The General Slocum Disaster

You did this so respectfully and honorably. You remind me of a channel called Fascinating Horror.

My grandmother was going on this trip with her older sister and their grandmother. They arrived moments after it pulled away from the dock. Lucky for them.

I did my own research and the reason why the Captain didn't beach the ship immediately makes sense but was ultimately probably the wrong choice. The Captain feared the steering gear would break down in the strong currents and leave the Slocum helpless in midriver, plowed full speed ahead. He aimed for a pier at 134th Street, but a tugboat captain warned him off, fearing the burning ship would ignite lumber stored there. Van Shaick made a run for North Brother Island, a mile away, hoping to beach.

This reminds me of the Eastland disaster in Chicago. People expecting to go out for a nice day on the river end up dying at the pier when the ship tips over. Very sad and tragic story.

There were scoundrels on boats who came to the "rescue" of the passengers of the General Slocum only to steal jewels and other valuables from the people who had survived the disaster and then pushed them underwater with their paddles. Something similar happened on the MS Estonia in 1994 only with the difference that the robbers were on board of the sinking ship. During disasters people display either their worst or their best.

Thank you for bringing this terrible injustice back into the public domain

It's not mentioned in the video, but the life-jackets were also weighted down with iron bars & lead weights placed inside them, to make them meet the legal weight-requirements for life-jackets. When dropped in the water, they sank like stones... The wooden decks were covered with layers & layers of lacquer & varnish (without previous layers having been first removed & sanded down), walls were similarly coated with layers & layers of oil-based enamel paint, all of which combined to make the ship an even bigger firetrap than it was already. When passengers tried jumping overboard to escape the flames, many of them were chopped into mincemeat by the paddlewheels...

Very good recount of the General Slocum disaster, including the virtual demise of "Little Germany" in what is now the East Village.

This disaster reminds me of The Eastland Disaster, in Chicago, both vessels loaded with families headed for picnics. What should have been a joyous day for everyone, quickly turned to tragedy. Very sad.

Every time I see stories like this, I think about how we need more criminal charges for disgusting negligence like this. Every single board member of that cruise line should be locked up forever for over 1,000 counts of negligent homicide. Fines don’t stop these corrupt people from creating scenes of horror and disparity.

An excellent documentary on a disaster I've heard little of. But which should be a big lesson to us all.

So many sad stories that are all but forgotten,the Eastland,the Sultana the Italian Hall Disaster and this.The memories soon fade.

A forgotten Tragedy indeed...

This was a tragedy that was 100% preventable. You had the deadly combination of 1000+ people, most of whom did not know how to swim (and many of the women couldn't anyway with their heavy skirts and petticoats), a wooden ship with non-functioning safety equipment that was a virtual firetrap, a captain who had apparently brushed off a boy who tried to warn him about the fire, and who had apparently not been too concerned about making sure the life jackets, life preservers, and water hoses actually worked, and the lifeboats were accessible, and a crew that was NOT trained to handle emergencies. The boat also caught fire in a part of the river where the currents were extremely treacherous, making swimming difficult even for the most experienced swimmers on board. The resulting combination was a huge loss of life, with many of the victims being children. I can't imagine the horror some of these parents felt when they put life jackets on their kids and thought they were saving them, and then the kids sank like stones due to the defective life jackets. Many victims got caught in the massive paddle wheels and died, and others simply just drowned, especially when other panicked passengers clung to them and pulled them down. There were some noble people who DID rush out and actually rescue some of the victims, but others were only after the valuables that some of the drowning passengers were wearing, like watches and bracelets, and after robbing these people of their valuables, they were left to drown. The General Slocum eventually beached on North Brother Island, which had a mental asylum there at the time. Medical personal and even some of the patients rushed out to help the victims, but many of them were sadly past saving. While this disaster made headlines at the time, it was sadly overshadowed by other disasters that affected NYC, like the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire in 1911, the Titanic disaster a year later, and the start of WW1 two years after the Titanic sinking. But the victims of this disaster need to be remembered, especially since so many of them were children!

In the original spiderman movie there is an army officer, General Slocum, small but at least it was a nod to this terrible disaster

Ok. I can't be the only one who mistakenly read the title of the video in the thumbnail as "General Scrotum". I mean, I won't lie, it caught my eye. I double-taked and clicked on it, so, well done, sir. Props to you for accidentally using the gutter of my mind to get me into watching educational content.

Wow, I'm amazed I'd never heard of this tragedy before. Thanks for this very sensitive retelling.

My great grandmother was on the Slocum. She was asked to babysit for a family that was attending the picnic that day. She was able to jump in the water with the baby she was watching and swim him to shore. Her name was Louise Gailing and the baby's name was Stephen Erklin. My mom said my great grandmother NEVER talked about this day. Louise received a certificate from the town of Nutley, NJ about her bravery that day, and it is displayed in our living room.

Great video on a tragic but lesser known event in NYC history. Thank you for creating and sharing!

Shocking. Well made. Thanks.