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Ashes Under Water: The SS Eastland and the Shipwreck That Shook America
It was the summer that broke America's heart.
In 1915, Chicago commuters were horrified to see the SS Eastland , a massive Lake Michigan steamship, flip over while tied to its dock. More than eight hundred poor factory workers and their children drowned. Twenty-two whole families perished. The nation cried out for justice. Drawing on previously unpublished evidence from the National Archives, Ashes Under Water is the untold story of a mysterious industrial atrocity and how the prosperous, guilty Eastland owners tried to shift the blame to the whistleblower and one true hero on the ship, Engineer Joseph Erickson, a working class immigrant. Against all odds, an attorney down on his luck at the time then stepped in to save Clarence Darrow, the future legal star. A national tragedy, Chicago politics, corrupt businessmen, a courtroom drama-all woven into one
spellbinding narrative. Author Michael McCarthy takes us back one hundred years to the gritty streets of Chicago and the throaty blast of steamship whistles, unveiling the full story of the tragedy--and its incredible aftermath--for the first time.
In 1915, Chicago commuters were horrified to see the SS Eastland , a massive Lake Michigan steamship, flip over while tied to its dock. More than eight hundred poor factory workers and their children drowned. Twenty-two whole families perished. The nation cried out for justice. Drawing on previously unpublished evidence from the National Archives, Ashes Under Water is the untold story of a mysterious industrial atrocity and how the prosperous, guilty Eastland owners tried to shift the blame to the whistleblower and one true hero on the ship, Engineer Joseph Erickson, a working class immigrant. Against all odds, an attorney down on his luck at the time then stepped in to save Clarence Darrow, the future legal star. A national tragedy, Chicago politics, corrupt businessmen, a courtroom drama-all woven into one
spellbinding narrative. Author Michael McCarthy takes us back one hundred years to the gritty streets of Chicago and the throaty blast of steamship whistles, unveiling the full story of the tragedy--and its incredible aftermath--for the first time.
328 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2014
33 people are currently reading
336 people want to read
About the author
Michael McCarthy
78 books78 followersMIchael McCarthy is Emeritus Professor of Applied
Linguistics at the University of Nottingham, UK. He is also
Adjunct Professor of Applied Linguistics at the Pennsylvania
State University and at the University of Limerick, Ireland.
He is the author of many titles of interest to teachers, including
Spoken Language and Applied Linguistics. Well known as an
expert on the teaching and learning of vocabulary, he is a co-author of the basic and upper-intermediate levels of Vocabulary in Use, and is also Academic Consultant to the Cambridge International Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs and the Cambridge International Dictionary of Idioms. He is co-author of the 2 latest successful corpus-informed publications by Cambridge University Press: Touchstone and Cambridge Grammar of English.
Linguistics at the University of Nottingham, UK. He is also
Adjunct Professor of Applied Linguistics at the Pennsylvania
State University and at the University of Limerick, Ireland.
He is the author of many titles of interest to teachers, including
Spoken Language and Applied Linguistics. Well known as an
expert on the teaching and learning of vocabulary, he is a co-author of the basic and upper-intermediate levels of Vocabulary in Use, and is also Academic Consultant to the Cambridge International Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs and the Cambridge International Dictionary of Idioms. He is co-author of the 2 latest successful corpus-informed publications by Cambridge University Press: Touchstone and Cambridge Grammar of English.
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March 15, 2018Very well written. This volume is pretty heavy on the courtroom trial aspect, and I would have liked more of the aftermath outside the courtroom, but I can learn about that in different books. Ashes Under Water is a worthwhile contribution to the record of what happened with the SS Eastland.
November 15, 2014
This is a well written history of the SS Eastland. The detail over decades is an example of intensive research related in chronological progression. It includes the earlier variables of ships and reasons/examples of Lake Michigan transport between Chicago and various Michigan state coast ports. It's nearly a 5 star.
This non-fiction book is a difficult read. It includes many technical steamship engineering aspects, and beyond that comprehensive levels of trade and business stats. But it also covers to minutia the lives of the Captain and the Chief Engineer.
Because I knew many details of the Eastland and its eventual tragedy from people who had actually been there or heard from parents their roles in the aftermath- it was especially interesting to me. But it would appeal to any who want to understand how extreme industrial progress and need for new raw products for uses in production pushed both knowledge and also dangerous levels of attempted speed to accomplish goals. This was the era of strongest industrial progress in the entire world's history which did occur within the American Midwest during the 50 years prior to the Eastland's disaster. Especially these Lake Michigan routes primed transport for ores and other raw materials to feed towards new products of manufacture. I myself remember the Christmas Tree ships coming from Michigan. Also the immense numbers of appliance and other home use products manufacturers.
Just as so many in this particular telling, I too am a two state dweller. Knowing South Haven, St. Joseph and numerous other locations of this tale well. Every year I see numerous new to me remnants of past century Chicago frolickers all around my Cass County lake. But especially in Berrien County where so much evolved for this Eastland history.
I knew that they raced too, very dangerously, just like some Mississippi ships did. But I had no idea about the Eastland vs. the City of South Haven and that part was enthralling to me. Especially since there had been so many close calls in port and out with the level of balance before that segment of time in which the racing occurred.
