The Eastland Disaster....

[ScreamingMeemie]

My websurfing brought this up. This is a great site dedicated to one of the most tragic losses of human life-that could have been avoided. I always wondered why we don't see much of this shipwreck when we hear about the Titanic adnauseum.

http://www.eastlanddisaster.org/

[Ellen Forradalom]

1. Seriously

Or the Estonia, which happened in our lifetimes.

[ScreamingMeemie]

2. I know. Why don't we get as much info on these?

I grew up in Milwaukee and never heard of the Eastland until around 1988. :shrug:

[Modem Butterfly]

3. Titanic has been romanticized because of the rich and famous

Titanic has been romanticized because of the rich and famous passengers who died. You'll notice that when you hear about Titanic, you most often hear about how the Strausses decided to go down together, or how Jacob Astor and John Guggenheim stayed behind while their wives got on the lifeboats, or how Molly Brown organized her lifeboat. You rarely hear about the 2nd and 3rd class passengers who were, in many cases, forbidden access to the lifeboats. You never hear about the fact that a 3rd class woman had about as much of a chance to survive as a 1st class man, and that the staff of the boat had next to a zero chance.

[Ellen Forradalom]

4. Well, the hubris of its builders is an essential part of its story too

It was going to be the biggest, the most splended and utterly unsinkable. As well all know, it didn't quite work out that way.

[Modem Butterfly]

5. That's true

It was the first real technological "bitch slap" of the modern era.

[TlalocW]

6. That should be a book title

Titanic - The Technological Bitch Slap

Shake up the stuffiness of historians a little.

TlalocW

[Ellen Forradalom]

7. Very well put

May I quote you on that?