(sad music) - [Narrator] On July 24th, 1915, the passenger ship SS Eastland overturned in Chicago while loading passengers for a day trip on Lake Michigan.

844 people died, making this the largest single shipwreck disaster on the Great Lakes.

More passengers perished on the Eastland than passengers on the Titanic.

The people who died were mostly immigrants working for the Western Electric Company looking forward to spending the day with family and friends.

- I'm Andrew Iver Johnsen.

I'm the grandson of Iver Johnsen Senior, who was, they say, a hero of the Eastland that brought up over 100 victims of the Eastland disaster in 1915.

The disaster took place on July 24th.

Everything I read was there was an excursion boat, the SS Eastland, that had been on the Great Lakes for quite a number of years, I'd say for at least 10 or 15 years.

And it was known for being top heavy, okay?

To right the ship., if it wasn't loaded correctly, they'd have ballast tanks in the bottom of the ship, and they'd pump water from one side to the other to right the ship.

On this day in July of 1915, there were a number of excursion boats going to Michigan City, and it was the Western Electric Company that was their employees that were going for a day in Michigan City for the amusement park and go to the beach 'cause Michigan City was really a nice place.

And when they loaded the Eastland, they went past the number of passengers they were supposed to hold onboard.

So they had too many passengers.

This was also 1915.

This was three years after the Titanic.

Well, another thing they did, they had lifeboats on the top deck.

They never had a lot of lifeboats on the top deck.

So they had all that extra weight on the top deck.

They used to have wooden decks on the top.

They paved that over with cement.

So they made these alterations and they actually built these things in.

It made the ship unsafe, they did.

So the combination of the extra boats, the cement on the decks, the more than the number of passengers, and then the boat started going over.

And once it started going, they tried to blame the engineer, that he didn't right the boat fast enough with the pumps and all that.

And they tried to blame him rather than the captain, and the boat turned over on its side.

And when the boat turned over on its side, that's when all the people on the decks went in the water, and those that were below decks were trapped inside the ship.

And there was a total of 844 people that perished during that disaster, men, women, and children.

So the story goes, and this is what I was told, I don't know how true it is, but this is the story I was told from my family, that when the disaster happened in the morning of July 24th, 1915, they knew my grandfather because my grandfather was a well-known individual in the Chicago area as far as workmen are concerned, working people.

And, you know, not the higher ups, but he knew a lot of people.

So they had to contact Iver.

So they probably called him up by phone and he lived on the South Side.

They sent a South Shore train, stopped close to where he lived so he could load all his gear onto the South Shore train.

And then they took the train to the disaster site.

Unloaded it probably with the help of the police or the Fire Department, and took it down to the disaster site on the Chicago River.

And that's how they say he got there so soon because if he had to drive there through the traffic and everything, and the crowds that were already gathering around the Eastland, it might've been hard to get to the Eastland.

So then when he was diving there, he had my Uncle Walt, his son as the tender, he was working the pump.

And he must have had another individual, possibly could have been, I don't know who it was, but they'd have to know about diving because back then they did not have any communication, like telephone or anything to, say, talk.

So what they did was they communicated by tugging of a line that went up to the surface.

So many tugs meant something, more air, less air.

And my uncle said, "If you give him a really, really strong tug, that means pull me up, pull me up out of the water."

You know, there was a problem.

So then my grandfather was there from the beginning until the ship was righted.

So he was there probably for a good maybe two weeks because he was there in the salvage operation too, and to right the ship back up, to right the Eastland back up from its side out of the mud of the Chicago River.

So what I know is that my grandfather would go down.

It was very dangerous work because of the conditions and a lot of debris floating around, bodies, and unfamiliar how to get down inside the ship where a lot of the bodies were.

But what he would do, he would take a line with them.

This is what my uncle told me.

He had a line, much longer than this line right here.

And then he would tie the people to the line.

And so how would you tie a person onto a line just here?

So there's different knots.

You could probably use... And I was thinking maybe using something like that.

You know, that might work real fast.

But then I figured out, 'cause I've got a book of knots, I'm gonna try to tie this without messing up too much here, but if he took the line here and he went under the top, and he went over, and then if you look at this, you've got a clove hitch right there.

(interviewee grunting in agreement) So if it pulled from either direction, he wouldn't lose the body.

So then maybe he might, maybe another six, eight feet or up, whatever, he would do another body.

