The Sinking of the Eastland: America's Forgotten Tragedy by Joe Bonansinga

 The Sinking of the Eastland: America's Forgotten Tragedy by Joe Bonansinga, 280 pages

This book outlines the history of the Eastland and the tragedy that shook Chicago to its core. I appreciate that the author took care to explore not only the origins of the ship but also the series of unfortunate decisions that brought 844 lives to an abrupt and preventable end. 

Capsized!: the Forgotten Story of the SS Eastland Disaster by Patricia Sutton

 Capsized!: the Forgotten Story of the SS Eastland Disaster by Patricia Sutton, 155 pages

From the MARC: "On July 24, 1915, the SS Eastland, filled to capacity with 2,500 aboard, capsized in the Chicago River while still moored to the pier. The disaster took more passenger lives than theTitanic and stands today as the greatest loss of life on the Great Lakes. Capsized! details the events leading up to the fateful day of the disaster and provides a nail-biting, minute-by-minute account of the ship's capsizing. Kids follow the lives of workers and their families, mostly first- and second-generation Polish and Czech immigrants employed by Chicago's largest manufacturer, Western Electric's Hawthorne Works. From the courage of the survivors to the despair of families who lost loved ones, Capsized! brings the stories of ordinary working people enduring the unthinkable to light. It also raises critical-thinking questions for young readers: Why do we know so much about Titanic's sinking and yet so little about the Eastland disaster? What causes a tragedy to be forgotten and left out of society's collective memory? Why was no one ever held responsible for this catastrophe? What lessons from this disaster might we be able to apply today?"

Final Voyage: the world’s worst maritime disasters

Final Voyage: the world’s worst maritime disasters by Honathan Eyers

published in 2013 191 pages.

Somehow the Titanic disaster has struck a chord in our public imagination.

The loss of 1,517 people in the middle of a cold dark night on a ship that was the peak of the ship builder’s art at that time, leaves us shaken to this day.

Yet this loss was not the worst. This book lists 39 other wrecks that stagger the imagination. Some of the wrecks were from times past, and some are quite recent.

For example, the Sultana was a riverboat taking Union soldiers home after release from Confederate prisoner of war camps. When the Sultana left Vickberg on the night of April 24^th 1865, she left dock with over 2,400 people on a boat built to hold 376. On the night of April 27^th around 2am three of the four boilers exploded causing the deaths of an estimated 1,600.
We know little about the Sultana because the news of the greatest maritime disaster in American history was eclipsed in the newspapers by the assassination of President Lincoln.

I found this book to be well written and interesting to read.