Completely unknown to me too was the part Clarence Darrow played within Chicago. None of his exploits surprised me at all though, because I knew he left a legacy for punitive lawsuits. And the advancement to the ideas too that if anything at all ever goes wrong it is always someone else's fault and therefore grounds for blaming to damages.
But in the Eastland case and in several other maritime fields of use, these chances and these jobs to run those ships!! Well, I always thought coal mining was probably the most dangerous profession of all. But now, I doubt it.
Like fires in theaters, and factory floors- the laws and structures of occupancy certainly needed vast changes and regulation. But in these cases of ships and uses for ships, the entire form and methods of power source needed to be completely revamped. In Chicago, Western Electric's name will forever be coupled with the tragedy of the Eastland. It is to this day the most horrific result. 853 and so many gone who were their family's bread winners and/or the very young and so innocent, just trying for a day of joy.
Oftentimes in the last 20 years, I have wondered why there is not better ferry transport or cruise ship tours between lower to upper Lake Michigan or from Wisconsin or Illinois to Michigan's upper Penn.
Droves of us would use them, as the ones in operation are few (very limited to only two places on the Michigan coast) and highly expensive to use, especially for automobile transport.
Hopefully, someday someone will devise a safer way across the Great Lakes. And after hearing from a spouse's relative about how he pulled out people using oars and floating anything- seeing these pictures- I understand completely why he never forgot it.
This non-fiction book is a difficult read. It includes many technical steamship engineering aspects, and beyond that comprehensive levels of trade and business stats. But it also covers to minutia the lives of the Captain and the Chief Engineer.
Because I knew many details of the Eastland and its eventual tragedy from people who had actually been there or heard from parents their roles in the aftermath- it was especially interesting to me. But it would appeal to any who want to understand how extreme industrial progress and need for new raw products for uses in production pushed both knowledge and also dangerous levels of attempted speed to accomplish goals. This was the era of strongest industrial progress in the entire world's history which did occur within the American Midwest during the 50 years prior to the Eastland's disaster. Especially these Lake Michigan routes primed transport for ores and other raw materials to feed towards new products of manufacture. I myself remember the Christmas Tree ships coming from Michigan. Also the immense numbers of appliance and other home use products manufacturers.
Just as so many in this particular telling, I too am a two state dweller. Knowing South Haven, St. Joseph and numerous other locations of this tale well. Every year I see numerous new to me remnants of past century Chicago frolickers all around my Cass County lake. But especially in Berrien County where so much evolved for this Eastland history.
I knew that they raced too, very dangerously, just like some Mississippi ships did. But I had no idea about the Eastland vs. the City of South Haven and that part was enthralling to me. Especially since there had been so many close calls in port and out with the level of balance before that segment of time in which the racing occurred.
Completely unknown to me too was the part Clarence Darrow played within Chicago. None of his exploits surprised me at all though, because I knew he left a legacy for punitive lawsuits. And the advancement to the ideas too that if anything at all ever goes wrong it is always someone else's fault and therefore grounds for blaming to damages.
But in the Eastland case and in several other maritime fields of use, these chances and these jobs to run those ships!! Well, I always thought coal mining was probably the most dangerous profession of all. But now, I doubt it.
Like fires in theaters, and factory floors- the laws and structures of occupancy certainly needed vast changes and regulation. But in these cases of ships and uses for ships, the entire form and methods of power source needed to be completely revamped. In Chicago, Western Electric's name will forever be coupled with the tragedy of the Eastland. It is to this day the most horrific result. 853 and so many gone who were their family's bread winners and/or the very young and so innocent, just trying for a day of joy.
Oftentimes in the last 20 years, I have wondered why there is not better ferry transport or cruise ship tours between lower to upper Lake Michigan or from Wisconsin or Illinois to Michigan's upper Penn.
Droves of us would use them, as the ones in operation are few (very limited to only two places on the Michigan coast) and highly expensive to use, especially for automobile transport.
Hopefully, someday someone will devise a safer way across the Great Lakes. And after hearing from a spouse's relative about how he pulled out people using oars and floating anything- seeing these pictures- I understand completely why he never forgot it.
December 8, 2014
Not many of us would have the tenacity, patience, or energy to research one particular subject for twelve years, but that was precisely what Michael McCarthy, author of Ashes Under Water: The SS Eastland and the Shipwreck that Shook America, did. He accomplished the seemingly impossible feat of compiling a mass of new information and facts about the 1915 disaster, its aftermath, and the civil trial that followed.
But don’t, for a minute, think that this book is a boring litany of statistics. It is, on the contrary, just the opposite. McCarthy has succeeded in penning an engaging, engrossing, emotional tale of an unimaginable tragedy. Ashes Under Water is a stunning piece of narrative nonfiction that equals the likes of Jay Bonansinga’s bestseller, The Sinking of the Eastland; America’s Forgotten Tragedy or Erik Larson’s book to movie, The Devil in the White City.
McCarthy alternates his short, well-paced chapters between six main characters – Walter Steele & William Hull, the last owners of the Eastland, Joseph Erickson, the Chief Engineer, Clarence Darrow, the soon-to-be-famous lawyer who defended Erickson in court, Captain Harry Pedersen, and James Novotny, a Western Electric employee who brought his wife and two young children along on what was to be a fun-filled outing. The entire Novotny family perished (along with 21 other entire families) onboard the Eastland.
McCarthy adds two particularly touching features to this book. The first features involves a story about the doctors who were the first to arrive on the docks after the capsizing.
