Special Sub-Topic: The General Slocum Disaster Authored by: Velociraptor Sub-topic of: New York

At 9:30am on June 15, 1904, the paddleboat ferry, General Slocum, slipped its moorings with around 1,300 people onboard. What New York neighbourhood were most of these people from?

Little Germany. Little Germany, or "Kleindeutschland", was located around what is now Alphabet City, in the Lower East Side, Manhattan, and was, naturally, populated by German immigrants.

On what waterway was the General Slocum sailing when the disaster occurred?

East River. The General Slocum was taking its passengers to Eaton's Neck on Long Island. It was a picnic trip, which had been organised each year on a regular basis for 17 years by that time, by the St. Mark's Evangelical Lutheran Church. Since it was a working day, most of the passengers were women and children.

At 10am, as the General Slocum was passing East 90th Street, the fatal fire began. Where did it start?

In a forward storage compartment. The cause of the fire is uncertain, but it is widely believed to have been started by a discarded match.

Crew members tried to extinguish the fire using hoses, but these attempts failed, as the rusted pipes which the hoses were attached to could not draw water into them.

False. In fact, the hoses themselves were made of old material, and simply burst open when water came through them. The fact that the crew had never had a fire drill didn't help the situation.

When the captain, William Van Schiack, was informed that the ferry was on fire, he did not attempt to stop the General Slocum where she was. He later claimed this was because he was concerned about igniting oil tanks on the shore.

True. Instead, Van Schiack tried to reach North Brother Island, further up river, and run the ferry aground there. But travelling at speed, and into headwinds, fanned the fire and helped it spread.

As the fire spread out of control, the panicking crowds of people on board tried to escape. Why could they not use the lifeboats?

The lifeboats were stuck to the deck by layers of paint. The General Slocum had passed a safety inspection not long before the fire, despite this.

The life preservers were also no help to the passengers. Why?

They were old, and fell apart when people tried to use them. It has even been suggested that to bring the life preservers up to their required weight, and save money, they had actually been filled with iron bars as well as cork.

Which of the following contributed to the deaths of people who jumped into the river to escape the flames?

All of these (Most of the women and children couldn't swim, Their clothing became waterlogged, The churning paddle wheel sucked in and killed many people). The General Slocum managed to reach North Brother Island, and was beached there. In all, of the 1,300 people onboard, just 321 survived, picked up either by boats, or out of the water on North Brother Island. The rest were killed by the fire, drowning, or the collapse of the decks.

Which of the following did NOT happen as a result of the General Slocum disaster?

The company which owned the General Slocum went bankrupt. The General Slocum was owned by the Knickerbocker Steamship Company, who only had to pay a fine. Captain Van Schaick was sentenced to ten years of hard labour, but only served three and a half, as he was pardoned by President Taft. Following the sadness and arguments caused in Little Germany by the disaster, 170 of the 622 families who had members onboard the Slocum, moved away within the first year after the fire. Few of the original residents remained by 1910. In his book "Ship Ablaze", Edward O'Donnell says, "The Slocum disaster did not cause the disintegration of Little Germany (the trend was well underway by the 1890s) but it did make it happen more quickly."

What happened to the remains of the General Slocum?

Rebuilt as a barge. The barge, renamed the Maryland, sank in December 1911.