He would pull on this line, pull them up, and then they would start pulling up the bodies out of the Eastland.

And if they got snagged or anything like that, he would make sure that they were clear, and he would be able to come out.

You know, the bodies would be recovered.

And it was said, and there was no contest.

"Oh, you did so many bodies.

This guy did so many bodies."

But they estimate that my grandfather brought up over 100 victims of the Eastland.

They have pretty rough jobs sometimes because back then the hardhat diver did all the underwater work there was to do in the country.

So if there was a missing body, they'd have to go down on the lake and find that body.

If there was a missing weapon from a crime, they'd have to go down, and all these different things.

So I know that my grandfather and my uncle, they did all those things as far as underwater activity.

So there was not a lot said about it.

And the thing is that my grandfather did not talk about it much because for him, it was a traumatic experience to deal with that, all those bodies in those few days.

So it was something that he didn't talk about, but it was something that he was noted for.

Basically, when you think about it, mainly, it was just about recovery of the victims.

And that's what they did.

Anyway, this is a scrapbook I put together of things that I've had on the Eastland, family memorabilia on the Johnsen side, which is, of course, my father's side.

That's my name.

And the cover is a picture of my Uncle Walt, who was a diver, also a diver.

He learned it from his father.

Here's my postcard from the Eastland.

It shows the divers on the overturned hull on the side of the ship.

I've got a list of the divers.

So there's the divers.

That's a very famous Eastland picture.

Shows... And that's not all the divers.

There were some other divers also.

This is a picture of seven divers here, I think.

So there was probably something like 12 divers.

I think there was a few other ones, probably came later.

And then this is Captain Pederson, I think it was Pederson.

He was captain of the boat that they had to take away because they were cutting holes in the ship.

So the police took him away, and this is the backside, and I think Walter and Pa, and I think my Aunt Florence did this 'cause she knew all about it.

That was Walter's wife.

And they were the first ones there, and the last ones to leave.

Now, see, I've got other diving pictures in here.

That is Andrew Johnsen, Iver Johnsen's brother who taught him the diving business.

Iver Johnsen learned from his older brother Andrew.

This is a picture of my grandfather diving in Racine.

Looking at the picture, I'm guessing around 1900.

- So here-- - That was Andrew.

- [Interviewer] This is your grandfather.

- [Andrew] This is my grandfather in his later years.

Yeah.

- [Interviewer] Okay.

- That picture was probably taken around 1950, I'm guessing.

Mr.

Johnsen, who was born in Copenhagen, Denmark on October 16th, 1870, was a professional submarine diver until his retirement about five years ago.

He was well known in this community.

He was one of the first divers to arrive at the tragic scene of the Eastland disaster in the Chicago River in 1915, and was credited with bringing up many of the victims.

- So these are postcards that were issued and sold after the disaster.

And what's interesting is some of them were photographed, postcard made and mailed by Monday morning.

- [Andrew] Oh wow.

- [Todd] Postmarked Monday morning after Saturday, the disaster.

- [Andrew] Wow.

- [Todd] So here are some of them.

And initially, they kind of get some of the information wrong.

They say 2,000 people died, 1,200 people died.

- That says 2,300.

- 2,300.

Yeah.

So they weren't worried about accuracy, they were racing about being the first one to get their product out to the public.

- Making some money.

- Yes.

- Off a disaster.

- And these were mailed by Monday morning of that year.

- Wow.

And this one here, is that a postcard too?

- Yes.

These are just firefighters that worked there.

I got so many, eventually collected so many.

But there were two primary companies that did postcards.

One of them was Max.

- I've seen a lot of these pictures already, - Rigot, that he had little notations on the back of each one to explain what was going on.

He has like a dozen different ones.

And this is the first one that I ever collected was-- - Oh, okay.

- [Todd] Recovering the dead bodies.

And there's three dead bodies in this picture.

- [Andrew] It looks like they might have been taken out of the water.

- Correct.

- Yeah.

- And they were near the surface.

Now, the divers had to get the ones that were way down below, trapped in the lower parts of the... And when the boat capsized, a lot of the furniture all went to one side, and a lot of people didn't drown, they were crushed.

So all of these pictures again, but here is a picture of the seven divers, and your grandfather is in the picture right over here, Iver.

So you said you have a list of all but one of them.

