Photography

July 24, 1915 was supposed to be Chicago's social event of a lifetime, but turned into a tragedy unlike any other.

More than 7,000 people living in the Chicago area and Michigan City, Indiana, eagerly anticipated Saturday morning, July 24, 1915. This particular Saturday was going to be anything but a routine summer day. Plans had been carefully made for it to be the social and entertainment event of the year, and for some, a lifetime. The fifth annual midsummer excursion and picnic had been organized by the employees of the Western Electric Company's Hawthorne Works. Thousands of carefree merrymakers would enjoy a festive day including a lovely cruise across Lake Michigan to an awaiting parade and day-long picnic. The day would conclude with an evening cruise back to Chicago. For thousands of hard-working immigrant laborers and their families and friends, it was going to be a day to remember.

Instead, the day's scheduled event turned into a tragedy never before seen. The SS Eastland, while still tied to the wharf, rolled into the Chicago River with more than 2,500 passengers on board. Nearly 850 people lost their lives, including 22 entire families. The ensuing struggle for survival, and the resulting death, heroism, cowardice, greed, and scandal gripped the city of Chicago.

The Blizzard of 1977 is still remembered in Western New York, especially in Buffalo, which received the brunt of the storm. The blizzard occurred during the most extreme cold the area had ever seen, accompanied by some of the largest winter snowfalls on record. The blizzard struck with little warning on Friday morning, January 28, 1977, and the blowing snow and extreme cold paralyzed the Buffalo area until the first week of February. The storm made travel impossible and stranded thousands of people across the region, while snowdrifts buried houses up to the second story. This is a story not only of survival, but also of community. Neighbors helped neighbors, radio stations relayed messages and provided crucial information, and countless individuals donated their time and equipment to bring needed medicine or food to shut-ins across the region.

The blizzard occurred during the most extreme cold the area had ever seen, accompanied by some of the largest winter snowfalls on record. The blizzard struck with little warning on Friday morning, January 28, 1977, and the blowing snow and extreme cold paralyzed the Buffalo area until the first week of February. The storm made travel impossible and stranded thousands of people across the region, while snowdrifts buried houses up to the second story. This is a story not only of survival, but also of community. Neighbors helped neighbors, radio stations relayed messages and provided crucial information, and countless individuals donated their time and equipment to bring needed medicine or food to shut-ins across the region

Chronicling the devastating Strand Theatre Fire of 1941 and celebrating the community's heroes and resilience in the face of adversity.

On March 10, 1941, at 12:38 a.m., the Brockton Fire Department responded to Fire Alarm Box 1311, which was pulled for a fire at the Strand Theatre. Fire Alarm dispatched the deputy chief, three engine companies, a ladder company and Squad A. Within six minutes, a second alarm was struck. Less than one hour after the first alarm, the roof of the Strand collapsed, and what appeared to be a routine fire turned into a disaster that killed 13 firefighters and injured more than 20 others. The disaster marks one of the largest losses of life to firefighters from a burning building collapse in the United States.

The fading memories of Greater Boston's Blizzard of 1978 return to life for those who experienced it and those who can only imagine.

The great blizzard of 1978 is an event seared in the memory of anyone who lived through it. Most of Greater Boston was quickly overwhelmed by the storm, which shut down all forms of transit, stranded thousands of cars and motorists along Route 128, and virtually shut down most of the state for a week. But for many coastal communities, the impact of the storm, which brought record high tides and pounding surf, was pure devastation. The common thread shared by almost everyone in the region was positive memories of neighbors and strangers helping each other and finding new bonds of community.

Greater Boston's Blizzard of 1978is illustrated with approximately 200 photographs from government archives and private collections and is told by author Alan R. Earls, who somehow managed to drive through the worst of the infamous storm.

Through firsthand accounts, interviews with survivors and a gripping collection of vintage photographs, author Michael Skidgell attempts to make sense of one of Hartford's worst tragedies.

Almost 7,000 fans eagerly packed into the Ringling Brothers big top on July 6, 1944. With a single careless act, an afternoon at the Greatest Show on Earth quickly became one of terror and tragedy as the paraffin-coated circus tent caught fire. Panicked crowds rushed for the few exits, but in minutes, the tent collapsed on those still struggling to escape below. A total of 168 lives were lost, many of them children, with many more injured and forever scarred by the events. Hartford and the surrounding communities reeled in the aftermath as investigators searched for the source of the fire and the responsible parties.

