A phD candidate from the University of Illinois in Chicago has uncovered previously unseen footage of the Eastland Disaster in Chicago on Europeana’s 1914-1918 website. The disaster, which killed 844 people, occurred when the Eastland capsized in the Chicago river in July 1915
A fragment from the film footage. Source: EYE Film Instituut film still
Jeff Nichols was actually gathering material for his doctoral dissertation on the First World War when he made the historic discovery. While watching Dutch news reels from 1915, he chanced across the coverage of the disaster and realised at once what an exciting find he had made.
“I consider myself a Chicago historian, but I am not an historian of the Eastland Disaster. There are many people who have worked very hard studying the tragedy. But I knew instantly what I had.”
The footage came to Europeana from the EYE Film Institute via the European Film Gateway, which has provided over 600 hours of archive footage to Europeana 1914-18, and shows the immediate aftermath of the disaster. The first clip, which is just under a minute, shows the first responders walking on the ship
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