On the morning of July 14, 1915, the steamer Eastland capsized in the Chicago River as she was casting off her lines preparing to depart on an excursion of Western Electric Company employees to a company picnic. The accident killed more than 800 men, women, and children, making it the worst disaster of any kind in the history of Chicago and in the history of the Great Lakes.

This first comprehensive account of the Eastland disaster attempts to explain what has always been regarded as an inexplicable event. In the process, the author refutes many of the myths that have grown out of the Eastland tragedy, notably that the ship capsized because most of her passengers suddenly rushed from starboard - the wharf side - to port.

No similar maritime disaster has received more attention to detail than the author has accorded the Eastland, making this a landmark study in the annals of American maritime history.

The Eastland was stable when she was built in 1903, but was reduced to only marginal stability by modifications made during her first season of operation. The ship nearly capsized on July 1904, and experienced other episodes of instability and near-catastrophe over the course of her first twelve years. The final straw was the changes made to the ship in anticipation of the requirements of the La Follette Seamen's Act of 1915.

This legislation was the American manifestation of the boats-for-all movement that emerged from the worldwide furor following the sinking of the Titanic, when it was revealed that she carried boatage for only 1,178 people of her licensed capacity of 1,603. On July 2, 1915, three lifeboats and six liferafts were added to the Eastland to increase her licensed capacity.

These additions severely aggravated her chronic topheaviness, and 22 days later, on the first occasion she was loaded to her new capacity, the Eastland capsized.

The book first describes the previous history of the ship (which was designed for fast overnight passenger service and was ill equipped for use as an excursion vessel), showing how various managements, steamboat inspectors, and, finally, government legislation brought the ship to her fatal condition. The disaster itself is reconstructed on a vivid, minute-by-minute basis, largely from personal testimony in the legal battles that ensued and from contemporary newspaper accounts.

The remainder of the book recounts the desperate rescue and relief efforts, the various official investigations, the criminal and civil trials that followed, and the subsequent history of the Eastland as the naval training vessel Wilmette in World War II.