood in 1989 would provide an opportunity to transform the Flood Museum into a showplace for Johnstown’s history. I discussed working with David to create a documentary film for the museum, knowing that his growing reputation would help to attract funding for the project. David politely told me that he was planning to produce a documentary on the Johnstown Flood too and had lined up a young and still little-known filmmaker – Ken Burns – to bring the story to life.

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