Chicago's Forgotten Tragedy


Book Description

Bill Cosgrove, in his fourth and latest book, graphically depicts the early history of the Chicago Fire Department with authoritative accuracy. He gives the reader an insight into how the Department was organized, how it functioned, the use of technology that was available at the time, and paints a vivid picture of the many great fires of the day. He also describes the tremendous physical stamina, dedication and bravery of the firemen and the intrepid leadership of some of the officers. Bill provides the reader with a highly detailed story of the tragic stockyards fire of December 22, 1910 where 21 firemen lost their lives, including the Department’s Chief of the Brigade, James Horan. This is such a fascinating account of the early history of the Chicago Fire Department that the reader will have great difficulty putting the book down until it is finished. A great read, by a great story-teller! Thoroughly enjoyable and fully factual. William C. Alletto Deputy Fire Commissioner (Retired) Chicago Fire Department




The Eastland Disaster


Book Description

A pictorial chronicle of the events of July 24, 1915, when the steamship Eastland capsized and sank in the port of Chicago, killing over eight hundred people.




Tragedy


Book Description

Drawing on philosophical and psychoanalytic methods of interpretation, Richard Kuhns explores modern transformations of an ancient poetic genre, tragedy. Recognition of the philosophical problems addressed in tragedy, and of their presence up through eighteenth- and nineteenth-century philosophical texts, novels, and poetry, establishes a continuity between classical and modern enactments. Psychoanalytic theory in both its original formulations and post-Freud developments provides a means to enlarge upon and inform philosophical analyses that have dominated modern discussions. From Aeschylus' classic drama The Persians to the hidden tragic themes in The Merchant of Venice, from the aesthetic writings of Kant to Kleist's narrative Michael Kohlhaas, Kuhns traces the writing and rewriting of the themes of ancient tragedy through modern texts. A culture's concept of fate, Kuhns argues, evolves along with its concepts and forms of tragedy. Examining the deep philosophical concerns of tragedy, he shows how the genre has changed from loss and mourning to contradiction and repression. He sees the fact that tragedy went underground during the optimism of the Enlightenment as a repression that continues into the American consciousness. Turning to Melville's The Confidence Man as an example of Old World despair giving way to New World nihilism, Kuhns indicates how psychoanalytic understanding of tragedy provides a method of interpretation that illuminates the continuous tradition from the ancient to the modern world. The study concludes with reflections on the poetry of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson. Each poet's celebration of the body, and the contribution of the senses to reason, perception, and poetic intuition, is seen as an embodiment of the modern tragic sensibility.




‘Eastland’


Book Description

An account of the 1915 capsizing of the steamer Eastland in the Chicago River, an accident that killed more than eight hundred people, details the role of safety measures instituted after the sinking of the Titantic and examines the civil and criminal court proceedings which followed it.




Capsized!


Book Description

New York Public Library's "100 Best Books for Kids" Kirkus Reviews' "Best Books of 2018" 2019 Society of Midland Authors Literary Award Honoree 2019 Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People List 2019 Cybils Literary Award Winner A 2019 Cooperative Children's Book Center's Choice Wisconsin Writers Contest 2018 Winner of the Tofte/Wright Children's Literary Award On July 24, 1915, the SS Eastland, filled to capacity with 2,500 passengers and crew, capsized in the Chicago River while still moored to the pier. Happy picnic-goers headed for an employee outing across Lake Michigan suddenly found themselves in a struggle for their lives. Trapped belowdecks, crushed by the crowds attempting to escape the rising waters, or hurled into the river from the upper deck of the ship, roughly one-third of the passengers, mostly women and children, perished that day. The Eastland disaster took more passenger lives than the Titanic and stands today as the greatest loss of life on the Great Lakes. Capsized! details the events leading up to the fateful day and provides a nail-biting, minute-by-minute account of the ship's capsizing. From the courage of the survivors to the despair of families who lost loved ones, author Patricia Sutton brings to light the stories of ordinary working people enduring the unthinkable. Capsized! also raises critical-thinking questions for young readers: Why do we know so much about the Titanic's sinking yet so little about the Eastland disaster? What causes a tragedy to be forgotten and left out of society's collective memory? And what lessons from this disaster might we be able to apply today?




