On May 31, 1889, a confluence of events that included a generationally severe thunderstorm and years of structural neglect resulted in the South Fork Dam releasing a 40-foot-high wall of water from Lake Conemaugh that devastated Johnstown, Pa., resulting in more than 2,200 deaths and millions of dollars in property damage.
It’s one thing to hear about what was then the worst disaster in U.S. history. It’s quite another to immerse yourself in it. That’s the experience offered in “I Was There,” a new 12-part History Channel series that places host Theo E.J. Wilson into historic events to show viewers what it must have felt like to have been there.
“I Was There” premieres Sunday, and its Johnstown flood episode airs Monday at 10:30 p.m. Each half-hour episode will feature period actors and computer-generated images re-creating events like the Battle of Stalingrad, assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Hindenburg airship accident, Chernobyl disaster, Space Shuttle “Challenger” explosion and more.
Wilson, the son of a historian and the grandson of a Tuskegee airman, was struck by how his grandfather rarely emphasized his involvement in the famed World War II squadron of mostly Black pilots and airmen. His father fought in Vietnam before returning home and developing an interest in the oft-overlooked Black historical sites of the American West.
Both men played important roles in helping Wilson develop a passion for history, particularly his father, who taught him about his grandfather’s World War II heroics and how many American schools “omitted a lot of Black achievements” when teaching American history. Learning about famous Black cowboys and other such figures gave Wilson a greater appreciation for the importance of keeping their memories alive.
“As a Black kid, it raises your self-esteem to know that you, too, contributed to history,” he told the Post-Gazette. “When you realize your grandpa is actually an American hero, and he just downplays it, it’s good confirmation that this is real and has to be told.”
With “I Was There,” Wilson got the chance to work on a project that would bring history alive in a way that was impossible before the advent of modern technology. He said that it was originally conceived as a true-crime show that would place viewers into notorious crime scenes. That concept was eventually scrapped, but the format was kept so Wilson could plop himself into various events of historical significance. It has similarities to “You Are There,” a 1950s CBS TV show.
The events spotlighted on “I Was There” were selected before Wilson was hired to host the show. Constructing an episode involved finding the “narrative consistencies” in the many accounts of the event in question, identifying its key figures and crafting a thrilling story to give audiences “that sense of adventure,” he said.
He credits the show’s costumers and makeup artists for helping to make each episode feel so real. Wilson is also aware that seeing a Black man in certain time periods can be jarring, but he believes that’s an important part of what makes “I Was There” work.
“I think me being who I am kind of lends to the fact that we are in contemporary and advanced and changed times,” he said. “When you put me in that circumstance, it ... keeps you close and at a distance at the same time. It makes you feel like you’re being drawn into a different time.”
Although he was familiar with the Johnstown flood, Wilson wasn’t fully aware “of the class stratification that led to it” in terms of the South Fork Dam’s neglect by the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, which owned the dam and whose members included Pittsburgh industrialists Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, Andrew Mellon and Philander Knox.
In Wilson’s mind, there are plenty of parallels between the Johnstown flood and modern infrastructure failures like the recent Fern Hollow Bridge collapse. He sees the flood as a “labor-based tragedy” that underscores how workers of that era toiled while the wealthy men they served paid no heed to their well-being.
“A lot of us people working in modern times don’t understand what it took to create fair working conditions,” he said. “We don’t appreciate the gravitas of the American labor movement, and what necessitated it were the conditions and stratifications that we see during the Johnstown flood.”
Re-creating the flood involved filming at a lake outside Minneapolis. In a few scenes, Wilson is either submerged in water or getting drenched by artificial rain. He said it “was the hardest episode to film” and necessitated one of the show’s biggest CGI budgets to fully bring to life. The episode required him to be in front of a green screen so often that “I felt like I was in the Marvel Cinematic Universe,” he joked.
One of Wilson’s main goals with “I Was There” is to present history in “bright and vivid color.” He hopes viewers gain a better understanding of the past in the Johnstown flood episode and the new show’s other 11 installments.
“You watch History Channel to find the patterns,” he said. “You watch history to figure out the present. ... When you understand where you come from, you understand where you’re going.”
Joshua Axelrod: jaxelrod@post-gazette.com and Twitter @jaxelburgh.
First Published: February 18, 2022, 11:00 a.m.
Updated: February 19, 2022, 3:32 a.m.
