How long does it take to read The Johnstown Flood?
The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough takes about 5 hours 32 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 5 hours 32 minutes
A weekend read
First published 1968. 302 pages, about 83,050 words.
12 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 9 hours 14 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 5 hours 32 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 3 hours 28 minutes |
The page count is the median across 7 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
At the end of the last century, Johnstown, Pennsylvania was a booming coal-and-steel town filled with hardworking families striving for a piece of the nation's burgeoning industrial prosperity. In the mountains above Johnstown, an old earth dam had been hastily rebuilt to create a lake for an exclusive summer resort patronized by the tycoons of that same industrial prosperity, among them Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and Andrew Mellon. Despite repeated warnings of possible danger, nothing was done about the dam. Then came May 31, 1889, when the dam burst, sending a wall of water thundering down the mountain, smashing through Johnstown, and killing more than 2,000 people. It was a tragedy that became a national scandal.
Subjects: History, Floods, Johnstown Flood, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, history, Personal narratives