The town of Wellington was located by the Stevens Pass summit in the Cascade Mountains. During the last days of February in 1910, the snow was relentless in the Cascades, falling as much as one foot per hour and rising up to 20 feet deep in areas. Rotary plows could not keep the lines open as snow covered the railroad tracks almost immediately after being cleared. The Seattle Express, coming from Spokane, and a fast mail train were stranded just beyond the safety of the Cascade Tunnel, where they remained unmovable for almost a week under the snow packed mountains. On March 1, an avalanche swept away the tracks and passengers aboard the two trains as well as several of Wellington's buildings and homes. Almost 100 individuals were killed in just a few seconds, creating America's deadliest avalanche and train disaster in history. Today, the site is part of the Iron Goat Trail off Highway 2, east of Skykomish. The snowshed, the abandoned original Cascade Tunnel, and various scraps of the trains left in the ravine are the only evidence that remain of Wellington, its long-forgotten inhabitants, or the disaster.

Sodaro's book reveals the deadly 1967 tornado that struck towns of Belvidere and Oak Lawn in northern Illinois and left a 16 mile long path of destruction.

The morning of April 21, 1967, was crisp and clear, marking the arrival of spring. As the day progressed, dark clouds covered the skies over Oak Lawn, and a deadly tornado touched down in the village just before 5:30 p.m. Cutting through the intersection of 95th Street and Southwest Highway and striking elsewhere, the storm left mountains of debris and over 30 people dead in its wake. Oak Lawn Community High School, St. Gerald Catholic Church, and the Fairway Super Mart were among the structures damaged or destroyed by the high winds. After the disaster, rescue workers and volunteers poured into Oak Lawn to search for survivors, while Christ Community Hospital and other institutions treated more than 400 injured people. The immense cleanup, which took weeks to complete, saw debris hauled out or disposed of in controlled fires. Despite the scope of the devastation, many of the affected structures were repaired or rebuilt within 12 months.

Built by the City of Los Angeles' Bureau of Water Works and Supply, the failure of the St. Francis Dam on its first filling was the greatest American civil engineering failure of the 20th century. Beginning at dawn on the morning after the disaster, stunned local residents picked up their cameras to record the path of destruction, and professional photographers moved in to take images of the washed-out bridges, destroyed homes and buildings, Red Cross workers giving aid, and the massive clean-up that followed. The event was one of the worst disasters in California's history, second only to the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire.

Ever since ships began navigating the coast of North Carolina, the area has maintained a reputation for being dangerous. Weather, geography, war, piracy, and human error have all contributed to this dense shipwreck zone.

Today, the region that stretches from the Currituck Outer Banks south to Bogue Banks is referred to as the Graveyard of the Atlantic. From the 1585 grounding of the English ship Tiger off the Outer Banks to the 2012 loss of the Bounty, more than 2,000 shipwrecks have occurred in the Graveyard of the Atlantic. The stories behind the shipwrecks illustrate the best and worst of mankind, showing courage and compassion as well as the atrocities of war. This history informs readers about commerce, technology, war, environment, maritime life, and the complexity of the human element.

On March 25, 1911, flames rapidly consumed everything within the Triangle Waist Company factory, killing 146 workers. Until September 11, 2001, the Triangle fire was the deadliest workplace disaster in New York City history.

The victims, mostly young Jewish and Italian immigrant women, died needlessly due to unsafe working conditions, such as locked or blocked doors, narrow stairways, faulty fire escapes, and a lack of sprinklers. Mass grief and outrage spread from New York's Lower East Side across the country. Garment union membership swelled, and New York politics shifted dramatically toward reform, paving the way for the New Deal and, ultimately, the workplace standards expected today. Through historic images, The New York City Triangle Factory Fire honors the victims' sacrifice and serves as a reminder of the ongoing struggle for the dignity of all working people.

Floyd Collins is perhaps the most famous person you've never heard of, but this young man's tragic death made him celebrated as the Greatest Cave Explorer Ever Known.

