3/10/2024 0 Comments Hawthorne bicycle history![]() "It was said of her that she behaved like a bicycle, being unstable when loading or unloading but stable when under way," wrote transportation historian and economist George W. Repeated modifications increased the vessel's speed and passenger capacity-and made it less stable. The boat had no keel, was top-heavy and relied on poorly designed ballast tanks in the hold to keep it upright. The Eastland was built in 1902 to carry 500 people for lake excursions and to haul produce on the return trips to Chicago. No tests were conducted to determine how the additional weight affected the boat's stability-even though it already had a troubled history. In the United States, Congress passed a bill requiring lifeboats to accommodate 75 percent of a vessel's passengers, and in March, 1915, President Woodrow Wilson signed what became known as the LaFollette Seaman's Act.ĭuring the debate over the bill, the general manager of the Detroit & Cleveland Navigation Company had warned that some Great Lakes vessels, with their shallow drafts, "would turn 'turtle' if you attempted to navigate them with this additional weight on the upper decks." Too few legislators listened.īy July, 1915, the Eastland, which had been designed to carry six lifeboats, was carrying 11 lifeboats, 37 life rafts (about 1,100 pounds each) and enough life jackets (about six pounds apiece) for all 2,570 passengers and crew. The 1912 sinking of the Titanic gave rise to a "lifeboats-for-all" movement among international marine safety officials. The most deadly shipwreck in Great Lakes history-a calamity that would take more passenger lives than the sinking of the Titanic or the Lusitania-was under way.įew, if any, of the passengers boarding that day noticed that the Eastland carried a full complement of lifeboats, life rafts and life preservers. Water poured into open portholes in the cabins below deck. The piano on the promenade deck rolled to the port wall, almost crushing two women a refrigerator slid to port, pinning a woman or two beneath it. The crew there, realizing what was about to happen, scrambled up a ladder to the main deck.Īt 7:28 a.m., the Eastland listed to a 45-degree angle. Water poured through the open gangways into the engine room. By the time Sladkey made his last-minute leap, however, the 275-foot-long boat had righted itself, if only briefly.Īt 7:23, it listed even further to port. The movement didn't seem to alarm the partygoers, but it caught the attention of the harbormaster and some other observers on land. In the main cabin, a band played for dancing on the upper deck, passengers jostled to find seats or leaned against the railing, calling out to arriving friends.Īs the Eastland filled with passengers between 7:10 and 7:15 a.m., it began to list to port, away from the wharf. As a steady drizzle began to fall, many of the women, especially those with young children, took refuge below decks. The Eastland was licensed to carry 2,500 passengers plus crew. By a few minutes after 7 a.m., men, women and children were boarding at the rate of 50 per minute, with two federal inspectors keeping careful count, per normal practice. The Eastland was the first boat scheduled to leave, and employees had been encouraged to get there early. ![]() Anna Quinn, 22, and her neighbor and fellow Western Electric clerk Caroline Homolka, 16, had chosen their outfits carefully, for this was the social event of the year for many of the young workers-not only a rare Saturday break in the manufacturing and assembling telephone equipment, but also an opportunity to meet other eligible singles. James Novotny, a company cabinetmaker, accompanied his wife and their two children. More than 7,000 tickets had been sold.Īmong those aboard the Eastland were George Sindelar, a Western Electric foreman, with his wife and five children. The Eastland was one of five vessels chartered to carry Western Electric workers and their families on a day-long outing from downtown Chicago to a park 38 miles across Lake Michigan to the southeast. Sladkey, headed to the promenade deck to join coworkers from the Western Electric Company's Hawthorne Works factory in nearby Cicero. on July 24, 1915, the crew of the Great Lakes excursion steamer Eastland prepared for that morning's journey and hauled in its gangplank, forcing a tardy passenger to leap aboard from the wharf along the Chicago River.ĭespite the cool, damp weather, 2,573 passengers and crew crowded aboard the Eastland, the atmosphere festive.
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