“Doctors with rolled sleeves and ties were quickly growing weary, checking each dire case carried to them, having spent an hour pressing their fingers to the throats of the victims and then calling out one of two words.
The first: “Pulmotor.” It was the name for a squeaking contraption recently developed to revive unconscious miners …
Besides “Pulmotor,” there was only one other word the doctors would say: “Gone.”
Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone.”
McCarthy filled pages with the word using it 844 times to represent each and every victim. Seeing that single, simple word repeated so many times was heartbreaking. And effective.
His second emotionally charged feature was called: The Red Cross Toll. When the Red Cross began distributing compensation to the victims’ families, they made a numbered list, highlighting the deceased in bold print.
“No. 357. (Polish) Sister, 18; brother, 10, brother, 8, brother, 6, aunt, 29. The only wage earner of four orphans, an employee of the Western Electric Company, was drowned. An aunt had been living with them to do the housekeeping, and she earned about nine dollars a week by needlework.”
Again, heartbreaking and effective.
In Ashes Under Water, McCarthy makes a case for the hardworking, dedicated, heroic Chief Engineer who posthumously shouldered the blame for the disaster. Author George Hilton of Eastland: Legacy of the Titanic believed that Joseph Erickson deserved to have his good name cleared and now, McCarthy has done just that. Ashes brings long overdue justice to Erickson and his descendants. There is much more to Erickson’s fascinating story and that could be a discussion for another day, but for right now, let’s just offer Michael McCarthy our heartfelt thanks for telling this story of injustice, greed, and lies in detail and in depth.
McCarthy’s new book is perfect for anyone – from high school history classes to adult book clubs. The short chapters make for easy bedtime reading but they also work just as well for the daily Metra commute.
But don’t, for a minute, think that this book is a boring litany of statistics. It is, on the contrary, just the opposite. McCarthy has succeeded in penning an engaging, engrossing, emotional tale of an unimaginable tragedy. Ashes Under Water is a stunning piece of narrative nonfiction that equals the likes of Jay Bonansinga’s bestseller, The Sinking of the Eastland; America’s Forgotten Tragedy or Erik Larson’s book to movie, The Devil in the White City.
McCarthy alternates his short, well-paced chapters between six main characters – Walter Steele & William Hull, the last owners of the Eastland, Joseph Erickson, the Chief Engineer, Clarence Darrow, the soon-to-be-famous lawyer who defended Erickson in court, Captain Harry Pedersen, and James Novotny, a Western Electric employee who brought his wife and two young children along on what was to be a fun-filled outing. The entire Novotny family perished (along with 21 other entire families) onboard the Eastland.
McCarthy adds two particularly touching features to this book. The first features involves a story about the doctors who were the first to arrive on the docks after the capsizing.
“Doctors with rolled sleeves and ties were quickly growing weary, checking each dire case carried to them, having spent an hour pressing their fingers to the throats of the victims and then calling out one of two words.
The first: “Pulmotor.” It was the name for a squeaking contraption recently developed to revive unconscious miners …
Besides “Pulmotor,” there was only one other word the doctors would say: “Gone.”
Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone.”
McCarthy filled pages with the word using it 844 times to represent each and every victim. Seeing that single, simple word repeated so many times was heartbreaking. And effective.
His second emotionally charged feature was called: The Red Cross Toll. When the Red Cross began distributing compensation to the victims’ families, they made a numbered list, highlighting the deceased in bold print.
“No. 357. (Polish) Sister, 18; brother, 10, brother, 8, brother, 6, aunt, 29. The only wage earner of four orphans, an employee of the Western Electric Company, was drowned. An aunt had been living with them to do the housekeeping, and she earned about nine dollars a week by needlework.”
Again, heartbreaking and effective.
In Ashes Under Water, McCarthy makes a case for the hardworking, dedicated, heroic Chief Engineer who posthumously shouldered the blame for the disaster. Author George Hilton of Eastland: Legacy of the Titanic believed that Joseph Erickson deserved to have his good name cleared and now, McCarthy has done just that. Ashes brings long overdue justice to Erickson and his descendants. There is much more to Erickson’s fascinating story and that could be a discussion for another day, but for right now, let’s just offer Michael McCarthy our heartfelt thanks for telling this story of injustice, greed, and lies in detail and in depth.
McCarthy’s new book is perfect for anyone – from high school history classes to adult book clubs. The short chapters make for easy bedtime reading but they also work just as well for the daily Metra commute.
August 29, 2018
The Eastland was an excursion steamer on the Great Lakes that in 1915 inexplicably capsized while loading passengers dockside in the Chicago River, killing hundreds of people. I have read quite a bit on the Eastland tragedy, yet I still learned new things from this book. First, I did not know that prior to the capsizing, the ship had a history of listing and being top-heavy. I did not know the ship which in photos even to the layman today looks narrow and top-heavy, was designed by a firm that only produced one passenger ship and that its ballast system was questionable. I was not aware that famed attorney Clarence Darrow represented the owners, captain, engineer of the ship at a federal criminal hearing and got them exonerated, yet proceeded to distance himself from the case and didn't even mention it in his memoirs.
