Ship Ablaze: The Tragedy of the Steamboat General Slocum
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.20 (989 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0767909062 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 368 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2016-01-14 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
"cautionary tale of greed, carelessness & unspeakable loss" mwreview Ship Ablaze is a very well written and engaging book. Edward T. O'Donnell presents the story of the Steamship General Slocum which caught fire in 1904 while carrying members of a Lutheran church in a German district in Manhattan on their annual outing. The fire resulted in over 1,000 deaths due mostly to egregious examples of safety negligence on the part of the captain and the Knickerbocker Steamboat company. O'Donnell (a history professor at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester Massachusetts) writes in a story-telling style. Historians may be frustrated by this style as there are no footnotes. An "About the Sources" section found . A Story that Deserves Telling Much credit is due Edward O'Donnell, author of "Ship Ablaze: The Tragedy of the Steamboat General Slocum," for keeping alive this incredible but mostly forgotten disaster. Eclipsed in the history of New York City only by 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, O'Donnell chronicles the last voyage of the steamboat General Slocum. On June 15, 190A Story that Deserves Telling Gary Griffiths Much credit is due Edward O'Donnell, author of "Ship Ablaze: The Tragedy of the Steamboat General Slocum," for keeping alive this incredible but mostly forgotten disaster. Eclipsed in the history of New York City only by 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, O'Donnell chronicles the last voyage of the steamboat General Slocum. On June 15, 1904, the General Slocum departed the piers of lower-eastside New York, carrying a group of over 1,300 German-Americans looking forward to the annual Sunday School picnic on the Long Island Sound. But never venturing beyond the East River, and within less than an hour of leaving the pier, over 1,000 pas. , the General Slocum departed the piers of lower-eastside New York, carrying a group of over 1,300 German-Americans looking forward to the annual Sunday School picnic on the Long Island Sound. But never venturing beyond the East River, and within less than an hour of leaving the pier, over 1,000 pas. history that sheds light on one of the most terrible tragedies in American history John Haseltine This is an invaluable work of history that sheds light on one of the most terrible tragedies in American history. I hope many people (especially young historians) read this book and keep the memory of the General Slocum disaster alive. Like September 11th, 2001 we must never forget.
O’Donnell brings to life a bygone community while honoring the victims of that forgotten day.. By the time the captain found a safe shore for landing, 1,021 had perished. But a fire erupted minutes into the trip, forcing hundreds of terrified passengers into the water. There were few experienced swimmers among over 1,300 Lower East Side residents who boarded the General Slocum on June 15, 1904. It shouldn’t have mattered, since the steamship was chartered only for alanguid excursion from Manhattan to Long Island Sound. Masterfully capturing both the horror of the event and the heroism of men, women, and children who faced crumbling life jackets and inaccessible lifeboats as the inferno quickly spread, historian Edward T. Ship Ablaze draws on firsthand accounts to examine why the death toll was so high and how the city responded
Using newspaper as well as second- and firsthand accounts, he then details the fire itself. The event was not inevitable, he emphasizes; it was mainly caused by a lack of safety measures-poor organization of life jackets and outdated, unchecked fire hoses, for example-and by the poor swimming skills of most of the ship's passengers. . He also recreates the panoply of emotions on that June day: the panic felt by the ship's passengers as it burned, the heroism demonstrated by rescuers and the despair in the community afterward. In O'Donnell's deft hands, the disaster becomes more than just a historic