- This guy right here, we don't know who he is.

- Correct.

And I think he was in that article that I gave you, and said the same thing, that he was not identified.

So they even had photos of the funeral.

29 caskets at the front of the Catholic church.

The dead bodies laid out in the-- - [Andrew] That was that building that Oprah took over.

- Correct.

- Yeah.

- [Todd] It became Harpo Studios later.

- [Andrew] Yeah.

- Here was an entire family that was wiped out, and they had to stack the coffins on one wagon.

- [Andrew] So terrible.

- Because there weren't enough vehicles to take all of the people to the burial grounds.

So they used trucks and they'd double stacked them.

So the whole family was wiped out, Sindelar family.

Here they followed it along the way of recovering, righting the ship afterwards.

And the tugboat Favorite was the only one that was big enough to be able to pull it back over.

- [Andrew] Yeah.

- Here is your postcard that you had.

- That's right.

Yeah.

- It's the only picture of Captain Pederson.

- [Andrew] Yeah.

- That was on any of the postcards.

And you are correct that he had to be arrested to preserve his life.

The crowd, if they had found out who he was, they probably would've strung him up.

So this is a different company.

These were the Stein photographs.

- [Andrew] Yeah.

- And same thing, the disaster from all different angles.

Postmarked, sent to family members all over the country.

Here again is the armory where the bodies were laid out.

- [Andrew] Right, the armory.

That's what was here.

The armory.

- And here's another one of the divers.

- His name.

- Halvorsen.

- What's that?

- This one is Halvorsen.

- Halvorsen, yeah.

- Yeah.

- [Andrew] I think he was the biggest diver.

- [Todd] And they were, you know, able to do this Photoshopping.

That was kind of impressive back in 1915.

- It looks like they cut it out and put it on, you know, like we used to do.

- Probably would've been correct.

(Andrew laughing) - And this was just one.

The reason that these are duplicates of some of the other ones is because as I was finding these, I looked at the back 'cause they're very distinctive backs for certain people that made the postcards.

And this one caught my eye because of the writing.

- Yeah.

- Somebody put a bunch of postcards together and numbered them.

Here's one, two.

- [Andrew] Oh that's pretty awesome.

- I couldn't find three and four, but I found five and six.

- [Andrew] That's pretty neat.

- And it was a father sending these pictures to his daughter and he must have put them all in an envelope and mailed them to her 'cause none of them are postmarked.

But he wrote a message on there.

- Yeah.

- And what's interesting about this is because why does nobody know about the Eastland disaster even if they live in Chicago?

It's 'cause World War I was going on.

844 people compared to the casualties in World War I was not big news.

- Right, that's true.

- It was for a while.

But this was in 1915.

The war was going on until 1918.

- Right.

Even though we weren't involved yet.

- Correct.

We weren't involved until later.

- '17, I think.

- Yeah.

- '17 or '18.

- It got lost in the midst of history.

So here's where they're recovering it, pumping it out.

And Iver was probably sealing up wherever the water was leaking in.

- [Andrew] I don't know what he did but they said he was there for the righting of it.

- [Todd] Yeah.

- [Andrew] They might have had to have a diver working inside the ship doing something.

- Yes, somebody had to probably be there to seal it up so they could pump it out.

- Because if, when you think about it, well, all the holes, when you think about it, all the holes should have been just on this one side.

- [Todd] Correct.

- No holes cut on the other side.

But maybe he had to do something else inside the ship to... - Yeah.

- [Andrew] I don't know what it was.

They didn't tell me.

- [Todd] So they had to get this hulk out of the way.

- [Andrew] Yeah.

- So they eventually got it righted.

And again, different companies may have had their own little sets of pictures.

- Yeah.

- Sometimes they're reused ones from the same photographer obviously.

You'll see familiar sights.

But eventually, you know, recovering the dead bodies.

This one we've seen before.

This one we've seen before.

- Yeah.

- By other companies.

And eventually after all the bodies were identified and everything that had been righted, they sold this wreck, the Hulk oh, here's another diver picture of a diver going into the lake.

- [Interviewer] That's a great picture.

- [Andrew] He's not climbing down the ladder either.

He's just getting it.

- No, that's pretty bold.

- It is.

- [Todd] To be jumping in.

- Yeah, because you-- - Why do you say that?

- Heavy weight.

- That's pretty bold.

