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Trivia Time: How Did Pittsburgh Turn Flood Relief into a Blueprint for Feeding America?
Read Part One of Flood to Food Banks here.
By the spring of 1937, the Ohio River had retreated to its banks, but the questions it left behind were harder to contain. Across the valley, local officials and federal administrators began asking what might happen if the same machinery that fed the stranded could be used to feed the poor.
That question found its first real test in Pittsburgh, a city still defined by its mills and smoke. In the months after the flood, the Red Cross and the Works Progress Administration (WPA) turned their emergency kitchens into an experiment. Instead of closing when the waters receded, they stayed open—serving families displaced not by water, but by chronic unemployment. The effort became known informally as the Pittsburgh “trial project.”
The idea spread quickly. Relief experiments cropped up in other cities—St. Louis, Cincinnati, Louisville—each adapting WPA labor and surplus commodities in its own way. None were as formally structured as Pittsburgh’s, but all were feeling their way toward a similar question: how do you feed people once the emergency ends?
But Pittsburgh stood out for its scale and precision. Backed by federal administrators who had cut their teeth on flood relief, the city developed a system for inventorying, storing, and distributing food that could function even when emergency funds dried up.
At its core, the project asked whether public welfare could operate with the efficiency of disaster relief. WPA clerks cataloged household needs; local grocers became distribution partners; surplus commodities from the U.S. Department of Agriculture—flour, beans, lard, canned fruit—were tracked, stored, and rationed according to family size. The Red Cross supplied social workers, and city officials provided warehouses and trucks. Together they built a prototype for what would later be called food security logistics.
The trial wasn’t perfect. Federal funding ebbed with each budget cycle, and the social stigma of “relief food” remained. But the administrative bones of the system—the inventories, supply chains, and coordination among civic and charitable agencies—became a model. The project didn’t design the Surplus Commodities Program, but it mirrored the same principles—standardized inventories, warehouse distribution, and coordinated logistics—that federal policymakers would embrace by 1939.
The Great Flood’s legacy, it turned out, wasn’t only the levees that kept rivers in check—it was the blueprint for a nation learning to feed itself in good times and bad.
And here’s a picture of Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins, with Pittsburgh steelworkers in 1933.
Now that you’ve read about the Pittsburgh “trial project” and its sister cities, test what you know about how these experiments evolved into the modern food-bank system in this month’s quiz.
Note to my fantastic new subscribers:
It’s the rare person who can answer all ten trivia questions without any prep. I couldn’t answer them without a significant amount of research, either! Do your best and enjoy learning something new.
QUESTIONS:
Each question has one correct answer, found in the footnotes.
1. What made Pittsburgh the ideal testing ground for the “trial project?”
A. It had strong labor unions and civic coordinationB. It had an existing network of flood-relief warehouses and staffC. It was home to one of the nation’s largest steelworker populationsD. It was the operational capital of the New Deal’s relief agencies in the East
2. Which New Deal administrator was known for saying, “People don’t eat in the long run—they eat every day?”
A. Harold IckesB. Eleanor RooseveltC. Harry HopkinsD. Henry Wallace
3. Which prominent women helped shape Pittsburgh’s approach to relief work?
A. Frances PerkinsB. Eleanor RooseveltC. Mary McLeod BethuneD. All of the above
4. What immediate challenge did Pittsburgh face once the floodwaters receded?
A. Contaminated food suppliesB. Unemployment in the millsC. Housing shortages in the suburbsD. Labor strikes in city services
5. Which local partner helped the WPA convert emergency kitchens into year-round distribution centers?
A. The Heinz CompanyB. The City Department of Public WelfareC. Carnegie SteelD. The Allegheny Conference on Community Development
6. What role did the Red Cross play in Pittsburgh’s trial project?
A. Operated soup kitchens independentlyB. Supplied social workers and coordinated volunteersC. Focused solely on medical careD. Distributed industrial food waste to the poor
7. What was unique about Pittsburgh’s data collection?
A. It used punch-card tabulators from local millsB. WPA clerks tracked every meal and household servedC. It relied on volunteer recordkeepers from churchesD. All records were destroyed after the project ended
8. What type of food filled Pittsburgh’s relief warehouses?
A. Locally grown produce and dairyB. Imported European goodsC. USDA surplus commoditiesD. Restaurant leftovers donated by civic clubs
9. Why did some Pittsburgh residents resist the program?
A. Fear of socialism and stigma around “relief food”B. Dietary restrictions in immigrant communitiesC. Disputes between union and non-union householdsD. Concerns about federal control of local farms
10. What enduring lesson came from Pittsburgh’s “trial project?”
A. Feeding systems could be industrialized like steelB. Charity worked better than coordinationC. Flood control was more important than hunger reliefD. Relief should be handled only by private agencies
Up next in Part Three of Flood to Food Banks: How Did the U.S. Government End Up in the Grocery Business?
Intermission
Here’s a great documentary about the Great Flood of 1937 in Pittsburgh, which peaked at 46 feet. The segment featured an interview with Dr. H. Ward Ewalt, a Pittsburgh optometrist who filmed the flood and the damage it created around the city. It includes footage of the flood in downtown Pittsburgh, the J&L mill in Hazelwood, Lawrenceville, Manchester, Etna, Turtle Creek, Bellevue and Millvale. Ewalt passed away in 1995 after a long career in optometry.