This book starts out with much background information, and frankly, some of the initial chapters go off on tangents and that can be frustrating. And if you want a detailed depiction of the actual capsizing, while the book covers the actual event, it is not in a lot of detail and does not go on for many pages. There are also not many photos of the accident included in the book. The real focus of this book is on the criminal hearing after the accident and it goes into great detail on the case as presented by the prosecutors and the defense raised by Darrow. Despite having read other books on the Eastland incident, this was the first detailed account of this court hearing on the case I have read.
If your interest lies in the details of the actual day of the disaster and photos of the incident, this is probably not the best book for you. But if you want to enhance your understanding of the context of the incident, in how the ship came to be built, its early days sailing, and want an in-depth account of the criminal hearing afterwards, this book provides a great deal of interesting information that is just glossed over in other books on the Eastland disaster.
This book starts out with much background information, and frankly, some of the initial chapters go off on tangents and that can be frustrating. And if you want a detailed depiction of the actual capsizing, while the book covers the actual event, it is not in a lot of detail and does not go on for many pages. There are also not many photos of the accident included in the book. The real focus of this book is on the criminal hearing after the accident and it goes into great detail on the case as presented by the prosecutors and the defense raised by Darrow. Despite having read other books on the Eastland incident, this was the first detailed account of this court hearing on the case I have read.
If your interest lies in the details of the actual day of the disaster and photos of the incident, this is probably not the best book for you. But if you want to enhance your understanding of the context of the incident, in how the ship came to be built, its early days sailing, and want an in-depth account of the criminal hearing afterwards, this book provides a great deal of interesting information that is just glossed over in other books on the Eastland disaster.
July 25, 2015
My 100th book of the year finished on the 100th anniversary of the Eastland Disaster.
This book takes the reader on two parallel journeys, one with Erickson, the Chief Engineer of the doomed vessel and the other with the Eastland itself, from the moment of its design all the way through the sinking, the trial and with a brief coda about its post-disaster career.
"Ashes Under Water" was a fascinating read.
This book takes the reader on two parallel journeys, one with Erickson, the Chief Engineer of the doomed vessel and the other with the Eastland itself, from the moment of its design all the way through the sinking, the trial and with a brief coda about its post-disaster career.
"Ashes Under Water" was a fascinating read.
February 12, 2016
Excellent book on a little-known tragedy. How many people know that more passengers died on the Eastland than the Titanic 3 years earlier? And...the Eastland never left the dock.
Thoroughly researched and well-told, this account covers all of the details in an easy to read telling. The tragedy and the book will stay with you for some time. Highly recommended!
Thoroughly researched and well-told, this account covers all of the details in an easy to read telling. The tragedy and the book will stay with you for some time. Highly recommended!
February 2, 2019
Excellent, detailed look at everything that led up to the Eastland Disaster, and an intricate timeline of the investigation that followed. McCarthy shows us the people and lives destroyed by this tragedy that has been mostly forgotten by the American public. Fantastic, heartbreaking read.
November 22, 2014
The scene is the Chicago office of Clarence Darrow, a lawyer who was well-known for taking the side of the underdog, the under-privileged, the labor union against the bosses. He would shortly become nationally famous for his work on defense in the Leopold and Loeb case, and later for his defense in the Scopes Monkey Trial. But at this point, the summer of 1915, he was at a low ebb in his career, having just escaped charges of bribery and jury tampering in Los Angeles. Darrow had many clients from the humble worker up to the architect Frank Lloyd Wright. He never knew who would come to his door.
"One day, the figure in Darrow's doorway was slight, gaunt. The short man looked frightening. He wasn't world-weary, like Darrow's other supplicants; he was traumatized. His cheeks were sunken. His eyes, dark sockets. He was sickly, skeletal. He introduced himself as Joseph Erickson. He was the chief engineer of the "Eastland", and he was in trouble."
The above excerpt is taken from the recently published book "Ashes Under Water: the S.S. Eastland and the Shipwreck that Shook America" by Michael McCarthy, historian and a former Feature Editor of the Wall Street Journal. Mr. McCarthy's book is about the fate of the S.S. Eastland when she capsized literally feet from her dock on the Chicago River on July 24, 1915, resulting in the death of 855 passengers. I can fully recommend this book, not only as a good read. But it is history written the way I love to read it: not just a dry collection of names and dates, but a living, breathing story of people with aspirations and motivations, some of them good and some of them bad, but all of them fascinating. And McCarthy has given us the full range of such characters. In his pages we find heroes, villains, and everything in between: lawyers, bystanders, and first responders. Most poignantly of all we find victims, including 22 whole families, who boarded the Eastland that morning expecting a day of pleasure at a company picnic, but who instead met their deaths.
The S.S. Eastland began her life in 1903 as a steamer built to take advantage of the rapidly expanding economic base of the Great Lakes region. In the first part of his book, McCarthy details the need for a ship to carry the tons of fruit being produced to the many summer resorts in the area along with passengers to these places. But as she was being constructed, her owners wanted her designed for speed and large passenger capacity. Hence she was designed with a length of 275 feet and a beam of 38 feet. "Fast ship, or no ship," versus the fact that the rivers she would be traveling were just too small for such a leviathan sized craft. "In other words, too much ship, too little water." We then see the accidents that followed the Eastland from one set of owners to the next each one overlooking the difficulties in handling a ship that was clearly top heavy and which acquired a reputation as a "cranky" sailor. Along side of this we see the rise of young Joseph Erickson from a young Norwegian immigrant into an excellent engineer, the downturns in the career of Clarence Darrow, and the blossoming of the families who would all be brought together by a terrible tragedy.
