The General Slocum Disaster - a random glance at history

First published on the Steem blockchain by @remlaps on June 20, 2019. View the original post.

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On June 15, 1904, a paddle boat steamer, the General Slocum caught fire in New York's East River and was forced to ground itself. As a result of the incident, somewhere around 1,021 people lost their lives. Here's what happened.

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Background

pixabay license: source

The other day, I included a link to Stuff You Missed in History Class in my article, History, Music, and Entertainment micro-summaries for June 17, 2019. I thought the story was interesting enough that I'd dedicate some time to it and cover it with some more detail in its own post here, too.

The General Slocum was a paddle boat, also known as a side wheel passenger steamer. Named after a Civil War General, the ship was built in 1891 and operated as a ferry and charter boat in New York's East River. The ship was owned by the Knickerbocker steamboat company and captained by William H. Van Schaick, who was regarded as a safe and careful sailor, but the steam boat had been in a number of accidents, and Van Schaick was 67 years old, so some people were apparently already thinking that he was due for retirement.

The ship had passed an inspection, just over a month earlier on May 5th, but it was showing signs of age, and it was filled with flammable materials like bags of charcoal, rubbish, machine oils, containers of hay, and even the paint that had been applied to the ship recently. It had three decks and was licensed to carry up to 2,500 passengers.

Philadelphia Connection: A Possible Inspiration for Titanic Character Names

The names of the *Titanic* movie's main characters may suggest a surprising connection to Philadelphia.

Most of us have probably seen the 1997 movie, Titanic, but have you ever thought to ask where the main characters' names came from? If you're like me, then maybe not.

Until the other day, that is.

The movie, Titanic, checks a lot of boxes that give it staying power. It was a compelling fictional drama that was set in the middle of one of history's most famous shipwrecks, and it was the first movie that used the Linux operating system for CGI.

As we all probably know, the movie's main characters were Jack Dawson and Rose DeWitt Bukater. Jack was a working class, drifter sort of a character and Rose came from a family of upper crust elitists. The two characters met aboard ship, and the story about a shipwreck turned into a story about the relationship.

If the movie's overarching story is the sinking of the Titanic, the story within the story is a passionate and forbidden romance between Jack and Rose - a shipboard tale of Romeo and Juliet.

Unfortunately, if you go and ask Google where Jack and Rose got their names, you are not going to learn much. Here's what perplexity AI says.

The names **Jack Dawson** and **Rose DeWitt Bukater** in the film *Titanic* were created by director James Cameron specifically for the movie; they are not based on real individuals who sailed on the RMS Titanic. - **Jack Dawson**: While some viewers believe the name was inspired by a real Titanic passenger, this was coincidental. There indeed was a "J. Dawson" (Joseph Dawson), a crew member who perished in the sinking, but Cameron didn't discover this until after writing the script. Jack's character is not directly based on Joseph Dawson or any other specific passenger. - **Rose DeWitt Bukater**: The character of Rose did not correspond to any actual Titanic passenger. However, she was *partially inspired* by Beatrice Wood, an American artist and writer with a free-spirited personality and background that influenced Rose's character, especially the older version of Rose. Both names were selected for their *everyman* and *timeless* qualities, fitting the fictitious love story Cameron wanted to weave into the authentic historic tragedy.