The fate of the SS Eastland - and the hundreds of people who lost their lives that day in
1915 - has fallen out of our collective consciousness.
That's odd, considering it's one of the worst maritime disasters in U.S. history.
This is the truth about the Eastland disaster, the tragedy no one remembers.
The day of the Eastland disaster started as an exciting one for employees of Hawthorne
Works & Western Electric, because it was their company picnic.
Events like this were a big deal.
Employees and their families dressed up in their finest clothes to board a fancy passenger
liner.
The ship would take them across the water to Michigan City, Indiana where they would
spend the day at the beautiful Washington Park.
For people who worked six days a week in the constant chaos of Chicago, it was a much-needed
day for rest and relaxation.
According to the Eastland Disaster Historical Society, many of the employees and their families
showed up to board the Eastland as early as 6:30 AM.
Rescue efforts for the ship would be underway just an hour later.
There is dispute about how many people were onboard the Eastland when the gangplank was
raised.
According to navigation inspector R.H. McCreary, he began turning people away when his automatic
counter reached 2,500.
Other officials disagree, and say the number was closer to 3,200.
The Smithsonian puts the number at 2,573 passengers and crew, and says the gangplank lifted at
7:18 in the morning.
The Eastland began to list even before setting sail, tilting slightly starting at around
7:10 AM.
It settled briefly, but at 7:23, it began listing to port again.
Within five minutes, the Eastland had tilted to a 45-degree angle, and water began pouring
into open portholes.
Minutes later, the ship rolled.
By 7:30 AM, the Eastland was completely on its side.
Some passengers still on the top deck were able to climb over the railing, walk along
the hull, and jump to dry land.
Others were thrown into the water, but hundreds more still were trapped below.
The Eastland capsized so quickly, no one had any time to launch the lifeboats.
Worse still, those same lifeboats were actually part of the problem.
Built in 1902, the Eastland was designed for 500 passengers and six lifeboats.However,
after the tragic sinking of the Titanic in 1912, legislation was enacted that required
that every ship carry enough lifeboats to support 75 percent of the passengers, as well
as life vests.
The law didn’t take into account the shallow-bottomed vessels that traveled across the Great Lakes,
where the extra weight of the lifeboats was a major problem.
It was even worse for the Eastland, which had been shoddily redesigned to hold extra
people.
On the day she capsized, the Eastland was carrying over two thousand more passengers
than she was originally rated for, and five more lifeboats than the original six she was
equipped with.
Additionally, 37 life rafts were also onboard, weighing an additional 1,100 pounds, plus
2570 life jackets.
All of this extra equipment was stored on the top decks, making the Eastland incredibly
top-heavy.
Disasters often turn ordinary people into heroes, and the events of July 24, 1915 when
the Eastland rolled, gave plenty of opportunities for citizens to stand up and lend a hand.
People like Morris Gault and William Corbett dropped everything to pull drowning people
from the river.
They were joined by Abraham Blumenthal, who upon seeing the disaster dove into the water
and began dragging people to safety.
Also on the scene was Laurence Frank Northrup, a nearby bridge-tender who hopped into a lifeboat
and saved the lives of 23 people.
Nearby boats joined the rescue effort as well.
The captain of the Kenosha, the tug boat that was going to pull the Eastland into the lake,
ordered his boat to be lashed to the dock.
This created a life-saving bridge for the survivors of the Eastland.
The Indiana was also among the first on the scene, and her captain suffered such horrible
nightmares after what he saw that day, he refused to ever talk about it again.
The Theodore Roosevelt helped carry the bodies of the dead to shore while the crew helped
the living.
According to the Eastland Disaster Historical Society, countless lives were saved when several
welders from nearby jobs grabbed their gear, pulled it to the Eastland, and started cutting
through the hull.
Several holes were cut into the ship in an attempt to rescue passengers more at risk
of suffocating than drowning.
Dozens of survivors were dragged through the holes, but not everyone was happy to see the
cuts made.
When Captain Harry Pedersen saw what was being done to his ship, he and at least 15 members
of his crew attempted to interfere with the welders’ rescue efforts.
They were such an obstruction that the men were eventually arrested and removed from
the scene.
When it was finally over, 844 people died on the Eastland.
Of the dead, 228 were teenagers and 58 were infants and toddlers.
70 percent of the victims were under the age of 25.
Nearby buildings, like the Second Regiment Armory, were converted to makeshift morgues.
Bodies were laid out in rows of 85.
Survivors and loved ones walked amongst the dead looking for family members, fearing the
worst.
One of the hero welders had a very personal motivation to help.
He was searching for his wife and two children, all of whom were onboard the Eastland when
it capsized.
Unfortunately, all three of them perished.
Documents located in the National Archives reveal that the government brought charges
against the Eastland’s owners, and presented evidence that they knew the ship wasn’t
seaworthy.
In fact, the whole vessel had been poorly designed from the start.
It was the only passenger ship to come out of its shipyard.
The Eastland, as it turns out, had been in repairs for much of the season.
And even though questions were raised about its stability, senior management refused to
stop using the ship for fear that it would hold up ticket sales.
At the trial, the famous lawyer Clarence Darrow represented the Eastland’s owners, crew,
and engineers.
Ultimately, no one was held accountable for what happened.
The ship’s owners got away with no repercussions whatsoever.
Despite the number of lives lost, The Eastland was largely forgotten by history.
Jay Bonansinga, author of The Sinking of the Eastland: America’s Forgotten Tragedy, has
a powerful take on the nature of this disaster.
"The Eastland is in my estimation, in my belief, is the blue-collar version of Titanic."
Whereas the Titanic was a massive ocean liner filled with many wealthy passengers, the Eastland
was filled with common, everyday people, many of them Czech immigrants.
Unfortunately, the victims of the Eastland just weren’t considered as important to
history as those on the Titanic, and were lost to time.
One final thought about this dark day in U.S. history.
Before the Eastland’s owners went on trial, they fled to Michigan.
They ended up being tried there, instead of Chicago, where they would have gotten much
harsher treatment.
The people who lost everything on the Eastland simply didn’t have the money, or access
to legal recourse to get the justice they deserved.
That's another tragedy, but one we hope won’t be forgotten again.
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