In Part Two, McCarthy takes us through the story of the disaster itself. We see how the Captain Harry Pederson a man with little experience and his chief engineer, Joseph Erickson, an honest, hard working man, each go through their paces on the morning of July 24, 1915 taking on over 2500 passengers of the Western Electric Company bound for a company holiday picnic. These were hard working people who were dressed in their best holiday attire: "Most of the women, in their twenties and their thirties, crowded near the dock with long-sleeve embroidered linen dresses. Their hats brimmed with apples, sprays of lilac. shirrings of striped taffeta silk, poppies wound in wreathes, and black velvet bows." And we see how the ship slowly lists to port, taking all of these and hundreds of others to their doom. Most of the passengers had gone below decks to avoid the cold drizzle and thus were smashed beneath tons of furniture as it came crashing down on them while the ship rolled on its side in a mere 20 feet of water, just a few feet from the dock and as water rushed in though doors and hatches. In vivid detail McCarthy tells the story of families wiped out, and first responders driven to despair by the horrors they encountered.
"At the bottom of page 14, the police chief asked Erickson precisely who within the company knew what would stop any stability issues on the Eastland. He replied, 'Why the general manager and the secretary, they all knew.' Next to that passage, in the pitiful penmanship that was signature-Darrow, were two words: Owners knew."
With those two words McCarthy, with the skill of a master story-teller, takes us into Part Three: the twisted world of the courtroom. With richly detailed portraits of the men involved, McCarthy shows us a veritable rogues gallery of characters: Darrow, the sloppy and unkempt man who was a brilliant lawyer, who agreed to take on the case of the gaunt man who appeared in his doorway. We are shown the owners of the ship who lied and dissembled repeatedly all throughout the trial. We see how the judge, Clarence Sessions slowly began to favor the defense against the prosecutors who called a dizzying array of marine experts. Darrow realized that he would have to save all of these men from the charge of conspiracy in order to keep his client, Joseph Erickson from being made into a scapegoat. So he attempts all kinds of fancy legal footwork to discredit the experts until he can bring the focus around to the simple honesty of his client. The six pages wherein McCarthy takes the reader through Joseph Erickson's account of his experience in the Eastland disaster are frankly riveting.
All of this is drawn against the background of a nation dealing with the unsettling changes brought about by the industrial revolution to American society. This was a new and strange world brought about by telephones, automobiles, and the changing roles of women and men and who would be he source of income within these new family structures. And this is all brought tragically to life in McCarthy's pages with the Red Cross Tolls, wherein we see the bulletins of the Red Cross giving details of the unidentified among the dead pulled from the hull of the Eastland. And this went on while a shocked nation hung on every detail of the trial in the newspapers from all over the country. Drawing on court documents, and previously unpublished letters, Mike McCarthy has written for the first time the complete story of a tragedy which would shortly be forgotten as our country was swallowed up into the even greater tragedy of the Great War. More than that, it is a fascinating character study of a slice of our country and our people just at our entrance onto the world stage.
"One day, the figure in Darrow's doorway was slight, gaunt. The short man looked frightening. He wasn't world-weary, like Darrow's other supplicants; he was traumatized. His cheeks were sunken. His eyes, dark sockets. He was sickly, skeletal. He introduced himself as Joseph Erickson. He was the chief engineer of the "Eastland", and he was in trouble."
The above excerpt is taken from the recently published book "Ashes Under Water: the S.S. Eastland and the Shipwreck that Shook America" by Michael McCarthy, historian and a former Feature Editor of the Wall Street Journal. Mr. McCarthy's book is about the fate of the S.S. Eastland when she capsized literally feet from her dock on the Chicago River on July 24, 1915, resulting in the death of 855 passengers. I can fully recommend this book, not only as a good read. But it is history written the way I love to read it: not just a dry collection of names and dates, but a living, breathing story of people with aspirations and motivations, some of them good and some of them bad, but all of them fascinating. And McCarthy has given us the full range of such characters. In his pages we find heroes, villains, and everything in between: lawyers, bystanders, and first responders. Most poignantly of all we find victims, including 22 whole families, who boarded the Eastland that morning expecting a day of pleasure at a company picnic, but who instead met their deaths.
The S.S. Eastland began her life in 1903 as a steamer built to take advantage of the rapidly expanding economic base of the Great Lakes region. In the first part of his book, McCarthy details the need for a ship to carry the tons of fruit being produced to the many summer resorts in the area along with passengers to these places. But as she was being constructed, her owners wanted her designed for speed and large passenger capacity. Hence she was designed with a length of 275 feet and a beam of 38 feet. "Fast ship, or no ship," versus the fact that the rivers she would be traveling were just too small for such a leviathan sized craft. "In other words, too much ship, too little water." We then see the accidents that followed the Eastland from one set of owners to the next each one overlooking the difficulties in handling a ship that was clearly top heavy and which acquired a reputation as a "cranky" sailor. Along side of this we see the rise of young Joseph Erickson from a young Norwegian immigrant into an excellent engineer, the downturns in the career of Clarence Darrow, and the blossoming of the families who would all be brought together by a terrible tragedy.