ANSWERS
Get full access to The 981 Project at the981project.com/subscribe
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By Tamela RichRead Part One of Flood to Food Banks here.
By the spring of 1937, the Ohio River had retreated to its banks, but the questions it left behind were harder to contain. Across the valley, local officials and federal administrators began asking what might happen if the same machinery that fed the stranded could be used to feed the poor.
That question found its first real test in Pittsburgh, a city still defined by its mills and smoke. In the months after the flood, the Red Cross and the Works Progress Administration (WPA) turned their emergency kitchens into an experiment. Instead of closing when the waters receded, they stayed open—serving families displaced not by water, but by chronic unemployment. The effort became known informally as the Pittsburgh “trial project.”
The idea spread quickly. Relief experiments cropped up in other cities—St. Louis, Cincinnati, Louisville—each adapting WPA labor and surplus commodities in its own way. None were as formally structured as Pittsburgh’s, but all were feeling their way toward a similar question: how do you feed people once the emergency ends?
But Pittsburgh stood out for its scale and precision. Backed by federal administrators who had cut their teeth on flood relief, the city developed a system for inventorying, storing, and distributing food that could function even when emergency funds dried up.
At its core, the project asked whether public welfare could operate with the efficiency of disaster relief. WPA clerks cataloged household needs; local grocers became distribution partners; surplus commodities from the U.S. Department of Agriculture—flour, beans, lard, canned fruit—were tracked, stored, and rationed according to family size. The Red Cross supplied social workers, and city officials provided warehouses and trucks. Together they built a prototype for what would later be called food security logistics.
The trial wasn’t perfect. Federal funding ebbed with each budget cycle, and the social stigma of “relief food” remained. But the administrative bones of the system—the inventories, supply chains, and coordination among civic and charitable agencies—became a model. The project didn’t design the Surplus Commodities Program, but it mirrored the same principles—standardized inventories, warehouse distribution, and coordinated logistics—that federal policymakers would embrace by 1939.
The Great Flood’s legacy, it turned out, wasn’t only the levees that kept rivers in check—it was the blueprint for a nation learning to feed itself in good times and bad.
And here’s a picture of Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins, with Pittsburgh steelworkers in 1933.
Now that you’ve read about the Pittsburgh “trial project” and its sister cities, test what you know about how these experiments evolved into the modern food-bank system in this month’s quiz.
Note to my fantastic new subscribers:
It’s the rare person who can answer all ten trivia questions without any prep. I couldn’t answer them without a significant amount of research, either! Do your best and enjoy learning something new.
QUESTIONS:
Each question has one correct answer, found in the footnotes.
1. What made Pittsburgh the ideal testing ground for the “trial project?”
A. It had strong labor unions and civic coordinationB. It had an existing network of flood-relief warehouses and staffC. It was home to one of the nation’s largest steelworker populationsD. It was the operational capital of the New Deal’s relief agencies in the East
2. Which New Deal administrator was known for saying, “People don’t eat in the long run—they eat every day?”
A. Harold IckesB. Eleanor RooseveltC. Harry HopkinsD. Henry Wallace
3. Which prominent women helped shape Pittsburgh’s approach to relief work?
A. Frances PerkinsB. Eleanor RooseveltC. Mary McLeod BethuneD. All of the above
4. What immediate challenge did Pittsburgh face once the floodwaters receded?
A. Contaminated food suppliesB. Unemployment in the millsC. Housing shortages in the suburbsD. Labor strikes in city services
5. Which local partner helped the WPA convert emergency kitchens into year-round distribution centers?
A. The Heinz CompanyB. The City Department of Public WelfareC. Carnegie SteelD. The Allegheny Conference on Community Development
6. What role did the Red Cross play in Pittsburgh’s trial project?
A. Operated soup kitchens independentlyB. Supplied social workers and coordinated volunteersC. Focused solely on medical careD. Distributed industrial food waste to the poor
7. What was unique about Pittsburgh’s data collection?
A. It used punch-card tabulators from local millsB. WPA clerks tracked every meal and household servedC. It relied on volunteer recordkeepers from churchesD. All records were destroyed after the project ended
8. What type of food filled Pittsburgh’s relief warehouses?
A. Locally grown produce and dairyB. Imported European goodsC. USDA surplus commoditiesD. Restaurant leftovers donated by civic clubs
9. Why did some Pittsburgh residents resist the program?
A. Fear of socialism and stigma around “relief food”B. Dietary restrictions in immigrant communitiesC. Disputes between union and non-union householdsD. Concerns about federal control of local farms
10. What enduring lesson came from Pittsburgh’s “trial project?”
A. Feeding systems could be industrialized like steelB. Charity worked better than coordinationC. Flood control was more important than hunger reliefD. Relief should be handled only by private agencies
Up next in Part Three of Flood to Food Banks: How Did the U.S. Government End Up in the Grocery Business?
Intermission
Here’s a great documentary about the Great Flood of 1937 in Pittsburgh, which peaked at 46 feet. The segment featured an interview with Dr. H. Ward Ewalt, a Pittsburgh optometrist who filmed the flood and the damage it created around the city. It includes footage of the flood in downtown Pittsburgh, the J&L mill in Hazelwood, Lawrenceville, Manchester, Etna, Turtle Creek, Bellevue and Millvale. Ewalt passed away in 1995 after a long career in optometry.
ANSWERS
Get full access to The 981 Project at the981project.com/subscribe