Collins was a Kentucky cave explorer in the early part of the 20th century, characterized by his lack of fear when exploring the most difficult cave passages, and few people could match his persistence and endurance. In the winter of 1925, Collins became trapped for more than two weeks in a cave located within the boundaries of what is now Mammoth Cave National Park. The story of Floyd Collins becoming trapped and ultimately dying alone in a cave held a powerful grip on the hearts and minds of people the world over. The resulting media coverage put Mammoth Cave on the map and helped usher the actual designation of Mammoth Cave as a national park. His explorations laid the foundation for others to later discover the truth of Mammoth Cave, the longest cave in the world.

Documenting the destruction caused by the 1938 hurricane along New England's coast and the ways in which victims united to rebuild their communities.

The Hurricane of 1938 was one of the most devastating storms to strike New England's Atlantic coast. It forever changed the landscapes of cities and towns in its path. Throughout the hurricane, the Coast Guard worked tirelessly to provide aid to countless displaced residents. Entire communities were leveled by the hurricane's powerful winds and waves.

After the storm subsided and the destruction was evident, the enormous task of rebuilding and reuniting the community began.

Discover lost history in the dark waters of Lake George.

Lake George is bustling with boaters, swimmers, fishermen and many others, enjoying its scenic, quintessentially Adirondack shores. But the depths below hide a whole other world--one of shipwrecks and lost history. Entombed are remnants of Lake George's important naval heritage, such as the legendary Land Tortoise radeau, which sank in 1758. Other wrecks include the steam yacht Ellide and the first famed Minne-Ha-Ha. These waters hold secrets, too, like the explanation behind the 1926 disappearance of two hunters. After years of exploration across the lake's bottomlands, underwater archaeologist Joseph W. Zarzynski and archeological diver Bob Benway present the most intriguing discoveries among more than two hundred known shipwreck sites.

Door County is the home to numerous shipwrecks of pleasure craft and steamers, on a photographic journey of the treacherous waters and those they have claimed.

Door County is the final resting place of many shipwrecks, from the first Euro American ship to sail the western Great Lakes, LaSalle's fabled Griffin that left Washington Island in 1679 never to be heard of again, to modern-day pleasure crafts that find the shallow inlets and bays hard to navigate. Door Peninsula Shipwrecks takes the reader on a photographic journey around the peninsula and back to a time of wooden ships and iron men. From Sturgeon Bay to the east coast of the peninsula to the northern islands and Green Bay, the journey encompasses early wooden sail craft to steel steamers, the brave sailors who sailed the treacherous waters, and the heroic lifesavers who rescued them.

Discover the thrilling, mysterious history of the shipwrecks found beneath the waves of Rehoboth Beach.

Under the hot summer sun, vacationers stroll the Rehoboth Beach boardwalk, chewing saltwater taffy and listening to the gulls' raucous cackle. Few realize that under the sparkling water rests a graveyard. Horrific nor'easters, treacherous shoals and simple human error caused the demise of countless ships, giving birth to legends of treasure and terror. There is De Braak, rumored to hold millions of dollars in gold; the Mohawk, which burned like a torch in the Delaware Bay; and the vessels that fell victim to the Great White Hurricane, which froze dead men to the mast. Journey with local author Pam George as she deftly picks her way through the history of Delaware's most intriguing and mysterious shipwrecks.

Join author David Healey as he keeps an eye to the red horizon and chronicles the most remarkable storms to churn the waters of the Chesapeake Bay.

Even before John Smith's crew weathered its first squall, the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries had been ravaged by every type of storm imaginable. A 1769 hurricane altered the course of history, demolishing the shipping channels of Charlestown and making Baltimore the dominant port. A once-in-five-hundred-years storm, Tropical Storm Agnes, left more than seventy people dead and devastated the ecology of the bay. Before the blizzards of 2009 and 2010, the snowfall record was held by the combination of the Great Eastern Blizzard of 1899, which blew the water out of the bay, and the Great White Hurricane, which stranded the oyster fleet of Baltimore in feet of ice.

Claiming the lives of seven adults and seventeen children, the Belvidere tornado struck the most vulnerable at the worst possible time: just as school let out. More than five hundred people suffered injuries.

New interviews and fascinating archival history underscore the horrific drama, as well as the split-second decisions of victims and survivors that saved their families and neighbors. Since the tragedy, three more devastating tornadoes have further defined Boone County's resilience: Poplar Grove in 2008, Caledonia in 2010 and Fairdale in 2015.