In Part Two, McCarthy takes us through the story of the disaster itself. We see how the Captain Harry Pederson a man with little experience and his chief engineer, Joseph Erickson, an honest, hard working man, each go through their paces on the morning of July 24, 1915 taking on over 2500 passengers of the Western Electric Company bound for a company holiday picnic. These were hard working people who were dressed in their best holiday attire: "Most of the women, in their twenties and their thirties, crowded near the dock with long-sleeve embroidered linen dresses. Their hats brimmed with apples, sprays of lilac. shirrings of striped taffeta silk, poppies wound in wreathes, and black velvet bows." And we see how the ship slowly lists to port, taking all of these and hundreds of others to their doom. Most of the passengers had gone below decks to avoid the cold drizzle and thus were smashed beneath tons of furniture as it came crashing down on them while the ship rolled on its side in a mere 20 feet of water, just a few feet from the dock and as water rushed in though doors and hatches. In vivid detail McCarthy tells the story of families wiped out, and first responders driven to despair by the horrors they encountered.
"At the bottom of page 14, the police chief asked Erickson precisely who within the company knew what would stop any stability issues on the Eastland. He replied, 'Why the general manager and the secretary, they all knew.' Next to that passage, in the pitiful penmanship that was signature-Darrow, were two words: Owners knew."
With those two words McCarthy, with the skill of a master story-teller, takes us into Part Three: the twisted world of the courtroom. With richly detailed portraits of the men involved, McCarthy shows us a veritable rogues gallery of characters: Darrow, the sloppy and unkempt man who was a brilliant lawyer, who agreed to take on the case of the gaunt man who appeared in his doorway. We are shown the owners of the ship who lied and dissembled repeatedly all throughout the trial. We see how the judge, Clarence Sessions slowly began to favor the defense against the prosecutors who called a dizzying array of marine experts. Darrow realized that he would have to save all of these men from the charge of conspiracy in order to keep his client, Joseph Erickson from being made into a scapegoat. So he attempts all kinds of fancy legal footwork to discredit the experts until he can bring the focus around to the simple honesty of his client. The six pages wherein McCarthy takes the reader through Joseph Erickson's account of his experience in the Eastland disaster are frankly riveting.
All of this is drawn against the background of a nation dealing with the unsettling changes brought about by the industrial revolution to American society. This was a new and strange world brought about by telephones, automobiles, and the changing roles of women and men and who would be he source of income within these new family structures. And this is all brought tragically to life in McCarthy's pages with the Red Cross Tolls, wherein we see the bulletins of the Red Cross giving details of the unidentified among the dead pulled from the hull of the Eastland. And this went on while a shocked nation hung on every detail of the trial in the newspapers from all over the country. Drawing on court documents, and previously unpublished letters, Mike McCarthy has written for the first time the complete story of a tragedy which would shortly be forgotten as our country was swallowed up into the even greater tragedy of the Great War. More than that, it is a fascinating character study of a slice of our country and our people just at our entrance onto the world stage.
December 19, 2020
In 1915, the SS Eastland capsized while tied to its dock in the Chicago River. Over 800 people died.
Michael McCarthy hypothesizes that virtually no one in America today has heard of this disaster. I certainly hadn't, and my first reaction upon learning of it was to think that Chicago saw more than its share of bizarre disasters in the early twentieth century. But, I digress.
Ashes Under Water is the story of the Lake Michigan steamships, and of one in particular - the Eastland - that was beset by trouble from its earliest days. Although McCarthy focuses on other aspects of the story, I was most stunned by the fact that someone who had never built a boat before built one big enough to hold 2,500 people...and it took more than a decade for anything truly terrible to happen.
The second half of the book focuses on the trial that followed, and how the clearly guilty owners tried to pin the blame on the most competent and least guilty man on the boat, Chief Engineer Joseph Erickson. Erickson was defended by none other than the wily Clarence Darrow, he of later Monkey fame.
All told, I found the first half of Ashes Under Water, which covered the Lake Michigan steamship business, Erickson's biography, and the Eastland accident itself, more interesting than the second half, which focused on the trial. From beginning to end, though, McCarthy is detailed and thorough and offers a remarkable reconstruction of a disaster that has otherwise long been forgotten.
Michael McCarthy hypothesizes that virtually no one in America today has heard of this disaster. I certainly hadn't, and my first reaction upon learning of it was to think that Chicago saw more than its share of bizarre disasters in the early twentieth century. But, I digress.
Ashes Under Water is the story of the Lake Michigan steamships, and of one in particular - the Eastland - that was beset by trouble from its earliest days. Although McCarthy focuses on other aspects of the story, I was most stunned by the fact that someone who had never built a boat before built one big enough to hold 2,500 people...and it took more than a decade for anything truly terrible to happen.
The second half of the book focuses on the trial that followed, and how the clearly guilty owners tried to pin the blame on the most competent and least guilty man on the boat, Chief Engineer Joseph Erickson. Erickson was defended by none other than the wily Clarence Darrow, he of later Monkey fame.
All told, I found the first half of Ashes Under Water, which covered the Lake Michigan steamship business, Erickson's biography, and the Eastland accident itself, more interesting than the second half, which focused on the trial. From beginning to end, though, McCarthy is detailed and thorough and offers a remarkable reconstruction of a disaster that has otherwise long been forgotten.
