The Sinking Of The Eastland: America's Forgotten Tragedy

by Jay Bonansinga

Book Overview

At once riveting and poignant, The Sinking of the Eastland brings to life a bygone era that yielded one of the most significant American disasters of the last century. Includes 16 pages of black and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0806526289
• ISBN13: 9780806526287
• Release Date: October 2004
• Publisher: Citadel
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 1.3" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

A Really Good Historical Tale

I never got to know my Mother's sister, my Aunt Rose. She drowned on the Eastland. She was buried on her 18th Birthday. But, by reading this book I learned about the Eastland and what really happenend. I really didn't know because my Mom was only 9 at the time and families didn't discuss "bad" happenings. That's why this book is so great. It takes you through the boarding and then the overturning and the rescue. If you have anyone, who was a passenger on that boat, or even if you don't , this is very excellent reading. It made me cry at times to think of all those people just dumped into the water. I thought about my Aunt, and her final words, "Tom, what about Frannie?" Frannie being my Mother. Tom was Rose's boyfriend. He tried to save her but people just clung to him and he couldn't get to her.

Informative and highly moving

On the morning of Saturday, July 15, 1915, the passenger steamer Eastland was filled to capacity with some 2,500 passengers aboard. The passengers were Western Electric employees, heading out for a joyous company picnic on the other side of Lake Michigan from their home in the environs of Chicago, Illinois. As the ship prepared to cast off, it suddenly rolled over, taking some 844 men, women and children to their deaths. This is the story of the Eastland disaster, a horrifying catastrophe by any standard, and the worst disaster in Chicago's history. Overall, I found this to be a fascinating and very informative read. Even more, especially once the narrative got to the disaster itself, I found it very moving. In particular, amongst the pictures there is one of a firefighter holding a dead child, shock and despair written all over his face - as I read the narrative, I kept turning back to that picture. This is a great story of the disaster and the people who were caught up in it: the victims, the rescuers, the government officials and the businessmen. If you want to read an informative and highly moving account of this disaster, then get this book! I give it my highest recommendations.

A MARVELOUS WORK

I have long been a fan of great Chicago writers and great Chicago stories. While still in college, I discovered the immortal Nelson Algren, and James T. Farrell and James M. Cain and Studs Terkel, and recently found another good Chicago yarn in Devil in The White City. Jay Bonansinga holds up his end of the legacy quite well. A novelist of considerable talent and originality (The Killer's Game, Oblivion, The Sleep Police), Bonansinga seems to have all the skills. In Oblivion, he hooks us from Word One: "I'm twenty-nine years old, and I'm less than two years out of seminary school, and I'm watching my life piss away before my eyes." In the Killer's Game, while painting a vivid portrait of an almost supernaturally gifted assassin, he shows us the hollowness and moral bankruptcy of a predatory life. Here, in Eastland, Bonansinga does indeed open our eyes to America's Forgotten Tragedy. On a perfect day with perfect expectations of food and friends and dancing, more than 800 people suddenly loose their lives under the most horrific circumstances. The difference between average writers and wonderful writers is that the latter see the big picture. Bonansinga sees a tragedy waiting to happen, a callous commercial interest that will do anything to mask the warning signs, squeeze a few extra nickels out of the general purse, with the tension mounting and the tragedy approaching so that the Eastland's owners are practically picking the pockets of the walking dead. Then you see the cowardly passengers, hearty young men in their tailored finery, trampling women and children to save their scrawny lives. And ordinary citizens, with no interest in the outcome other than a deep rooted sense of morality and community, rushing to the disaster and risking their lives to pull hysterical victims from the water. And where would a tragedy be without politicians and spin doctors, rushing to the site to put the best face on the tragedy, promising vigorous investigations and sweeping change and the harshest of fates for the perpetrators? Eastland is horrifying, sickening, eye-opening and engrossing. Chalk up another wonderful effort for another blue-collar wordsmith from Chicago: in the end, Eastland is a ripping good yarn that paints a marvelous portrait of an event that virtually none of us would have grapsed without the impassioned effort of Jay Bonansinga. James Dalessandro, author, Bohemian Heart, Citizen Jane, 1906

Moving. Compelling. A captiving tribute to the victims.

Jay Bonansinga has painted a picture of The Eastland Disaster that pulls the reader right into the boat, the river, and the morgue. Unlike the very dry and overly statistical book that was previously written on this subject, this book introduces you to many of the real people who were on that boat that tragic day. You feel and smell the moment right along with them. You really care about each passenger as a human, not just a reported number or statistic. You mourn with the mothers, widows, widowers and entire families that were devastated by this accident. I was so drawn into the drama because of my caring for the chosen characters. What amazing stories of survival and valore, intense moments of suffering and defeat. The legal aftermath was almost as shocking as the disaster itself. Why were these precious lives disrepected and left for forgotten until now. I was amazed at how little publicity this event has gotten over the decades and I, for one, feel like I have paid my due respects to the victims and their loved ones through Bonansinga's compelling account. Bravo! This is the way non-fiction was meant to be written.