The Hidden Hindenburg

About Ashes Under Water: “This is a tour-de-force from an enormously gifted writer. In quickly sketched chapters McCarthy depicts a mysterious early-twentieth-century shipping disaster—the weather, the moguls, the greed, the ads, the hundreds of working people setting out for a picnic who ended up in a makeshift morgue. The second half of the book brilliantly tracks the legal maneuvering and the murky trial that ultimately exonerated the crew, government inspectors, and the owners. Ashes Under Water is prodigiously researched and richly imagined. McCarthy’s vivid images kept bringing me back to our own contemporary society with its increasing disparity between the middle class and the powerful rich.”—Jeanne Murray Walker, author of The Geography of Memory“After more than a decade of research, journalist and Chicago resident Michael McCarthy shares a heartbreaking history in Ashes Under Water: The SS Eastland and the Shipwreck That Shook America. McCarthy gives this little-known Lake Michigan tragedy a thorough and compassionate telling and covers the media frenzy and indictments that followed… . Plentiful notes and a lengthy bibliography provide opportunity for further study for those interested. Ashes Under Water is carefully researched yet compellingly told and combines the appeal of famous historical figures and places with everyday men and women struggling to survive. In this thoughtful treatment, the Eastland’s story will deservedly capture the sympathy and imagination of diverse readers.”—Foreword Reviews

Michael McCarthy worked for twenty-two years for the Wall Street Journal, as a reporter and editor in New York and Chicago. He wrote about aviation and other industries. In 2014, he published Ashes Under Water: The SS Eastland and the Shipwreck That Shook America (Lyons Press). That nonfiction work brought to life a tragedy in which more than eight hundred people, mostly poor women and children, perished in a steamship capsize. The book hit the New York Times e-book bestseller list in the summer of 2015. His Eastland book also sparked a documentary film, for which he was interviewed, from Chicago-based Moshman Productions. For more information on the author and his multi-episode podcast on his quest to solve the Hindenburg mystery, please visit HiddenHindenburg.com