- Oh, because of suit weighs so much 'cause I got an article.

The article for The Chesterton said the suit weighed 200 pounds, but I don't think it did.

Does that sound right?

- That's correct.

- The suit, everything 'cause it's just not... Since he's got weights around, he might have another 75 pounds around in weights.

- And these shoes are 20 pounds each.

- [Andrew] Yeah.

- [Todd] The helmet and the breast plate are about 80 pounds, and the suit.

- [Andrew] I weighed my slippers.

- Yeah.

- The other day, 13.6 pounds.

- [Todd] Okay.

Those are smaller ones.

- Yeah, maybe.

Yeah.

- And the weight around there.

And so 200 pounds is correct.

- [Andrew] Yeah.

- So they even captured the diving that was done.

Again, some more of the pictures.

Different companies.

- Yeah.

- A lot of the people who were on the Eastland when it capsized, they just climbed over the railing if they were on the side by the dock, and never even got their feet wet.

- Right.

They just climbed ashore.

- The people that were on the other side, they were tossed in the water or they were crushed or they were drowned almost immediately or inside.

So it was just the luck of the draw where were you when this thing capsized.

- Exactly.

Exactly.

And it was a lot of luck of the draw, the people that couldn't make it to the event too.

- [Todd] Correct.

Oh yeah.

- Yeah.

- People that were late and missed it.

So again, another company with the same picture.

And I found different things from the different companies.

- This one looks a little funny.

It's the way the boat is covering up the front of the hull.

But yeah, the boat's coming up the front of the hull there.

Yeah.

- And eventually this hulk was sold.

- Submarine diver.

- A submarine.

- Yeah.

A submarine.

- Yeah, what does a submarine have to do with the Eastland disaster?

This is a German submarine from World War I.

- [Andrew] World War I sub.

Okay.

- Yes.

- Wow, that's pretty cool.

- It was the first submarine to be in the Great Lakes.

- Wow.

Wow.

- 'Cause it came up through the Erie Canal.

And when Germany lost the war, submarines were part of the prize for the Allies.

And their German technology was superior to the Allies'.

So these pictures... - Pretty cool.

- After the war, they had a submarine that went around the Great Lakes selling bonds, war bonds to pay for the war.

And part of the deal with the Germans was, "Yes, we've lost the war, you can have the submarines, but when you're done with them, you have to sink it."

So it's sunk.

- Yeah.

- That submarine is sunk off of Chicago.

And they have since found it but it's in a couple hundred feet of water.

And it's been there for obviously so many years, it's not worth anything anymore.

- [Andrew] It's in freshwater.

It's probably less corrosion and stuff.

- Less corrosion, true.

But it also has some holes in it because the Eastland was purchased by the US Navy and it was at the Great Lakes Training Center, US Navy Training Center.

And they converted it to this gunboat called the USS Wilmette.

- [Andrew] I know.

That was a training ship.

- And the training ship.

So after the war, the USS Wilmette was requested to go out and sink the submarine at the end of its bond tour of the Great Lakes.

And I found these postcards of the USS Wilmette.

There's a few of 'em floating around.

And there's also this one, this is the US Wilmette ironically in this postcard leaving Michigan City, Indiana.

The irony is that the Eastland was headed for Michigan City for the day, yeah.

- [Andrew] Yeah, we talked about that for the amusement park there on the... - And I find one postcard of the USS Wilmette leaving Michigan City, Indiana.

I don't know who put this together, who made it, don't know why, what the provenance was.

- That's a nice picture.

But the other thing, you probably realize, that a lot of people don't realize is that there were more paying passengers that lost their lives on the Eastland than the Titanic.

- [Todd] Correct.

- There were more lives lost in the Titanic 'cause they had more of a crew.

They had all the.. - Yes, there were 832 passengers on the Titanic.

The rest of 'em were all crew 'cause it was a luxury liner and it was almost one-to-one staff versus passengers.

- Yeah.

- 832 versus 844.

- [Andrew] Yeah.

A lot of people don't realize that, but... - But they weren't wealthy, they were just working for Western Electric.

- [Interviewer] And who cares about that?

- [Todd] Immigrants working for Western Electric out for the day.

- [Interviewer] Right.

- [Todd] They work seven days a week.

(tranquil music) (tranquil music continues) (tranquil music continues) (pensive music)