June 28, 2024
Ashes Under Water is a well-researched book about the capsizing of a large steamer at a dock in the Chicago River that killed 855 in 1915 and the subsequent trial where Clarence Darrow defended the ship's engineer. Three years after the Titanic sunk, the Eastland caused another large loss of life but this time for no apparent reason. McCarthy introduces us to everything about the ship, its builder, owners, captains and engineers; then describes the accident in detail and the subsequent trial. I learned a lot (as I didn't know the Chicago River's direction was reversed) and the only reason this book does not receive four stars is because the first third of the book would abruptly shift between topics, often to some seemingly irrelevant bit of interesting historical detail. As a result, it often felt like a jarring amateur read that would have benefited from better editorial advice. Nonetheless, the rest of the book is well-done professional story-telling though some may flag at all of the detail quoted from the trial. It's hard to satisfy everyone. I am left still wondering why the author chose to title the book Ashes Under Water and what really caused the capsize. The text of the book ends 60% in, with photos at the end, so those of you who would like to see what the men, the ship afloat and the ship capsized looked like should know in advance to skip to the end.
August 1, 2021
The Eastland disaster is almost as legendary in Chicago as The Great Chicago Fire. A large steamer loaded with passengers flipped on its side and sank while moored to the dock in the Chicago River. Over 800 people lost their lives. What caused the ship to roll and sink? Was it human error? Was it a poorly constructed "cranky" boat? Was it greed? McCarthy begins with the construction of the steamer and concludes with the trial that sought to punish those responsible for the tragic accident. He does a fantastic job of explaining the complex mechanics of sailing such a large ship. The book focuses on Joseph Erickson, the Eastland's engineer who not only survived the accident but provided the best clues as to what happened. I highly recommend this book to readers curious to know the true story of The Eastland disaster.
July 28, 2023
The wreck of the SS Eastland in 1915 was one of the worst maritime disasters in U.S. history. The ship flipped over in Lake Michigan while tied to the dock in Chicago and at least 844 people, many of them poor factory workers, drowned as a result when they became trapped. State and Federal hearings and a trial captured the nation. The rich owners tried to blame Joseph Erickson, the immigrant engineer who was defended by attorney Clarence Darrow. This very well researched book provides a wealth of information on a national tragedy that has largely been forgotten.
March 7, 2018
I really knew nothing of this tragedy. He did a lot of research and added a lot of details on the people involved. This is a good read for anyone who has an interest in the Great Lakes or South Haven.
July 10, 2020
The information presented, when you think about it, is very interesting, heartbreaking, appalling. And it sounds like exactly the kind of book I love. BUT I felt like he didn't capture the emotion, didn't pull me into the story. Disappointing.
October 7, 2020
Little known maritime disaster on the Chicago river
Detailed account of the little known ship the Eastland which listed fatally and killed many Western Electric employees. The book recounts the disaster faithfully, and covers the Clarence Darrow famed court case afterward.
Detailed account of the little known ship the Eastland which listed fatally and killed many Western Electric employees. The book recounts the disaster faithfully, and covers the Clarence Darrow famed court case afterward.
September 12, 2024
I do enjoy a good nonfiction now and again and I’ve read a number of them.
September 25, 2015
This was a really interesting book about ship sinking that took place in 1915 in Chicago. The ship was boarding employees and their families from the Western Electric Company for the annual picnic. The ship had a problem with being top heavy at times but had had only one serious incident in its 12 year life prior to this, but that one was minor compared to this one. Ironically, the sinking of the Titanic and the change in the law requring enough life boats for all passengers and crew members may have also been a factor making the Eastland top heavy. As the people boarded (about 2500 of them), the ship suddenly flipped over, throwing people into the water and trapping many in the lower decks. Over 800 people died, with 21 entire families. There were a number of children left orphaned and at least one that took a long time to identify since there was no family remaining. As is typical in cases such as these, a furious public wanted to blame someone, anyone for the tragedy. Therefore, many officers of the company that owned the ship as well as the ship's captain and chief engineer were arrested and prosecuted within days and months of the event. Clarence Darrow, a down on his luck attorney at the time, takes on the case for the engineer as a defense attorney. He later became famous for the Scopes Monkey Trial and the Leopold & Loeb trial.
This book is extremely well written and keeps the reader interested to the very end. You don't know how the trials will come out until the very end so it does keep you in suspense. If you like obscure historical stories or are an Eric Larson fan, you will like this book.
This book is extremely well written and keeps the reader interested to the very end. You don't know how the trials will come out until the very end so it does keep you in suspense. If you like obscure historical stories or are an Eric Larson fan, you will like this book.
October 11, 2015
SPOILER ALERT: This book is a detailed but narrative review of original sources, both popular and legal, of one of the most horrific accidents in American history. The book was obviously an obsessive labor of love for the author, who obviously was seeking to ensure that the victims of this tragedy would not be forgotten. It details how a ship can capsize at anchor, killing hundreds and hundreds of passengers, and yet no legal blame be assigned for it nor damages paid to the victims' families. It also details how the federal extradition hearing, in seeking justice for the accused, might have failed to provide justice for the victims and their families. The only monies they received were from the Red Cross. However, the author noted that their work in compensating victims' families was exemplary -- they attended to the immediate needs of survivors and the victims' families, even reaching out to their families overseas, yet managing to administer $375,000 of relief funds while spending less than $500 doing so. This book makes us reconsider our own more recent tragedy, of 09/11/2001.