Island in the Storm, by local historians Jamie and Dorothy Moore, documents in vivid detail the devastation, loss and eventual rebuilding of this beloved island community.

On the night of September 21, 1989, Hurricane Hugo slammed into the South Carolina coast at Sullivan's Island with winds exceeding 160 miles per hour. The colossal force of the hurricane was punctuated by storm surges ranging from five to ten feet above sea level. At approximately one minute after midnight, Hugo's eye passed over the island, and the charming community seaside community disappeared beneath the tumultuous sea for nearly an hour. After Hugo left Sullivan's Island in its furious wake, the first news broadcasts from the Charleston area reported that the island and neighboring Isle of Palms were completely destroyed. The Ben Sawyer Bridge--the only connection to the island at the time--was knocked off its pedestal and rendered useless, and so the hundreds of families who had evacuated the area could not return to their homes to see what, if anything, remained. The recovery process started slowly, and for many it would be a long, arduous journey. More than 15 years later, Sullivan's Island's homes and businesses have been restored, but the memory of Hugo's fury will not soon be forgotten.

Beginning on Easter Sunday, March 23, 1913, torrential rains across the Midwest dropped a record three months of rainfall in four days.

Floodwaters funneled down Ohio's Miami Valley into the heart of the vibrant industrial city of Dayton. Levees burst, houses were swept away, and downtown was gutted by fires blazing from broken gas mains. At the end of Easter week, nearly 100 Daytonians had perished, and tens of thousands more were left homeless and destitute--a tragedy that made banner headlines in newspapers nationwide. Out of Dayton's ashes and mud rose fierce public resolve never again to suffer such destruction. The Great Dayton Flood of 1913 reproduces some 200 astounding photographs from the collections of the Dayton Metro Library and the Miami Conservancy District and the archives of the National Cash Register Company at Dayton History. They portray the terrifying flood, monumental destruction, heroic rescues, and compassionate leadership that occurred during the disaster and its immediate aftermath, as well as the pioneering flood-control engineering that has kept Dayton safe ever since.

Get a first-hand account and fascinating new details of the story behind The Finest Hours, the film portraying the harrowing rescue of the SS Pendleton in 1952.

On February 18, 1952, off the coast of Cape Cod, a fierce nor'easter snapped in half two 503-foot oil tankers, the Pendleton and the Fort Mercer. Human grace and grit, leadership and endurance prevail as Theresa Mitchell Barbo and Captain W. Russell Webster (Ret.) recount the historic, heroic rescue of thirty-two merchant mariners from the sinking Pendleton by four young Coast Guardsmen aboard the 36-foot motor lifeboat CG36500. A foreword by former Commandant Admiral Thad Allen (Ret.) and an essay by Master Chief John ""Jack"" Downey (Ret.), a veteran of thousands of modern-day small boat rescues, round out the special third edition of this classic work on Coast Guard history.

Experience the historic superflood that decimated the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys and the resilience displayed by the people of Memphis.

The greatest flood in United States history struck the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys in January 1937. Perhaps no single flood in the United States had caused as much damage, displayed as much brutal natural force and displaced as many people. Not even the calamitous flood of 1927, which has eclipsed the '37 flood in terms of historical coverage was as massive. Author and Memphis local Patrick O'Daniel illustrates how this national natural disaster affected Memphis, in particular, and how the politicians of the day, from national figures like FDR to local political bosses like Ed Crump, handled unprecedented infrastructural challenges. Yet beyond politics and policy, O'Daniel tells the story of this historic disaster through the eyes of everyday Memphians, their struggles, care for thousands of desperate refugees and the measures they took to save their city from this devastating flood.

Families watched in horror as walls of water swept away homes and businesses, and men held onto saplings for their lives while the winds howled.

The destruction was beyond belief. Buildings on Atsena Otie were swept away so completely that only cracked stone foundations remained, and the forests of red cedar that gave the islands their name and livelihood were flattened. Resulting in dozens of deaths and millions of dollars in damage, Hurricane Number 4 in 1896 changed the Cedar Keys forever and set the city on a path to the present. Historian Alvin F. Oickle, drawing on firsthand accounts and extensive archival research, tells the story of ordinary Floridians who were faced, like so many before and so many since, with nature's fury.