The Great Believers


Book Description

PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BOOK OF 2018 LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE WINNER ALA CARNEGIE MEDAL WINNER THE STONEWALL BOOK AWARD WINNER Soon to Be a Major Television Event, optioned by Amy Poehler • One of the New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century “A page turner . . . An absorbing and emotionally riveting story about what it’s like to live during times of crisis.” —The New York Times Book Review A dazzling novel of friendship and redemption in the face of tragedy and loss set in 1980s Chicago and contemporary Paris In 1985, Yale Tishman, the development director for an art gallery in Chicago, is about to pull off an amazing coup, bringing in an extraordinary collection of 1920s paintings as a gift to the gallery. Yet as his career begins to flourish, the carnage of the AIDS epidemic grows around him. One by one, his friends are dying and after his friend Nico’s funeral, the virus circles closer and closer to Yale himself. Soon the only person he has left is Fiona, Nico’s little sister. Thirty years later, Fiona is in Paris tracking down her estranged daughter who disappeared into a cult. While staying with an old friend, a famous photographer who documented the Chicago crisis, she finds herself finally grappling with the devastating ways AIDS affected her life and her relationship with her daughter. The two intertwining stories take us through the heartbreak of the eighties and the chaos of the modern world, as both Yale and Fiona struggle to find goodness in the midst of disaster. Named a Best Book of 2018 by The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, NPR, San Francisco Chronicle, The Boston Globe, Entertainment Weekly, Buzzfeed, The Seattle Times, Bustle, Newsday, AM New York, BookPage, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Lit Hub, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, New York Public Library and Chicago Public Library




Lunar Voices


Book Description

In his search to understand the insatiable desire for completeness that patterns so much art and philosophy, Krell investigates the identification of the lunar voice with woman in various roles - lover, friend, sister, shadow, and narrative voice. By reading literary works through a constant dialogue with critical texts, Lunar Voices traces the border between philosophy and literature and expands on issues central to contemporary literary theory.




People Wasn't Made to Burn


Book Description

The long-buried story of a Chicagoan's struggle for justice after four of hischildren perished in a tragic fire.




The Lost Second Book of Aristotle's "Poetics"


Book Description

Of all the writings on theory and aesthetics - ancient, medieval, or modern - the most important is indisputably Aristotle's "Poetics", the first philosophical treatise to propound a theory of literature. The author offers a fresh interpretation of the lost second book of Aristotle's "Poetics".




The Great Cat & Dog Massacre


Book Description

The tragedies of World War II are well known. But at least one has been forgotten: in September 1939, four hundred thousand cats and dogs were massacred in Britain. The government, vets, and animal charities all advised against this killing. So why would thousands of British citizens line up to voluntarily euthanize household pets? In The Great Cat and Dog Massacre, Hilda Kean unearths the history, piecing together the compelling story of the life—and death—of Britain’s wartime animal companions. She explains that fear of imminent Nazi bombing and the desire to do something to prepare for war led Britons to sew blackout curtains, dig up flower beds for vegetable patches, send their children away to the countryside—and kill the family pet, in theory sparing them the suffering of a bombing raid. Kean’s narrative is gripping, unfolding through stories of shared experiences of bombing, food restrictions, sheltering, and mutual support. Soon pets became key to the war effort, providing emotional assistance and helping people to survive—a contribution for which the animals gained government recognition. Drawing extensively on new research from animal charities, state archives, diaries, and family stories, Kean does more than tell a virtually forgotten story. She complicates our understanding of World War II as a “good war” fought by a nation of “good” people. Accessibly written and generously illustrated, Kean’s account of this forgotten aspect of British history moves animals to center stage—forcing us to rethink our assumptions about ourselves and the animals with whom we share our homes.