The S.S. Eastland was a passenger ship based out of Chicago that transported passengers to locations along the shores of the Great Lakes. The ship was an unusual design being quite high on the water. The ship was always top heavy, but that condition became more pronounced with the sinking of the Titanic. After that disaster the Seaman's Act had been passed which mandated that all vessels carry a complete set of lifeboats. The Eastland had recently been refitted with the additional boats on it's already top heavy design. On a fateful day in July of 1915 the passengers would learn that the lifeboats couldn't help them.
It was July 24th and the Eastland as well as two other passenger liners were charted to take Western Electric Company employees to a picnic. This was a major event as many of the workers could not take holidays. The ship quickly filled to its capacity of 2752 passengers. That day people filled the Eastland when a canoe race passed the ship. People moved to that side to see the race. Jack Woodford, a writer, gave an eye-witness account of the event in his autobiography.
"And then movement caught my eye. I looked across the river. As I watched in disoriented stupefaction a steamer large as an ocean liner slowly turned over on its side as though it were a whale going to take a nap. I didn't believe a huge steamer had done this before my eyes, lashed to a dock, in perfectly calm water, in excellent weather, with no explosion, no fire, nothing. I thought I had gone crazy."
That day, in calm waters and secured to the dock, the Eastland tipped and lay on it's side in twenty feet of water, it's hull poking out, resting on the bottom. Within minutes nearby ships came to the rescue pulling people out of the water and off the stricken vessel. Unfortunately, many passengers had been inside the ship and, as it turned on its side, furniture, tables, and pianos crushed them. Others were trapped and drowned. By the end of the day, the fatality count of the disaster would be 844 passengers and four crew members. Most of which were women and children.
On that fateful day, while tied to a dock, in twenty feet of water, in beautiful weather, a ship fell over taking hundreds of lives with it in many ways owing to the forced addition of lifesaving devices.
-Professor Walter
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