September 13, 2016
Another excellent historical accounting of the shipping/maritime industry in early America.
January 18, 2015
I used to work right across Wacker from where this happened, and walked past the monument countless times. So, as a Chicagoan, this wasn't a new story for me. Still, this was a great read, with the back story going back to the original construction and the history of the ship's listing problems. The courtroom scenes with Clarence Darrow are the narrative heart of the book and don't fail in holding interest. Darrow is one of those people that when the "who would you like to meet from the past if you could"?, I always think of.
The author does a great job keeping the narrative moving and managed to make some semi-technical things easy to understand.
Little known fact that I wished were in the book: The day of the Western Electric company outing that the Eastland was leaving for that morning, a part time summer worker over slept and missed boarding the Eastland, most likely saving his life. The guy's name was George Halas.
The author does a great job keeping the narrative moving and managed to make some semi-technical things easy to understand.
Little known fact that I wished were in the book: The day of the Western Electric company outing that the Eastland was leaving for that morning, a part time summer worker over slept and missed boarding the Eastland, most likely saving his life. The guy's name was George Halas.
August 4, 2015
This is a very interesting account of a virtually unknown shipwreck. The SS Eastland sank in 1915 while loading passengers at the dock in Chicago. Eight hundred and forty-four passengers drowned - more passengers than died in the sinking of the Titanic, but this wreck is rarely heard about.
The author focuses heavily on the personalities involved, especially chief engineer Joseph Erickson, who ended up being somewhat of a convenient scapegoat although no one was ever held criminally responsible. To some extent McCarthy seems to be on a mission to exonerate Erickson, but that doesn't distract from the overall account.
My only real criticism of the book would be that as McCarthy moves from one thread to another it is easy to lose track of the timetable over the life of the Eastland and of various characters, but that is a very minor quibble. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys learning about history, disasters, or shipwrecks.
The author focuses heavily on the personalities involved, especially chief engineer Joseph Erickson, who ended up being somewhat of a convenient scapegoat although no one was ever held criminally responsible. To some extent McCarthy seems to be on a mission to exonerate Erickson, but that doesn't distract from the overall account.
My only real criticism of the book would be that as McCarthy moves from one thread to another it is easy to lose track of the timetable over the life of the Eastland and of various characters, but that is a very minor quibble. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys learning about history, disasters, or shipwrecks.
September 5, 2015
A fascinating, yet profoundly sad, look at a forgotten American tragedy and its aftermath. In 1915 the overcrowded excursion ship, the SS Eastland, rolled over at its mooring on the Chicago River in the center of the city. 844 of the 2500 passengers on board died when they were trapped below deck.
In the aftermath of the tragedy, Clarence Darrow, a decade before the Scopes trial, but already famous as a proponent of progressive causes, successfully defended the unjustly accused chief engineer, a Norwegian immigrant whose dedication and honesty were beyond reproach. Unfortunately, the best defense money could buy also led to the exoneration of the wealthy ship owners from the charges of gross negligence. It was that negligence that led to the tragedy, and thus the tragedy was compounded.
In the aftermath of the tragedy, Clarence Darrow, a decade before the Scopes trial, but already famous as a proponent of progressive causes, successfully defended the unjustly accused chief engineer, a Norwegian immigrant whose dedication and honesty were beyond reproach. Unfortunately, the best defense money could buy also led to the exoneration of the wealthy ship owners from the charges of gross negligence. It was that negligence that led to the tragedy, and thus the tragedy was compounded.
September 21, 2015
Author did a lot of research of Ship owners, Capts. nd Engrs of the Eastand, the shipyard and the passengers, each with a pivotal role in the trial of who's to blame for a ship rolling over at the dock and 844 lives lost. Clarence Darrow's claim to fame, but real cause not proved. An inadequate piping arrangement of shifting water ballast, not adjusting for the passengers moving from Starboard to Port ?, question of the day.
April 13, 2016
This was an excellent book! The background, on the S.S. Eastland and six principal players, was well researched and presented. It also focused on the poor souls that were lost that day. One page merely contained the words: Gone. Gone. Gone. It was so jarring. I was especially drawn to the courtroom drama and Clarence Darrow's defense strategy for the ship's Chief Engineer, whose only flaw appears to be that he told the truth about what happened that fateful day.
January 12, 2015
Michael McCarthy had written a well detailed history of the Eastland disaster in a very compelling style. The background on the building of the boat and the people associated with it made the book hard to put down. This is a must read for anyone who is interested in the history of Chicago, and the effects of putting greed ahead of safety in business.
October 22, 2015
A very interesting account of the sinking of the SS Eastland at the dock in the Chicago River with the loss of 844 lives! Biggiest loss of life on the Great Lakes taking place in early 1900's. Well written historical account by Michael McCarthy.
December 22, 2015
Normally, I really like books on histories disasters. However, I got really bored with this one. The most interesting part had to do with Clarence Darrow. Someday I may give this ebook another chance, but not right now.
September 11, 2015
A bit of a slow start for me, but found it to be an interesting part of Chicago History.
August 30, 2015
Well written chronology of the events of the Eastland disaster. Brought out many facts that I did not previously known.
November 19, 2015
Well written and so very interesting. The author helps transport you back in time. Tragedy does not do justice to what happened to all these people.
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