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As we get closer to the 111th anniversary of the Eastland Disaster (July 24, 1915) in the Chicago River, we learn what careful writers actually put on the page--and what modern revisions often leave out.

We look at why poets and journalists who wrote about the Eastland disaster, such as Edith Wyatt, Agnes Lee, Olive Carruthers, Carl Sandberg, and others, are mostly missing from today’s accounts. We also focus on one key figure: Great Lakes reporter and maritime historian Dwight Boyer. In his chapter “Who Speaks for the Little Feller?” from True Tales of the Great Lakes (1971), Boyer draws on primary sources, courtroom records, and interviews to tell the Eastland's story with accuracy and respect for the victims as real people.

At the center of Boyer’s account is “Victim 396,” a child dressed in Sunday clothes who remained unidentified for days. Eventually, two of his friends and his grandmother recognized him as Willie Novotny (Vilém Novotný).

Next, we look at how the legal aftermath dragged on, with responsibility reduced to technical details and salvage value. We also mention Michael Schumacher’s Along Lake Michigan: Shipwreck Stories of Life and Loss (2025), which explains why it was so hard to determine the death toll in such chaos, especially when children were not always counted and survivors moved between hospitals without clear records.

If you want to dig deeper into Chicago history, the Eastland disaster, genealogy research, and learn how historical accuracy gets built, broken and restored, this conversation is for you.

Resources:

• Michael Schumacher, Along Lake Michigan: Shipwreck Stories of Life and Loss (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2025).
• Dwight Boyer, “Who Speaks for the Little Feller?” in True Tales of the Great Lakes (Michigan: Thunder Bay Press, 1971), 27.
• Natalie Zett, “Who Speaks for Dwight Boyer? The Storyteller Who Remembered Them All,” Flower in the River, episode 126, August 7, 2025
• Natalie Zett, "Dwight Boyer: Forgotten Chronicler of the Eastland Disaster," Flower in the River, episode 125, July 31, 2025.

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