Content area
Full text
Category 5: The 1935 Labor Day Hurricane. By Thomas Neil Knowles. (Gainesville and other cities; University Press of Florida, c. 2009. Pp. [xviii], 350. $29.95, ISBN 978-0-8130-3310-5.)
In Category 5: The 1935 Labor Day Hurricane, Thomas Neil Knowles sets out to provide "a true account" of the hurricane that struck the Upper Florida Keys on Labor Day, September 2, 1935 (p. ix). The author reconstructs the storm's formation, growth, and eventual landfall from numerous survivor interviews, first-person accounts, published reminiscences, and transcripts of public hearings held after the event. Dramatic anecdotes about those affected by the hurricane play out within the context of U.S. weather service history, the on-again, off-again development of the Florida Keys, and Great Depression...