6-15-04....GENERAL SLOCUM DISASTER.

June 15th was the 120th anniversary of the burning of the General Slocum- prior to 9/11, the largest loss of life by fire in New York City history.

The vast majority of the passengers were women and children as were the vast majority of victims. Many of these drowned in shallow water after beaching. Two factors largely explain these avoidable deaths. First, women and children of this era simply didn't know how to swim. In fact, in prior centuries, swimming was seen as unfeminine and floating was a sign of "swimming a witch"- wickedness. Secondly, society had women dressed in multilayer wool clothing. Once wet, even a good swimmer was doomed.

In the aftermath of the Slocum disaster, women's groups formed the National Women's Lifesaving League. Their mission was to teach girls and women to swim and to promote "rational swimwear".

Although the death toll of women was far greater here than a few years later, it is interesting to note that the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire provoked a much larger outrage for the safety of women. It is ironic that both involved clothes women wore.
 
entropychaser said:
June 15th was the 120th anniversary of the burning of the General Slocum- prior to 9/11, the largest loss of life by fire in New York City history.

The vast majority of the passengers were women and children as were the vast majority of victims. Many of these drowned in shallow water after beaching. Two factors largely explain these avoidable deaths. First, women and children of this era simply didn't know how to swim. In fact, in prior centuries, swimming was seen as unfeminine and floating was a sign of "swimming a witch"- wickedness. Secondly, society had women dressed in multilayer wool clothing. Once wet, even a good swimmer was doomed.

In the aftermath of the Slocum disaster, women's groups formed the National Women's Lifesaving League. Their mission was to teach girls and women to swim and to promote "rational swimwear".

Although the death toll of women was far greater here than a few years later, it is interesting to note that the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire provoked a much larger outrage for the safety of women. It is ironic that both involved clothes women wore.
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It wasn't just the clothing, though that and lack of knowledge on how to swim had a major part to play in the death toll. The owners of the Gen'l Slocum had cork life jackets that had degraded to the point that with any handling the canvas layer fell apart. The contents rather than being actual solid cork were granulated cork which if it didn't just spill out essentially became a wet sand-like weight on the necks of anyone who jumped (or in the cases of many children) were thrown in wearing one. The supplier of the life jackets had also placed iron bars into many of them to meet minimum weight requirements and save money. It was the total failure on the owners, operators and regulators that killed so many people that day, yet only the Captain did any jail time before eventually being pardoned.
 
entropychaser said:
June 15th was the 120th anniversary of the burning of the General Slocum- prior to 9/11, the largest loss of life by fire in New York City history.

The vast majority of the passengers were women and children as were the vast majority of victims. Many of these drowned in shallow water after beaching. Two factors largely explain these avoidable deaths. First, women and children of this era simply didn't know how to swim. In fact, in prior centuries, swimming was seen as unfeminine and floating was a sign of "swimming a witch"- wickedness. Secondly, society had women dressed in multilayer wool clothing. Once wet, even a good swimmer was doomed.

In the aftermath of the Slocum disaster, women's groups formed the National Women's Lifesaving League. Their mission was to teach girls and women to swim and to promote "rational swimwear".

Although the death toll of women was far greater here than a few years later, it is interesting to note that the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire provoked a much larger outrage for the safety of women. It is ironic that both involved clothes women wore.
Click to expand...
Even today many people cannot swim for a variety of reasons, mainly no instruction. The Marines make sure you can swim by instructing recruits doing boot camp. This policy was started during WW II when many Marines drowned after being let off their landing craft in deep water and perishing.
 
grumpy grizzly said:
Even today many people cannot swim for a variety of reasons, mainly no instruction. The Marines make sure you can swim by instructing recruits doing boot camp. This policy was started during WW II when many Marines drowned after being let off their landing craft in deep water and perishing.
Click to expand...
In addition to swimming issues, The Marines learned the hard way about neap tides at the invasion of Tarawa.

I'm sure swimming and clothing contributed to the huge loss of life mere feet from the pier on the Chicago River at Clark Street too.
 
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