Ship Ablaze: The Tragedy of the Steamboat General Slocum [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

Edward T. O'Donnell's "Ship Ablaze" is head-and-shoulders above the glut of historical disaster books lining the shelves these days. O'Donnell's well written narrative history has all of the elements that make a book like this compelling: it details a tragic and nearly forgotten event, it paints the event on the proper historical backdrop and also tells the stories of the victims in a sympathetic and unsensationalistic way.

Though it is not well remembered, the fire and sinking of the steamboat General Slocum near New York City was the city's deadliest disaster prior to September 11, 2001. Over 1000 people, mostly women and children, perished in a few horrifying minutes. What is more disturbing about the story is that the disaster was completely preventable. Had the General Slocum's fire safety equipment been properly inspected and maintained and had the crew been trainbed in fire safety, it is unlikely that there would have been any loss of life.

All of this O'Donnell describes in vivid detail. He also describes life in turn-of-the-century New York, particularly the so-called Little Germany section where the victims were from. The latter part of the book is dedicated to the legal battles that resulted in the imprisonment of the General Slocum's captain, but not the federal inspectors or boat owners who were equally responsible for the tragedy.

Overall, an outstanding work of narrative history that will appeal to history buffs as well as general readers.

Too many "disaster" books leave you with little or no feeling for the actual victims, survivors, and relatives. That is certainly not the case with "Ship Ablaze." The book is, at times, almost unbearable in its unrelenting intensity. Mr. O'Donnell sets the scene well: a church group, in a tight-knit Lower East Side German community, preparing for and embarking upon a weekday steamboat excursion/picnic. We get to know the pastor, and we get to know some of the families. As the ship leaves the dock, we know what's going to happen...but that doesn't matter. We are horrified as the fire starts and spreads, and over 1,000 people (mostly women and children, with more than one member from many families) die from burning or drowning. We are outraged by the negligence of the shipowner (too cheap to buy new lifejackets and fire hoses, to replace the old equipment which was, literally, disintegrating), and the captain (too "proud" to instruct his crew in fire prevention or to hold fire drills), and the safety inspectors (who "passed" equipment they knew to be not in proper working order- and who most likely pocketed some payoffs). Mr. O'Donnell leaves no area unexplored, although you might sometimes wish he had: he goes into detail concerning the different ways a person can drown- either by "inhaling" water or by lack of oxygen; he talks about people drowning in 5 feet of water, because they were so frightened they didn't realize they could just stand up; he talks of black hearses being used for adults and white ones being used for children; he talks of "survivor guilt" and suicides and undertakers taking advantage of bereaved people by engaging in high-pressure sales tactics and by charging double the normal price for burials. But he also talks about brave people risking their lives to save others, and of people who donated generously to relief funds. The entire spectrum of human behavior is on display. On a lighter note, Mr. O'Donnell's curiosity seems to know no bounds: he informs us that people flocked to Coney Island to see disaster spectacles such as "The Fall of Pompeii" and "The Fire and Flames Show." (He also explains that prior to being "cleaned up" and made into an amusement area, Coney Island was known for prostitution and gambling.); we also learn that the "General Slocum" tragedy was mentioned in James Joyce's "Ulysses" and that the tragedy was also used as the basis of a 1934 movie called "Manhattan Melodrama," starring William Powell and Clark Gable. It was also the movie John Dillinger saw on the day he emerged from a movie theater and was gunned down by FBI agents. But for every funny or interesting fact, there is something like this: there was a 7 year old girl named Margaret Heins, who had been on the steamboat but whose body had not been recovered. The day after the tragedy, her body was found floating in the East River- one block from her family's home. She had drifted 8 miles from where the "General Slocum" had run aground. Even though I'm a New York City native, I'd never heard of the "Slocum" tragedy. Now, because of Mr. O'Donnell, I'm not sure I'll ever be able to forget it.

The story itself is well-researched and well-told, and I thoroughly enjoyed the book, but I do have a few qualms with it. The first of these is the absence of an index, which in my opinion should be absolutely mandatory for any non-fiction book. How is one to find specific references without reading or re-reading an entire chapter or the entire tome? I don't know if this is the fault of the author, publisher, or someone else, but there seems to be a veritable "index-omission" epidemic raging in publishing circles these days, and this seriously limits a book's value for research purposes. Another qualm/question is: why wasn't a complete, name-by-name list of the +/-1,300 dead, missing, and surviors included? Or a spec sheet on the Slocum itself? Such data must be in the author's possession, and it's a shame it wasn't included. It would have really rounded out the book and taken it to the next level. In the final analysis however, although the book isn't perfect, I do recommend it highly at every opportunity as it tells a fascinating and tragic tale.